Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 4th, 2016

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

The performance issue that you've raised is an interesting one because I think it's certainly the second, maybe the third summer Olympic Games where the women have dominated the medal count.

We have this participation rate at the more recreational levels by girls. We have high-performance participation and success by girls and young women in such games as the Olympics, and yet we don't see that kind of representation within the coaching and leadership positions.

You're quite right about the media. It depends, of course, on the network. It was interesting. If you flipped around to other networks, there was far more coverage of the male sports than the female. My understanding from people with the CBC is that they are trying to redress that.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

So the CBC did not represent female sports as well...?

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

No, they were making a tremendous amount of progress.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

They did, yes. That was my impression.

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

It was progress that was not replicated in some of the networks to our south, for example.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Oh, the American networks, yes.

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

So, yes, they are.

[Dr. Guylaine Demers]

Just this week in the newspaper La Presse, Karen Paquin, one of our rugby seven bronze medallists, was in the newspaper commenting that you saw the enthusiasm of Canadians around women's sports during the Olympics, so why did it stop right afterwards?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

It disappeared.

[Dr. Guylaine Demers]

Last week, in my equity class, they had to analyze newspapers, and all the students were surprised that they could not find any articles on women's sports. That is the purpose of the paper. Right after the Olympics, boom.

The media keeps telling us that people are not interested in women's sport. If you're in marketing and you want to launch a new product, the first thing you do is promote it, and then people are interested. If we don't talk about women's sport, and if we don't see women's sport, then of course people will say they're not interested. It's because they don't know they're interested. During the Olympics, they are there.

There is definitely a problem with the media representation of women athletes.

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

The enthusiasm that we see across Canada when the Olympic Games are on, unfortunately, does not translate into higher participation rates after the Olympic Games, as one might expect it would. The research does not bear that out.

We're back to questions around access, and opportunity, and resources.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

What would your message be to the Canadians who are taking note of these hearings and to the many Canadians who felt that sense of jubilation or felt that we turned a corner? How do we act on that to make sure it's sustained?

Forget us for a moment, I'm asking you to speak about people who just watched it on TV and thought it was a good thing.

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

It ranges from encouraging physical literacy in early childhood and physical literacy development once we get in the school system, so that children feel more competent and self-assured when they go into learning new sports.

The after-school programs that many of us grew up with have dissipated. Without opportunities after school, and with all of the child care issues, there are not the same opportunities for children to participate in any physical activity or sport. Those opportunities we had did not require financial resources. Those families who couldn't afford to put their children in organized sports still had after-school programs.

Going back to the questions that were raised earlier around parents and family involvement, the more we can get parents involved in physical activity along with their children, then the more likely it is they're going to sustain participation.

We could go on and on. That's where it would start.

[Dr. Guylaine Demers]

I would say, write to the newspapers, send stories, and make your voice heard. If they don't talk about women's sport, then stop your subscription. We do have a power as consumers of media. I call the radio all the time. They would say that there was a basketball game last night, and I would thank them for talking about the women's team, but no, they were not.... Talk, call, and make your voice heard. We do have a power, but we don't use it. Show up at girls' games and women's games.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Dr. Demers.

Why don't we try to be concise, and we can do a three-minute round.

Mr. Waugh, from the Conservatives.

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

My question would be to Dr. Kerr. I've covered CIS for 40 years. Let's face it, coaching takes place after school. These coaches are there from four o'clock to eight o'clock. We've improved the scholarships in CIS. We've improved the sabbaticals. It's up to you and the board of governors to say at your general meetings that you need more coaches. Just put it in the bylaws.

I look at the University of Saskatoon right now, and our most successful programs are coached by women. Put it in your bylaws. Go to your athletic directors and say it's done. You can do that. You've done it with sabbaticals. You've done it with scholarships.

We have an equal number of women's and men's teams, why aren't you putting it into the bylaws?

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

I wouldn't say it's not in the bylaws.

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

You just told me you've gone down in coaching for the last three years. It's easy. You can go to the universities after the year and say, “You haven't met your quota.” I see the men's hockey team, right now, in Saskatchewan. The male coach is on a sabbatical and they've hired a former player, a female player to coach this year. You can easily institute this.

I've been involved in CIS for over 40 years. It's up to you people to lead, and I don't think you've been leading for the last 40 years.

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

I would also comment that the CIS coaches don't appear out of nowhere. They're developed somewhere else.

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

Yes. We developed Lisa Thomaidis. We took a gamble on her from McMaster University. We went through 10 awful years and, all of a sudden, now we have won a CIS championship. That's the message that you have to give your athletic directors coast to coast, and you're not doing that.

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

The athletic directors, of course, are about 80% male.

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

You can start there then. Why don't you put it in your bylaws? You haven't answered that. Why don't you follow that up?

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

I can't speak for all universities as to whether it's in their bylaws or not. I think it's a very good suggestion, but I think it's one piece of the puzzle. I don't think it will solve the entire problem we're facing. When you have a predominance of male university presidents, right down to 80% of the athletic directors, and you have search committees composed of males who say they can't find any females to draw in to the applicant pool...it's not as simple as that.

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

They're there.

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

I think we need to do a lot of education around unconscious bias and blind spots for gender and other forms of diversity. It's a matter of recruiting and taking risks. When you recruit and take risks, you need more resources. More resources cost money so absolutely, I wouldn't argue with you, but I also don't think that that will simply solve the problem.