Status of Women Committee on Feb. 13th, 2023

[Isabelle Mondou]

Yes, exactly.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

—gymnasts coming forward, how much more do you need to know?

I think the problem is at the top. I think the people at the top do not understand the concerns we have for our children, because when I asked him what he would do if it were one of his children, he immediately said he would lodge a complaint.

Don't hold me to that; I can't quote him verbatim. My concern is this: If he's that concerned about his children, why is he not concerned about the 600 who came forward? That's what really scared me.

[Isabelle Mondou]

I think you're making an excellent point. I think that's why it's so important that the mechanism is independent. Earlier, it was within the control of organizations. They could decide to investigate; they could decide not to investigate. Now it's not going to be their choice. It's going to be based on either a complaint or a self-initiated investigation that OSIC can do. They won't have to wait for the CEO or whoever in the organization to pursue something if they think there is something wrong with the organization.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

But we still have to hold the people at the top, who are not acting on these.... Call them accusations or call them whatever you want, but we have to hold them responsible—

[Isabelle Mondou]

Absolutely.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

—and as far as I'm concerned, they should be fired.

[Isabelle Mondou]

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We'll now move over to Jenna Sudds.

Jenna, you have six minutes.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much to our officials for being here with us today.

The Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner has been up and running for nearly eight months. Are you satisfied with its deployment?

What could we do to have as many people as possible make use of it?

[Isabelle Mondou]

Since they appointed the integrity commissioner in June, they have done lots of things, including hiring staff. They are the ones who hired their first independent investigator, their team and all of that. They had to do that. They also have to set up policy. They want to have investigations that are trauma-informed and have the proper support and all of that. That's what they have been doing.

In parallel, obviously it was important to have every organization sign on so that they can start to do these investigations. Now, after eight months, they have started to do these investigations. Although they had refused more at the beginning, more people signing on means they are going to have fewer people who are not eligible. By April 1, all national organizations will have signed, so I think we recognize that they did a lot of work in a very short time.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Are you happy with the steps or with the progress you've reached to this point?

[Isabelle Mondou]

I think we are happy with the work they have done so far. Obviously, as the minister said, this is a new organization. We will be happy to consider any improvement or any suggestion this committee can make about this organization. We all want it to succeed. We all want it to succeed, not for us but for the athletes and for the sports system.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Thank you very much.

How do you feel the Government of Canada can contribute to changing sport culture?

[Isabelle Mondou]

The minister talked about a couple of things that we are doing, but I think one very important transformation that we're trying to accomplish is to ensure better governance of organizations.

The member just mentioned accountability. I think it's extremely important. I think that's why we will see in the contribution agreement that will be adopted that the minister will announce some changes to really reinforce accountability and the ability of Sport Canada to monitor and to enforce the expectations with regard to safe sport. That's one way.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

Do you find that enough women sit on the boards of national sport organizations, or NSOs?

If not, could the Government Canada use its influence to encourage more women to sit on these bodies?

[Isabelle Mondou]

It's a good question. Frankly, it's related to safe sport, because when you have a more diverse sport, you also are likely to have better results in terms of safe sport.

In 2019 the government invested $30 million on gender equity, because the numbers were not good. The numbers were not good at the coaching level, at the board level, etc., etc. With that amount, there was activity that involved about 17,000 people in the sports system to try to change that culture. We have seen the numbers increase. They are not yet where we are, but we're now seeing board after board and coach after coach all through the sports system starting to change, and we see the tendency going up.

Is it fast enough? No. That's why the government has renewed this funding recently and has put forward another $25.3 million to continue that work. We are not yet where we should be, but we'll continue to work on that. This is very important.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

I agree. Thank you for that.

I think we see that more and more as we've heard victims come forward. Certainly at this committee and in our discussions, it's become apparent that we need more female voices, more females in leadership within these organizations, to help with that culture change that we all know needs to happen within sport.

With that, I know I have 10 seconds left, Chair, so I'll just say—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have a minute and 15 seconds.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Oh, I have six minutes. That's fantastic. I do have another question.

We heard the minister talk earlier about the conflict of interest that's inherent within sport.

My question is, how can you, the government.... What mechanisms do we have at our disposal to resolve that, to help take that conflict of interest out of the sport system?

[Isabelle Mondou]

I think part of it is creating a mechanism, as we have done with the complaints with an independent mechanism. It's hard to be a judge and a party too. When organizations were judging their own performance, they were judge and party, even if they were hiring their own third party. We have seen that it was not working. That is definitely one conflict that is gone.

I think the other one is governance. It's the importance of the board. If you have a board that doesn't really understand their role and they think their role is to just sign on to what the CEO says, you don't have the robust governance that you want. Among the things we are thinking about is whether we need training for board members so that when they sit on that board, they know they are there for the athletes. They're not there because it's fun to go to the party at the end of the year, or whatever it is that they think they get out of that work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Perfect. Thank you so much.

We're now going to move over to Sébastien Lemire.

Sébastien, you have six minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today to help us clarify certain things.

My first question is somewhat related to what the minister was saying earlier. She mentioned wanting to meet with agencies, particularly provincial governments.

Why hasn't that already been done, given that in the next few weeks, by the end of March, you will be launching a new Canadian sport policy?

Why were the groups not consulted before this?

[Isabelle Mondou]

First, in terms of creating an independent mechanism, we already met with those groups at the Canada Games in Niagara and the discussion has already happened. A commitment has already been made to create a mechanism of that kind. This week's discussion is to take stock of what's been done so far and see how we can move faster.

In terms of the policy, I will turn to my colleague, because a lot of consultation has already been done, including with the provinces.

[Jaimie Earley, Deputy Director General, Sport Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage]

Thank you for the question.

As you know,

the Canadian sport policy is a policy that is co-developed and co-led and will be co-endorsed by all ministers of the provinces and territories. The policy work is under way. Consultations started to take place this past April. Each jurisdiction across the country was responsible for choosing which people would be consulted on their policy.

There were 14 consultations that took place by the provinces and the territories. An additional 10 consultations took place with targeted stakeholders from coast to coast to coast that represented groups such as coaches, officials, athletes, Black and racialized sport participants and new Canadians. I'm happy to provide the list of who was consulted in that consultation. There was also an extensive online consultation aspect that took place as well. We have, I would say, around 5,000 people who participated in the Canadian sport policy consultations from coast to coast to coast.

There's a really comprehensive “What We Heard" report that was published. It's available on the Sport Information Resource Centre of Canada's website for anybody who would like to have a look at it.

Later this week, ministers will be looking at the foundational aspects of the Canadian sport policy. I think we can all anticipate that it will be strongly grounded in values that we want to see as the road map for the next 10 years for where we want the sport system to be going.

Further, this year we can anticipate that federal-provincial-territorial ministers will be endorsing the sport policy. There will be action plans developed by each jurisdiction for their own jurisdictional authority and responsibility about their priorities for where they want to go with sport over the next 10 years.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you for your response.

You sort of beat me to my second question, but I would ask you to forward us the list of people who have been consulted, if possible. Several organizations tell us that they were never asked to participate in the consultation or validation process. Responses were repeatedly delayed. The discussions sometimes got quite heated. Some felt they were placed before a series of faits accomplis.

What was the spirit in which these consultations took place?

I am particularly interested in the athletes and the representatives of athlete groups. People from federations have interests, and I feel we need to shine a light on what they are doing and how the machine is protecting itself.

What do the athletes have to say?

In your opinion, have we heard enough from them?