Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

[Martin Richard, Executive Director, Communications and Marketing, Canadian Paralympic Committee]

Maybe I can jump in here.

It's interesting, because if we look at our Rio team, we had 50% from both genders. Men and women were represented equally on the athletes' side of things.

Where the difference was, as mentioned earlier, was in the coaching. There were fewer female coaches. We had 20% female coaches versus 80% on the male side. I think that's where there's an opportunity to potentially bring more female coaches into the system to access the elite level, such as the Paralympic team.

But as far as the participation base is concerned, it's equal at both levels. That's a statistic we're very proud of, because we're taking the right steps to encourage women to be an equal part of our sport with men.

I think overall we need to make the sport more accessible and more visible to all Canadians, whether it's through programs, as Whitney mentioned earlier—

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

[Inaudible] like Mrs. Ferguson said, they were mostly guys.

[Martin Richard]

Yes. Exactly.

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

Is it the case in all disciplines? Is it mostly guys? For you in goalball?

[Whitney Bogart]

Yes. We're lucky at our nationals to have four women's teams, but usually a couple of provinces have to combine. The men are easily there with six or more teams.

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

So this is depriving women of that satisfaction of doing this activity. Coaches, again, in this situation will help out.

Ms. Gauthier, what can trigger somebody, let's say you, in your living room, watching TV, to say, I want to get involved again in sports? What makes this situation more productive for a man so they respond better and say, well, I'm going to go and do sports? Why do more men than women respond, according to you?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

There's time for a very quick answer.

[Shelley Gauthier]

I don't understand the question.

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

It's okay. I'll get to you later.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Okay. Mr. Breton.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know we've already mentioned it, but I want to say again how impressed we were with the athletes who visited us yesterday. We're proud to have you as Canadian athletes in your respective sports. We know that you've worked extremely hard for many years. We were all very proud and honoured by your presence in the House of Commons. Thank you for representing Canada so well.

I'll follow up on the subject raised by Mr. Kitchen and Mr. Nantel. We spoke a great deal about coaching, and I think it's an important factor. Feel free to respond. Perhaps your male coaches are here. I have no idea.

Would you have been more comfortable or successful and would you have liked the sport more if you had had female coaches in your respective sports? You can speak for yourselves or for other people you know. Some women have said that they are more comfortable with a female coach. Would you have been even more successful if you had had female coaches instead of male coaches?

[Erica Gravel]

I can go first. It doesn't make a difference so much at the games, but it's the whole relationship piece in the process leading up to the games, and it also depends on the individual as well.

In general, from my personal experiences, in terms of communication, it's easier to communicate with and relate to a female coach. There's also a lot of stress at this level, from a female perspective. Long term, I want to have a family and kids. I know at the beginning, it stressed me out in thinking that if I pursue this, this is my time frame. After talking to female coaches who have gone through the whole process, I found it really nice to be able to relate to people who have been in the same situation and are successful with those things that might come across as barriers.

From a performance standpoint, I don't see a difference in terms of systematic decision-making. I can't say that males are more qualified than females in understanding the sport systems and situations that happen in a game. It's more that it influences the process and your development as an athlete, just by decreasing the stressors.

[Shelley Gautier]

I'd like to say that I agree with Erica.

[Whitney Bogart]

My experience is the opposite of Erica's. I've had much better experiences with my male coaches than I did with my female coach.

She referred to wanting to have a family and stuff. In my case, after London, my plan was to take the year off to have my first child. I didn't feel comfortable speaking to my female coach about this. I did end up taking the year off. I actually have a three-year-old daughter. I was able to come back and make the Rio team, which was my goal.

Then I had a full-male coaching staff, high-performance staff for Rio. I was more comfortable with them and speaking with them about my goals for the next four years, which also included another year off to have another child.

I know it's an individual thing, and I do agree that we need to see more female coaches, but my personal experience is that my male coaches have been better for me, personally and competitively.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Tracey, did you want to comment on this?

[Tracey Ferguson]

In my experience as a high-performance athlete, what I want is the best person for the job. I don't care. I'm going to be 100% honest. I want the best-trained coach: male, female, Canadian, or international. I just want the best person for the job, flat out.

What I do want is the opportunity for women to be coaches, for a system to support their development. I think currently there are some barriers, whether patriarchal attitudes or history, that prevent them. I think they have to fight harder, honestly. I think it's harder for a woman to advance as a coach. I think Erica alluded to it.

As we've said before, you have to have a tough skin, whether it is in media or whatever. Women coaches have to. Unfortunately, that's the reality. It would be nice to see some of those barriers removed. Whether that's through policy development, I don't know, honestly.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

In any case, I hope you become coaches because you're inspiring women, as Mr. Nantel said earlier. You're also caring women. I think that, for young girls, for other athletes and for our country, you're extremely good people.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Okay. We will go to Mr. Waugh then, for five minutes.

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

It's a very emotional day. Thanks, Erica.

My son coached one of the Paralympians at the club level. We had a great moment yesterday in our household. Let's start there. He's with a swimming club, or was, in Saskatoon, and one of the swimmers certainly had a great opportunity in our province. Samantha Ryan is her name. They treated her like gold. I have to say this. She was one of them. Coaching-wise, they did a very good job, but they were lacking in women's high-performance coaching and swimming. I don't see that in our province.

I have my 26-year-old son who has gone through the competition, and he seemed to latch onto her. Man, the stress she went through in July. I was lucky enough, because I've been in sports all my life. I talked to my son. She had a very tough time in July, as you guys know, going to the Olympics—the stress, the time, the training. Can you talk about that?

We don't often see that, but I did because I had my son dealing with it, and he needed help. You guys are so high performance, and yet I just remember a meltdown incident that happened in July prior to the Paralympics. I'm not sure he was totally capable of handling it, but obviously he did fairly well.

Do you have any thoughts, Erica, or anybody?

[Erica Gravel]

It's a very interesting thing that you sign up for when you decide to pursue an Olympic or Paralympic experience. One way I've described it to people is to imagine saving for your entire life to buy a house and you go to the real estate agency and give him all your money and you don't get the house.

As athletes, we work 24 hours a day. Every decision we make throughout that day is based on performance, and it's incredibly stressful. We're expected to train five to six hours a day. Most of us don't have time to work part-time or full-time jobs in big years, but then we're usually expected to centralize and pay rent and expenses. It's stressful from the financial aspect. Mentally it's tough, because we have to leave our friends and family most of the year. Physically, it's very demanding. You're tired a lot of the time, and being physically tired affects you emotionally.

Honestly, I didn't realize how stressed I was the last four years until I made the team and I cried for two hours. I didn't realize how stressed I was, and I didn't even know why I was crying—I was just crying. I think that's when I learned it is pretty stressful trying to make Olympic or Paralympic teams.

I always think about the people who didn't make the team, and I have a lot of compassion for them because they did everything we did. It just didn't fall in their favour.

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

That's a good comment because four years is a long time.

[Erica Gravel]

It is. It's a lot of sacrifice.

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

What are your thoughts, Whitney?

I just remember the goalball, and the team from Saskatchewan won the world's a number of years ago in Korea, I think it was. They came back. We had them on a pedestal for a full year. They were the sports team of the year in our city, Amy Alsop and all those people—

[Whitney Bogart]

I didn't play with Amy too much, actually. She was a bit before my time. Four years is a long time, but it goes by really quickly.

When I think of what happened, when I look back at the time between London and Rio, at what we did.... I had to take what would be my maternity leave while I was pregnant, because I couldn't physically play goalball. You can't get hit with a ball. It's not ideal for the baby growing. Then I had to come back. She was born at the end of May, and I was back on the court training in the summer, and I was back into the full season in September or October. I was bringing my three- or four-month-old with me on trips and to tournaments and practices.

I added the extra tiredness and stress of being an elite athlete to that of having a baby. I'd never change it, but I had all this on top of it, and then being visually impaired and having to train, as we do, about 20 or so hours a week. We don't drive, so we're busing everywhere, so I'm spending a couple of hours a day on a bus on top of training. I don't have time to work and raise my daughter. People don't realize the mental drain that you get from being an elite athlete, especially one with a disability. You have extra challenges on top of it.

Then you get to the Paralympics; you meet your goal of making the team. Then you go and you don't meet your goal there, and you're instantly.... I remember, we lost our quarter-final in Rio and that night I was planning my next four years. What am I going to do? Am I going to take the next year off? Am I going to have another baby? Am I going to wait until after Tokyo? Do I want to go to Tokyo? Do I want to make this commitment? It was literally six hours after we lost our game and I was already planning the next four years of my life.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

I just want to say thank you to all of you for being here today.

This has been so inspirational for us all as well, as my colleagues have already mentioned. I just want to reiterate it as the person who happens to be in the chair today.

You all said, as Mr. Samson indicated, that you're proud to be able to be here. I have to reiterate what he said. We are very, very proud of your being here and giving us your recommendations and thoughts on education processes and other areas that we can expand on in our report here to try to make sure that we get more women involved in sport, and particularly on the Paralympic side as well.

I want to commend all of you for being here and being such great role models for us as well.