Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Members and associate members of the standing committee, ladies and gentlemen, bonjour, good morning.
My name is Doug MacQuarrie. I am the Chief Operating Officer of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport.
With me is my colleague, Mr. Jeremy Luke, director of the Canadian anti-doping program and business development. Jeremy also served for four years as director of anti-doping for the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
On behalf of the centre, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to describe our efforts to support the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic teams as they prepare for the Sochi games.
The CCES works to protect the integrity of sport. We collaborate with others to activate a values-based and principle-driven sport system throughout Canada, and we advocate for sport in Canada that is fair, safe, and open to everyone.
I know you would agree that clean sport is an objective we all share. None of us wants to see a Canadian athlete receive a medal on a Friday, only to see it taken away on Saturday. We lived that once. We do not want to live it again.
We believe most elite Canadian athletes train and compete clean, but they, as well as most Canadians, look to the government and the sport community to maintain a level playing field, to stay abreast of doping tactics, and to stop the cheaters.
In the time available, we'd like to cover five key areas: one, recent events that are shaping our anti-doping work; two, contemporary approaches to tackling the doping problem with Canada's high-performance athletes; three, specific CCES actions related to this committee's interest in the Sochi games; four, some doping risks facing Canadian Olympians and Paralympians; and five, opportunities for enhanced federal government involvement.
Concerning recent events shaping our work, since the fall of 2012, the Lance Armstrong scandal has exposed the truth about the most sophisticated doping conspiracy ever seen in sport. Its tentacles and further revelations by other professional cyclists continue to unfold. Several Canadians have been implicated, such as Michael Barry and Ryder Hesjedal.
Meanwhile, the Australian Crime Commission carried out a 12-month investigation and produced a detailed report titled Organized Crime and Drug Use in Sport. The report reveals widespread doping, match-fixing, and the growing involvement of organized crime throughout many levels of sport in Australia.
Closer to home, Canada Border Services Agency data reveal that steroids are the second most-often confiscated drug at our borders. At the Quebec border, steroids are the number one most confiscated drug. Our own research with Canadian elite athletes suggests that 16% have personal knowledge of doping. These facts prompted us to reach out to the Minister of State for Sport, the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee for additional financial support to help bolster our national anti-doping efforts. On November 5 , the Government of Canada, and for the first time ever, the Canadian Olympic Committee, and the Canadian Paralympic Committee came together and agreed to provide an additional $800,000 to be invested in the Canadian anti-doping program. The amount represents a one-time increment of $400,000 from the Government of Canada, and another $400,000 spread over the next three years from the COC, and a one-time contribution of $10,000 from the CPC.
As for our contemporary anti-doping efforts, the additional funding will enable us to increase our work in a number of key areas. We will increase our anti-doping education efforts to ensure all athletes fully understand their rights and responsibilities under the World Anti-Doping Code.
We will expand our intelligence-gathering initiatives and conduct more investigations into the supply and distribution side of doping in Canada. We will include more athletes in our whereabouts program, a system that allows us to locate athletes throughout the year and around the clock for unannounced testing.
We will increase our athlete biological passport program, a system that develops a unique blood profile for each athlete, enabling the monitoring of blood for deviations that signal doping. We will be carrying out more testing in urine and blood—not more random testing, but more tests guided by the intelligence we gather.
We gather information from many different sources and we are already seeing results from a newly launched anonymous report-doping hotlline. This tool allows athletes, coaches, training personnel and others to share sensitive information they may have about doping.
With the above approach we can test the right athlete, at the right place, at the right time, for the right substance.
On our specific actions related to the Sochi games, the CCES continues to play an important role in assisting the Canadian teams to prepare for Sochi. We maintain close contact with and provide regular briefs to the chief medical officer and others with the COC and CPC with respect to Olympic and Paralympic anti-doping programs.
Our e-learning platform is available to all athletes and support personnel with specific information regarding the IOC and IPC anti-doping rules. Our on-line drug reference database is available to help athletes know what is permitted and what is not. Our athlete services team is available to assist athletes who require a therapeutic use exemption, or have other anti-doping-related questions.
We have exchanged information with the COC and are confident that their tangible efforts to keep Canadian athletes safe and secure while in Russia are on target. We will ensure each Olympic and Paralympic athlete is tested at least once in the four months immediately preceding both games.
Finally, during both games, CCES staff will be available remotely to help the COC and the CPC staff to navigate the anti-doping rules and procedures.
It should also be noted that the CCES has provided ongoing consulting to the Sochi organizing committee over the past two years, based on our experiences in Vancouver. As such, we have influenced the very nature of the Sochi anti-doping program. With these new and expanded initiatives in place, we can be more confident that athletes representing us are clean.
Regardless of these important preparations, there will continue to be doping risks to our athletes due to ongoing concerns, such as supplement contamination, which continues to be a very significant risk. Athletes who consume supplements—and our research suggests a majority do—face a real risk of inadvertent doping due to limited federal regulation and lax industry standards. Regrettably, we experience a dearth of cooperation from Canadian law enforcement. This is largely due to an overly restrictive regulatory environment and scarce resources. For example, none of the intelligence gathered at our borders related to the confiscation of steroids is being shared with our organization.
Finally, for a small window of time, NHL hockey players don a Canadian jersey and compete for the country. When they do, they leave their relatively lax and insular environment insofar as anti-doping regulations are concerned, and enter a much more restrictive and highly regulated anti-doping environment, both during the pre-games and the games period.
Can we guarantee that a Canadian athlete won't get caught doping at a major international competition in the future? No, we can't, but if it should happen, we know we're doing everything we can to prevent it, notwithstanding the risks.
While we are focused on preparing the athletes for the Sochi games, let's not forget that once the flame is extinguished and our athletes come home, our work in anti-doping continues and our athletes' desire for clean sport remains. World championships and other major games occur in most sports on an annual basis, therefore, our investment in clean sport must be sustainable.
Canada has demonstrated a commitment to eradicate doping in sport. In 2005, the federal government became the second signatory to the UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport. This convention entered into force in 2007. The need to back our commitment with continued, and even increased, action has never been greater. We are highly regarded globally in the fight against doping, and Canada has a tremendous opportunity to lead other nations toward more rigorous anti-doping programs.