Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 27th, 2016

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I will defer to my officials on the actual technical data piece, but, yes, to reaffirm—at our FPT meeting, we very clearly sent a message that the participation of women and girls in sport was a huge priority for all levels of government.

Can you elaborate on the data piece?

[Alan Zimmerman]

The issue of increasing participation of women and girls—girls particularly—in sport is very complicated, as you know. In terms of the straight numbers, we have information on the number of participants at the national sport level, for example. Of the 5.3 million members of national sport organizations, about 1.9 million are girls. We have that kind of basic information, but that is information on the group of young girls or women who like to be in sport. What the challenge is, going forward, is to figure out how we can entice—if that is the right word—greater participation from those who may not look at sport or physical activity as something they want to do themselves.

In that, we are looking to other jurisdictions. The U.K., in particular, has done some really interesting work in that regard, with their This Girl Can initiative. In fact, we have a representative from the U.K., over at the research conference we are running right now, to give us insight into that.

I'd say there is still a lot of work to do in that area. To give a full answer, we are not there yet.

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

I realize there is a lot of work to do. Are you focusing on just putting it out and advertising it, or are you actually focusing on doing something concrete? For example, we've talked a number of times, and we've heard from witnesses, about getting that into the school system, getting younger kids where we have gym class now, not health.

As a health practitioner, I agree we need health, but we need gym. We need these young girls and boys, everyone, participating in that aspect of it. We talk about ParticipACTION, walking a block a day. How about one class or an hour of gym in the schools?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Again, one of the challenges for us, jurisdictionally, is that education is provincial. That does not mean we can't provide leadership at the federal level or make that a priority of our bilateral agreements with the provinces to give them some financial support to move in that direction.

As a group of ministers, in June, we identified that while we think we've made some inroads with our Health colleagues, there is still a disconnect with the education sector at the ministerial level. That doesn't mean we are not trying. It means that, when you go to an education minister.... Quebec is the only province that has sport and education in one ministry, which makes it super-easy to have those conversations around school sport. Even though I had a chance, in Calgary, to meet with the head of the Canadian school sport association, there is this disconnect that we are still trying to work through, and that can be very frustrating.

In my very first interview as sport minister, they said, “If you could change anything, what would it be?”, and I said that I would get daily physical activity back in schools. Of all the things I would change in the system, that would be the number one thing for me.

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

Thank you very much.

I want to touch quickly on coaching and getting participation of women. Obviously, we all talk.... When I was younger, I coached my daughter. Oftentimes it was very difficult for women to get involved. That's where the young girls need that role model. They need their mothers to be there, to step up, so they can follow through.

It's very difficult for them to do that. How do they keep a job, raise a family, and deal with all the other things they are dealing with in the house, and then try to coach, do their certification, and progress on that front?

Are you looking at that? Are you proposing any ideas in that area?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

We have talked a lot with the Coaching Association of Canada about these very issues. I've heard from women coaches about the systemic barriers you're talking about. The time we need our volunteer coaches is the worst time of the day for women to be able to offer their time. It's the four to eight o'clock at night time period, when there's a whole bunch of other competing responsibilities that women still have in our society. Then what happens is female coaches don't see other female coaches, so there's no behaviour to model. It's a cycle. Talking with the Coaching Association about creating those role models, that will then trickle down...and then maybe looking at sport differently. Can we job-share our coaches' role so that you don't have to do it every week? Two women do the job, and so you can work around your schedules. Like any kind of flex-time job, there are ways we can do this.

We've also had national sports organizations that have brought in a female coach as a mentor. Maybe their normal coaching complement is two head coaches, but they will bring a third person, who will be a female coach, who could then get that mentoring opportunity, and then ultimately be the head coach herself.

Can we change our systems and programs to incorporate more flexibility for women to be able to participate? Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

I go to Madame Laverdière, for the NDP, for seven minutes.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for the presentation.

I'm just thinking maybe we should give some training to some spouses, like cooking lessons.

However, there's also the issue of women's participation in the decision-making bodies in various sports. If I'm not mistaken, I think women are underrepresented there too. Do you think there is a way to solve the problem or improve the situation?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Of course.

The boards of national sports organizations include women. Is their number equal to that of men? It is almost equal on national but not international boards. All national organizations have equity policies. It is one of the conditions to obtain financial assistance from the Government of Canada. However, at the community, provincial and territorial levels, women play a more limited role.

Women aren't at the board tables, aren't at the decision-making bodies as much at the community or provincial level. The women are doing the more administrative roles and making sure there are schedules and uniforms for the teams and managing the teams, but then the selection of the team and the hockey organization is run by men at the community level. I think that's a big gap in our leadership model that we need to address. I think the leadership can come from us through the national sport organizations and their provincial members. I think if we had as a condition of our funding that their members have more equity on their boards, that would be a big start.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much.

I don't really know what leeway we have to take action on that, but another issue is the sponsorships for athletes, which I understand are lower for women than for men. I was wondering whether you could confirm this and whether there are ways to offset this imbalance. What would you recommend?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I can absolutely confirm that women receive fewer sponsorships than men in sports.

In terms of how to improve the situation, it is very difficult because the companies make the decisions. We are not the ones making them. I still think that there is tension between sponsorships for national organizations and individual sponsorships for athletes. In addition, there are sponsorships for licence holders.

That's how the Olympic Committee has a bank and the swimming organization cannot have a different bank. It's the same thing for the athlete. More innovative companies are now prevented from giving money to athletes because of the contracts in place. I believe that we can study and improve the rules for

maybe relax them a bit so that our athletes can get sponsors. There are companies that want to sponsor athletes, but the more innovative ones are smaller and more nimble and younger and can't compete with the big ones that are already funding the Olympic and Paralympic committees, but are stopping these other ones from funding our organizations and our athletes. I think there's a lot of work to be done on sponsorship.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have three minutes.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Usually, I talk longer. I'm sorry.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I usually talk longer.

Generally, what do you think should be our priorities for recommendations in the—

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

On women and girls, in particular?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Yes.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I would say participation rates particularly at the teenage level. I think there's that gap. Girls get involved in sport, they drop out of sport, and it's a real shame, because the reasons they drop out of sport are sometimes the benefits they would achieve through sport. They drop out of sport because of body image, because of lack of self-confidence, because of competing, all of the challenges you have as a young 13- or 14-year-old girl, when all of those same challenges would be heightened by keeping involved in sport, which improves your self-confidence and helps with your body image. All of the benefits from sport are some of the same reasons why we're losing our girls in sport.

I also think we have to look at the opportunities we're providing our girls and think of what a 14-year-old to 16-year-old girl today would want to do in sport, which may not be the traditional opportunity we've always offered girls for sport.

I think there's a lot of things we could do, but for me that would be the most important piece.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I don't know whether you agree that many issues go beyond sports. These are social issues, be they self-image and self-perception among young women, spouses who do not assume their share of responsibility or other situations like that.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Absolutely, but also one of my biggest beliefs is that we can use sport to achieve broader social policy objectives. If we can find a way through sport to help address some of these broader social challenges we face, I think we'll all be better off.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. O'Regan for the Liberals for 10 minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to share my time with my colleague Sonia Sidhu, if that's okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I don't know if you're allowed. I will check it out.

Yes. Okay.

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

Thank you very much.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for coming here.

I recently met Nandini Sharma, who plays sledge hockey. She is a Canadian national women's team member. In fact, she is playing right now. She lives in my riding of Brampton South. She became a paraplegic from an accident in 2010.

Can you elaborate on whether there any recommendations for any exciting provincial programs we can expand and promote, where girls who are very energetic can get some funding and move forward?