Canadian Heritage Committee on June 7th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We will break so that we can come up with the next part of our program in a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

The committee needs to resume, please. I would like to call members back to their seats. Thank you.

We will go in camera for one part of the meeting, but right now, unless Ms. Dabrusin has any objection, we will deal with her motion in the public hearing.

Basically we have a motion from Ms. Dabrusin that reads....

We are looking for your motion, Ms. Dabrusin. We haven't lost it; it was here at some point.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

It was here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Actually, this is it. We have it. I will read Ms. Dabrusin's motion.

It reads:

That the Committee undertake a study of four (4) meetings on Canadian women and girls in sport, and how the Department of Heritage can increase participation and involvement in both amateur and professional sport.

Does everyone have that?

Ms. Dabrusin, did you wish to speak to your motion?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Yes, thank you.

I did a little bit of background studying, and the last time this issue was considered by a parliamentary committee was in 1998. There's a lot of time to cover since that last study.

In that study, they made a number of recommendations. These included such things as establishing a tracking system to ensure that a fair portion of the new funding in fact reaches targeted, under-represented groups; recommending cross-gender-based statistics; ensuring that as part of our funding, we have funding criteria that encourage a significant representation by women on boards of directors; programming that serves unique needs of women and other under-represented groups; and higher numbers of apprenticeship and employment opportunities for women coaches.

I'm only pulling out a few of the recommendations, but those were made in 1998, and I feel it would be very important for us to follow up to see what was done and where we need to go from here.

It may be that we will hear many good-news stories, and I really hope that we do get good-news stories, but it's important to see, having seen those recommendations, what we have followed through on. I will note that on the professional side, women are highly under-represented in many professional sports.

I know that many people here will have gone to an NHL game. I'm not sure how many of you would have gone to a Canadian Women's Hockey League game. It's great for the people who have. We just heard from our Olympic Committee. Many of our Olympic athletes, women who have done very well and have excelled, for example, on the Canadian women's hockey team, do not end up in our professional sports in the same numbers. That is another part of the study that would be important to me: to look at how we can ensure that women have those opportunities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Does anyone wish to discuss this further?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I'll just say that I commend the study. I think it's a very good idea. Eighteen years is an eternity.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Go ahead, Mr. Kitchen.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I'm wondering, and Julie and I have talked about the question, why it's four meetings. Can you give an idea why it should be four? Should it be two, should it be four, should it be six?

Do you have any idea about witnesses?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I believe a good place to start will be with the Department of Canadian Heritage, just to find out the background information on what has happened with these recommendations as a starting point. I have some ideas, and we can talk about witnesses along the line.

I mentioned that Charmaine Crooks had given evidence leading up to the 2012 London Olympics and is part of an association, a subcommittee for the Olympic movement, on women in sports. She also spoke, when she gave testimony, about the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity. There are a number of organizations that can give us some background.

As to the number, I thought it would be good to do a targeted study, and four seemed reasonable. We can revisit it. It may be one more or one less. Right now, it could be.... We can see, after we have heard from our initial witnesses, where we would like to go with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Before I go to Mr. Waugh, I would like to suggest that it is usual to set a certain target for, in this instance, four meetings. As the committee begins to do its work, if it believes that it isn't covered, the committee, being masters of its own destiny, can decide that they want to take more meetings on. We've done that before in committee. That would be an interesting thing.

Obviously, we won't deal with the witnesses now. You can start thinking of them if this motion passes, but we won't deal with witnesses until the time comes to actually do the study, which I understand, Ms. Dabrusin, will be after we've finished our study on the media.

Go ahead, Mr. Waugh.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

You've answered some of my questions. After the Olympics, I think we need Tricia Smith here. She's in charge of the Canadian Olympic team and she could be on the IOC if they vote her in next month, so she'll be the most influential female person in sport in this country, and that's where this should go. Tricia, of course, just took over our Canadian Olympic situation.

There are people like that. I think we should invite Canadian Interuniversity Sport, the CIS, because in terms of gender, it's one scholarship for a male and one scholarship for a female. That has all changed in the last five years throughout every university in this country.

I don't know if we'll have four meetings, but certainly I have a number of witnesses that I'd be willing to bring forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Absolutely. Everyone can think about that.

Would anybody else like to speak? No?

Go ahead, Ms. Dabrusin.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I don't want us to get into the weeds about creating a witness list, particularly—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Not yet.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

—because my plan was that this study would follow what we're currently studying. We're looking at the fall at this point, at the earliest, so we can set timelines for people to come back with full witness lists.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

May I call the question?

Go ahead, Mr. Kitchen.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I actually have the study and the recommendations. I took the initiative to look it up. The study talks about the Government of Canada continuing “to collect gender-based statistics”. I'm wondering where we would find those.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

That would be now in the new long form census. You will get good gender-based statistics there, because Canada has been doing gender-disaggregated data for quite a long time.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

This would be data that has been collected since 1998, because that's when the study was done. We'd be looking at statistics from 1998 to today. Basically, we're talking 16 years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We are talking 16 years. For your information, that gender-disaggregated data was being collected in 1998. We stopped collecting that kind of data when we cancelled the long form census, but I still think we have enough data, because that didn't happen until 2008. We have about 10 years' worth of data we can get, and now we're going to pick up again from the new census.

Are there any further questions?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Again, that goes to the question for our study, though: what are the statistics?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes. We're kind of leaping ahead of our time here.

Mr. Maguire, is there anything before I ask the question?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Yes, that was my question earlier. It was on the timing. I think Ms. Dabrusin has answered that in regard to the number of meetings. I think it's fine to go ahead and look at the new information. It has been 16 to 18 years here since this came up. There are a lot of changes. We just heard Mr. Overholt talking about some of those changes in our own Olympic system here. I think this would be a good update.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Shall I call the question? Those in favour?

(Motion agreed to)

The motion is carried unanimously, so as we move forward, we will discuss that.

Now I'll move on. There was a notice of motion from Mr. Vandal, but I am told that Mr. Vandal wishes to withdraw it.