Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

[Nancy Lee]

No, but this one is on the portrayal side of it. I want to talk about the media because I am and we are fixated on television. The media needs to be seen as the entirety of perception, as where we're all seeing all of these points of view.

One, in addition to that review that you can actually take back to the media, I believe you need—and it's pretty simplistic—a style guide. It's not difficult: a style guide, a communications strategy style guide. You give Sport Canada the cause. They can do it. You bring in the media partners, sit down, and come up with the top 10 things that you can or cannot say.

Again, I'll go back and say that I don't think the sports media are generally sexist; they just don't know what to say. I did not let them say “ladies” on air. They said, “Why, Nancy, why?” Because you don't say “gentlemen”, okay? It just has to be equal. It's like just this whole list of here's what to do and here's what not to do, because they're confused, right? That's a practical situation.

Then, because I'm suggesting that it come out of Sport Canada, it goes to the NSOs and the MSOs, because those are your leverage points. You tell them that this is really important and that this is the portrayal they have to give, all the NSOs and MSOs and Sport Canada and the.... I couldn't figure out the ministry where your federal money.... You spend a lot of money, the government does, on sports events, and any media buys that you make need to be tied back to that style guide.

If an NSO getting public money brings in a sponsor that has an outfit and does a commercial spread leading up to the games or whatever, and they show a woman in a position in a photo that is not about her strength or speed but more about what she looks like, no: that has to be part of the contract. That has to be part of the contract with the NSO, so that it's practical, it's in there.... I'm sorry. I could go on forever, and we'd be here until the Christmas break, but it's so—

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

I agree. When you're covering sport, it's such mayhem that you don't have the time to do anything other than what's right in front of you. For those of us who have been on air, you're a sucker for a good style guide, if you're told “Here's the style guide”. That to me, is it.

[Shannon Donovan]

Talking about the media, and just on my Cassie Campbell example, I think with the increased media and respect for the female athlete, coach, and official that are on TV, for the younger viewers, those males, it will be the norm. In that room with the boys, it was just the norm. Cassie was a superstar, and she played hockey. They were okay with that. If boys are used to seeing females on TV playing all these various sports, it will just be the norm.

I have two six-year-old girls, and one—I haven't convinced the other one yet—wants to grow up and be—

like her mother and be a

sports person. She doesn't know what I am, but I'm a sports person to her, and that's what she wants to do. I coach her hockey. She doesn't want to be a hockey coach. She wants to be a sports person, but it's from seeing me do my day-to-day stuff.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

We'll move on to our second round, and Mr. Waugh, for five minutes.

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

Mr. Chair, I'm going to take some credit for our province because as a broadcaster for 40 years, we always were equal. We led with Huskies women's. I look at our province right now. I hired a female broadcaster and I watched her develop. Natasha Staniszewski is now at TSN, as you know. It was tough for her at times. I was around a long time and I remember the first practice she went to for the Huskies men's football and the football playing stopped. They all watched her walk. But she came through. Women have to have a thick skin, unfortunately.

I just look at when I left the province as a broadcaster and where we are. I'm proud. Those football numbers don't surprise me because we promoted women's football as much as we promoted men's football. We promoted women's hockey as much as we promoted men's hockey. When you get down to the local media, which is hard right now because everyone sees the Sportsnets, the CBCs, and TSNs, we have to ingrain that in our media, if you don't mind me saying. That's where it has to start, at the bottom.

To sit here today and see who's in Toronto that I've developed over the years, I get more satisfaction out of that than I was back home.

I'm just going to say, in our province we have Hayley Wickenheiser and Catriona Le May Doan doing advertising. Isn't that great, because not a lot of women can get the extra benefits after a sport. Perhaps you could talk about that angle of it, because you guys are all right. You've seen it, but in our province, I think we've done a very good job. We brought back our local athletes and put them on the air, on radio and TV. They are spokesmen for companies right now. Perhaps you could comment on that, if you don't mind.

[Brenda Andress]

One of the greatest things for any female sport and male sport, and more important than being a professional, earning money at the NHL and everything else, is hometown heroes. You can live forever in your community as a hometown hero, whether you're playing on the local baseball team, hockey team, or football team, and you make a difference. Usually in the past those individuals grew up to be the mayor, or those individuals grew up to hold an influential position at some point.

What we try to do is instill in our athletes and in the message we're sending that the importance of being who you are and the skill that you have is then brought back to your community, because when you bring it back to the community, you have an ability to make the difference, which is what Wick and everybody else is doing out there.

For us, as all sports organizations, when you talk about media and different things, it's essential for us that when we try to promote each woman as they come through our league, it's not just about their hockey career. It's about the career after the hockey and what they can do in that, whether it's in broadcasting or supporting or going back and doing sessions or clinics. The importance is in continuing, and women do that very well, by the way, in all sports. They give back. That's not to say that men don't, because I'm sure they do also. But the difference for us is to get those women to go back to the community and do exactly what you're doing in order to grow the amateur sports.

[Shannon Donovan]

Saskatchewan is definitely a unique situation as far as football is concerned. Even with hockey, it was always positive when I was there and very strong.

Football Saskatchewan is a great example for a lot of NSOs as well PSOs. The CFL fifty-fifty money that they get from the Roughriders is split among all their high-performance programs, including the Huskies, the Rams, the Thunder, and the Hilltops, as well as the two senior women's tackle teams that are a high-performance female program. The money is split among them all.

If they have a provincial female team going to a national championship, they're treated just like any of their provincial teams, male or female. That doesn't happen very often in many places. I think the females in that province feel they are on equal ground and are treated with respect. It's gone a long way. These numbers are going to continue to increase because I know that the female league is very competitive and always does very well at our national championships. Even with just their exposure in the newspapers, they are recognized like the Huskies would be, say, in Saskatoon. So I think they are a model that we can work from.

The other thing I was going to say is that it's important that participation be made automatic, in getting people in to help build the infrastructure. For every midget team or high school female flag player, it should just be an automatic part of the curriculum that they're taking a coaching or officiating clinic within the school. Give them the tools so that when they're done playing, they already have this tool and can become an official or a coach. However, we have to provide them with the resources.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

We'll go to Mr. Vandal.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

The first question is for Brenda Andress.

The Canadian Women's Hockey League has been around for how long?

[Brenda Andress]

Ten years.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

I noted you said it takes almost $2 million to run the league.

[Brenda Andress]

That's correct.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

And the players don't get paid.

[Brenda Andress]

The players are not paid.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

It would fall under the amateur category. Where does that money come from?

[Brenda Andress]

We started by raising it through sponsorship. That was 95% of the entire revenue coming in. We now have it split. We bring in donations and do fundraisers, but the gates are the biggest part of it. We've now started to build the community where each team is, and in that community we have started to build the fans. For instance, in the last two years we started to sell merchandise. Whereas we might once have sold maybe $1,000 for the whole year, we're now selling $10,000 per year in each community. It's all about going into the community and then building that base within the community to get the fans to recognize, one, that we're here, and two, that we are a family game to come to see.

There's a big difference coming and seeing our game where our women are very much about playing the sport and there's no violence or fighting. It's absolutely not allowed in the league. I'm sure you know this if you watch the Olympics, because it's also phenomenal watching the men at the Olympics, because they actually play the game.

For us, it's about getting people to understand through media, through youth groups, through many different things that there's a product out there that you can come to watch and support by buying our $15 ticket. That's what it costs to watch an Olympic player play in your backyard.

Our funding has changed because our gates are changing, and that's what's making the difference for us in our revenue.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

What percentage of your revenue comes from the gates, meaning the turnstiles, concessions, and the merchandise?

[Brenda Andress]

Currently with all of those added in, it's about 25% of the entire $1.8 million in revenue that we bring in. For us to continue, it has to go a lot higher than that, for sure, for the revenue.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

I'm curious as to what sort of attendance you would get. I have a little note in front of me here that says you have teams in Boston, Brampton, Montreal.

[Brenda Andress]

And Calgary and Toronto.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Wow. What sort of attendance would you get in Montreal?

[Brenda Andress]

Ten years ago, we used to get me, all my friends and relatives, and anybody you could drag in through the door.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Brenda Andress]

One of the greatest things this year—actually, last year was when it really started—I walked into Toronto's opening game, which had almost 1,000 people at it. I didn't know anybody, and I was bloody happy. In Montreal last year, at the playoffs, Montreal played Toronto in Montreal. Our partnerships are with NHL teams now. I've been able to secure four NHL partnerships with those teams. When you walked into the facility, there were anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 fans at each one of their two playoff games, but they all had their faces painted in the Montreal colours.

As each of the Montreal players came on, for Julie Chu it was “choo-choo-choo”. When Caroline Ouelette came on, it was “ollie-ollie-ollie”. Then when Marie-Philip Poulin came on, well, it went crazy at that point. It was like, for the very first time we started to see fans who were actual fans. That's based on these women who are the general managers, the women who are the coaches, who continually run clinics. They say, “We're here, go out.” These are all volunteers, and they just keep building that community. I can only imagine, if we mandated policies for media, if we mandated policies for anybody who was involved in sports to bring coaches and fans to it, the growth of our game, not just in hockey but women's sports everywhere, would explode.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Shannon, give us your one recommendation on what we should do to increase women's participation at all levels of the sport industry.