Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

[Shannon Donovan]

I think it's the infrastructure. I think it's having the coaches, the officials, the administrators, the females around the game as far as getting increasing participation. They're the voices, the champions who will go out there and get the younger girls involved. As I said earlier, if it becomes the norm on TV and the boys recognize females as elite athletes, just like those NHL players, I think they'll be willing to be involved.

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

Nancy, I would ask you the same question.

[Nancy Lee]

My number one is to address the harassment.

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

The harassment?

[Nancy Lee]

The harassment, the sexual harassment, the discrimination, the bullying—it may be out of the headlines now, but it's still there. I don't think the oversight's there, happening inside the organizations at the governance level and the senior management level. It's been said before: if you create an environment where it's safe and you're welcome to go play there, you're not bullied. Girls bully just as well as the boys bully. You have to do that, address the harassment. That's number one. You'll change an awful lot if you do that.

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

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Thank you.

I just want to thank you three witnesses. You've been very informative with your recommendations for our committee. I look forward to reading the rest of your recommendations, Ms. Lee, as well. I've mentioned the synchronized skating my daughter was involved in. I just want to say that it was women coaches who really helped the 21 girls who were skating together.

I had the opportunity to see the women's and the men's championships at the Olympic games in Vancouver, and I will say, Ms. Andress, that the men do play the game when it's there as well.

The Westman Wildcats in Hartney, Manitoba get 400 fans to a hockey game. They're a midget girls' hockey team that ended up winning the Esso Cup, the first one that they had, in Calgary. Hartney is the little town I grew up in and where I graduated from high school, much before they played. That's my point: if you can get 400 fans to a midget girls' hockey game in a little town of 400 people in Manitoba, the game is growing.

Those are tremendous recommendations you've put forward to us. Thank you very much for being here today.

We will now take a bit of a break. I'll have to ask everyone who's not on the committee to leave the room, while we do a few things we have to do here in camera. Then we'll call our Paralympic athletes back in to have our second session.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Thanks, everyone, for being here. I'd like to get your attention again for a second.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here. Welcome to our friendly forum. We are really interested in your ideas and comments on how we can get more women involved in sport. You are all Paralympians who have excelled in their sports, and we certainly want to hear clearly from you.

We'll give you each five minutes. You don't have to go to five, and I'm kind of lenient if you go over by a few seconds, so don't worry about that.

Welcome to Mr. Martin Richard, executive director of communications and marketing for Paralympic athletes in Canada. He is with the Canadian Paralympic Committee.

Just so our witnesses know, we'll give them five minutes each to speak, and then we will have a round of seven minutes each for the first four questioners. We'll follow that up with what we have left for time.

Because we had an in camera meeting here that took a bit of time, I am going to extend this to try to give us the full hour. The room is empty afterwards.

With that, I will open it up to Ms. Ferguson. I think you are the first one on the list, so we'll go in the order we have there. Thank you very much for being here.

[Tracey Ferguson, Paralympic Athlete, As an Individual]

Thank you very much. My name is Tracey Ferguson. I am a member of the Canadian women's wheelchair basketball team. I am a seven-time Paralympian. Yes, I'm really old, I apologize, but I'm experienced. I have spent a lot of time in the system.

I just want to open by saying, on the experience in the House yesterday for the Olympic and Paralympic athletes, it's not my first time having that experience, but I am reminded each and every time that it is incredibly special to be recognized in the House by our Government of Canada. On behalf of the athletes, it was an incredible moment for us, so thank you for providing us with that opportunity.

It is our pleasure and our pride to represent Canada at each and every moment. When we're abroad, we're all proud to wear the Canadian maple leaf on our chests. We do this because we're passionate and we love what we do. Thank you for providing us with that opportunity. It was a great day. I know that my fellow athletes were all talking about it last night. Thank you for that. We're really appreciative of that warm welcome.

Now, a little about me. I started out playing wheelchair basketball, but that wasn't my dream. I grew up the youngest of six in a suburb of Toronto. I just wanted to be out there doing sports. I have four older brothers and an older sister who are all active. I think the big thing for me and my family was that I just wanted to be out there, whether it was street hockey, swimming races in the pool, my sister's baseball and softball games, or my t-ball. I just wanted to be active and social and competing. I love the competition.

I remember distinctly—this is dating myself, and maybe some of you in the room might remember it—in 1984, during the summer Olympic Games, watching Alex Baumann win his gold medal. I remember standing and jumping on the couch, for which I got in trouble, and cheering and leaping up and down and screaming this man to the finish. I was so excited.

With the pride I felt watching him win a gold medal, I said to my mom, “This is what I am going to do. I want to win a gold medal for Canada. I am going to be an Olympic swimmer. This is my dream.” It was never: “This is impossible.” It was: “Okay, how are we going to do it?” That's one of the really fortunate things I grew up with in my family. I didn't know that anything was impossible. Everything was possible. It was: “How are you going to achieve it?”

It was a few short months after that, due to complications during surgery, relatively routine surgery, that I was paralyzed, so that dream seemed to disappear.

It took about two years. I still had a competitive drive, and I still wanted to be out there playing sports. I just didn't know what existed for me. We're talking, and I'm dating myself again, about the 1980s. Paralympic sport just wasn't on television. It wasn't in the community. I was the only person now in a wheelchair in my community of Markham. I was the girl in the wheelchair.

The dream of being the Olympian or the gold medalist just seemed so far out of reach. I was very fortunate to find a wheelchair sports program in Scarborough, Ontario, at Variety Village, a facility that really is all about integration. All their programs are integrated. Whether it's a karate class or tae kwon do, whether people are visual impaired, in wheelchairs, or whatever their impairment is, the instructor must instruct for all people in the same class.

I walked into this environment to see sport wheelchairs for the first time in my life. I got to try tennis. I got to try wheelchair basketball and wheelchair racing, and it opened my eyes to a new world of possibilities. I fell in love with basketball. Probably for my physiology and size, it was not the right sport for me. I'm a little bit small, but I'm feisty. I got out there, and I started playing, and I loved the social aspect of it.

I got in the car after my first day, and my mom said, “What do you want to do? Tennis? Racing?” I said, “Basketball. This is my passion. This is my dream.” My mom looked at me and said, “You know you're short, right?” I said, “I do. Thanks for pointing that out, Mom.” My brothers are all well over six feet tall. They got the height. My mom asked me why. Did I get a basket? I said, “I didn't, but there's nowhere to go but up. I can get better.”

Then she asked if I noticed anything else out there. I was the only girl. There were about 20 young boys out there playing, and I didn't even notice. It wasn't a big deal to the coaches. I was welcomed. I was really fortunate to have coaches who didn't make that distinction. They didn't say that they didn't have a girls' team. They said, “You want to play basketball. Let's find a way to include you,” and I was there.

I'm grateful for that opportunity. I have experienced the Paralympics. I play internationally now, in Europe, on a co-ed but predominantly men's team. I have been able to not only go to university on a scholarship to play wheelchair basketball in the U.S. but have been recognized for playing for Canada. I worked for Sport Canada for a number of years as well, so I have worked for the federal government. I understand the mechanisms.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk about sport and my experience and to answer any questions you may have about my experiences as a female athlete in sport.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Thank you very much.

That feistiness is good.

We'll move on to Ms. Gravel.

[Erica Gravel, Paralympic Athlete, As an Individual]

Actually, my last name Gavel.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

It's “Gavel”. We have an “r” in there. I apologize.

[Erica Gravel]

It's all right.

I'm Erica Gavel. I also play wheelchair basketball with Tracey.

Rio was my first Paralympic Games. It was just so amazing. Kind of like yesterday, it was a unique experience that you can't replicate with anything else, and it was like what she alluded to a few minutes ago. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to come here yesterday and today, to see the House of Commons and how things operate.

I'm originally from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. I was born and raised there, fortunately. At the time, I didn't realize how amazing that city and that province are. From the time I was six years old and doing organized sport, I always had female coaches and mentors.

To be completely honest, I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for Lisa Thomaidis from the University of Saskatchewan. Basketball is not a very common sport in Saskatchewan—now it is, but when I was in high school, my city didn't have a club team. She took the time out of her day to come to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. She's coaching the national team, and I'm pretty sure that is the last place on her agenda to go to recruit basketball players.

She and Sarah Crooks came to my school and put on a basketball camp. I was 14 at the time. They told the whole group that if we worked really hard, we could play for the University of Saskatchewan.

So, I took that to heart and I worked really hard for three years. Both she and Sarah Crooks stayed in contact with me.

By the beginning of Grade 12, I was offered an opportunity to go there. I went to the University of Saskatchewan and for the first couple of years, everything went according to plan. And then I ended up wrecking my knee really badly. I tore the articular cartilage off my femur and tibia, which means if I were 45, I would go in for a knee replacement tomorrow, but I'm not, so.... I have arthritis. That being said, that's why I'm eligible to do Paralympic sport.

I wrecked my knee in August 2012, and it was actually during the Olympics when Lisa and also Allison McNeill were coaching the senior women's national team to their first Olympic Games. I wasn't directly affiliated with them, but because she was my coach in university, I'd say the university really got behind that Olympic buzz. And when I wrecked my knee a few months later, she kind of just sat me down and explained that these were the experiences from London, and that I could also potentially have those experiences.

At the same time, she got me involved with coaching, and Bruce Craven, from Saskatchewan, who was training me at the time, also got me involved in the exercise physiology component.

In the careers I'm pursuing right now, both of which are high-performance and sport-related, I'm never seen being female as an obstacle. It's just a norm, too, and it's all right to pursue that.

That's kind of my sporting background and how I'm here today.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Thank you, then.

We'll move on to Whitney Bogart.

[Whitney Bogart, Paralympic Athlete, As an Individual]

My story is a little different. I'm visually impaired. I have albinism, so I was born with it. I am from a small town in northwest Ontario and my family were basically the only ones there with visual impairments, but we grew up playing sports. My parents put me in anything that I wanted to do. Often it was co-ed and often I was one of the only girls. It could be because it was a small town, but all of my friends were guys and we were friends just because of sport.

When I was getting to high-school age, my parents sat me down and talked to me, because my older brothers were already attending a provincial school for the blind in Brantford. It's a residential school, so I was only going to be home on weekends. I wasn't too keen on going but they told me my opportunities for sport would pretty much end at high school if I chose to stay home. I didn't realize just how badly I could see; apparently it was pretty badly.

I ended up attending the school and I was introduced to any sport available to the visually impaired. There's swimming, track, whatever. I started with swimming, and then I found goalball. Goalball opened up a whole new world for me. I learned about the Paralympics when I was in grade 9. I didn't even know about it. I learned that I can play for Ontario. Then I learned that I can play for Canada. I thought, “This is pretty cool”. I started with goalball and from day one I had to kind of always push for the spots that I wanted, and to get where I wanted. I made the national team after Athens, and I've been on the team every year since except the Beijing team. I was not selected for it.

I have lots of experience internationally with goalball and I've been to two Paralympic Games. It has just been amazing, the opportunities that are given to us, as the others have already said, with the stuff we got to do. Even yesterday, there were opportunities that the average person doesn't get. I have so many people who are jealous about me getting to do my selfie with Mr. Trudeau. It was pretty amazing.

My sporting history is pretty simple. I found the sport I wanted to do and I just pushed for it. That's my history.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Ms. Gauthier.

[Shelley Gauthier, Paralympic Athlete, As an Individual]

I have it written out because part of my disability is memory problems. I'm going to read it, if that's okay.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

That's perfectly fine.

[Shelley Gauthier]

I have physical education and physiotherapy degrees, just for you to get an idea of my background. I participated at the University of Western Ontario in ice hockey and then I did a physiotherapy degree at the University of Toronto, where I participated in soccer and ice hockey. I now compete in the individual sport of para-cycling because post-head injury, team sports would not work for me.

I have tried basketball in a wheelchair and sledge hockey. There are only elite opportunities to play, and there's very little female opportunity in sledge hockey, so there is no grassroots or educational opportunities that exist for those.

There are three points that I'd like to make about female disabled sports. That's a little different from able-bodied sport.

First of all, sports are different for a person with a disability. City accessibility committees seem to worry about physical structures such as curbs and ramps. Little thought is given to sport mobility devices that disabled women use for fitness and what assistance they need to use the mobility device to successfully do a workout or sport. No grassroots programs are in existence to allow for the disabled woman to set goals to become involved in elite sports, so basically in the beginning, disabled people sit in their houses and don't know how to get involved. There aren't any opportunities to get involved in many places across our country.

Second, active supervision and leadership are lacking for disabled female athletes. Often there are facilities such as pools adapted for disabled athletes. Coaches and activity partners are required at the grassroots recreational level to provide a program for female disabled youth and adults. This needs to be provided. Cities boast about having accessible pools where you can use a ramp to get in, but they don't have any programs to accept disabled people. Females and males can go to the pool, but then how do they get in? How do they swim? They need either an activity buddy or someone, a staff member, there to walk with them or get them into the water and get them moving.

Third, in elite disabled women's sport, few females are coaches and are providing leadership. In my para-cycling team, there are no female coaches or managers. No form of leadership at the elite level is female.

Thirdly, what about facilities and time given by cities, schools, or universities to female disabled sports? It doesn't seem to exist. There are no grassroots or recreational programs for female disabled sports. If somebody at U of T wants to go into a program or wants to play inner tube water polo and they're disabled, there are no opportunities for them yet.

Disabled women are taxpayers too, so we need to get facilities and cities involved, because 16% of Canadians are disabled, and that number is just going to go up.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Thank you. I think we're getting close to our time there, so I'm going to have to move to the questions.

First, we'll go to Mr. Samson.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you very much. I appreciate what you all shared very much.

If you felt that yesterday was powerful for you, I have to say, as an elected MP, it was extremely powerful for me as well. It made me so proud of what you've done, what you do, and how we need to do more to help.

Listening to all of you speaking, it's extremely touching. You talked about your experience with the wheelchair and beginning to choose a sport. I just finished reading a biography of Terry Fox, and that's what he did. He was playing wheelchair basketball for awhile and trying to learn the game as well, but the challenges that you've all been through are just amazing. The outlook that you have is something we could all learn from. This is the first piece, which is so important.

I thank you very much for everything you've done and everything you do, but we need to do more. I was not aware that 16% of Canadians are disabled. That's a very high number. We talk about lenses. We'd better put this lens on and we'd better put it on quickly because we need to do more.

I have a couple of quick questions that I'd like to ask. First, realizing that there are really positive movements for paralympians in Canada and the world, what do you believe we should do to continue to inspire female participation in sports, as you people are doing? You shared some examples, but if any of you would like to tell us what else we could do as a government to try to get more women and girls participating in sports?

[Tracey Ferguson]

I think because I've been involved in the sports system for so long, I've seen it evolve. There are a number of policies that have been enacted by government, including women and sport policies, and policies for athletes with disabilities, that encourage inclusion and promote dedicated funding for those avenues and for promoting opportunities for people with disabilities.

Through some of the sport programs of the Canadian Paralympic Committee and our national sport organizations, such as Canada Basketball with Wheelchair Basketball Canada as a parallel organization, they go out to communities and inform small towns. If there's one kid in a wheelchair, how can that school get involved? We can bring in other wheelchairs, if they want to play wheelchair basketball. How do they pursue avenues to access equipment funds? Whether it's through CPC or the NSOs, those programs need support. The legislation that created them has advanced the movement, but it needs to go further. I think that's a really strong one; we've made some steps, but we can't just rest on those laurels. We need to advance them.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Would anyone else like to touch on that?

[Erica Gravel]

I agree with Tracey that we're moving forward, including with the partnership between Canada Basketball and Wheelchair Basketball Canada. Even in the school system, we need to incorporate wheelchair sport as part of the curriculum. In Saskatchewan, we have the Saskatchewan Wheelchair Sports Association, and they have a bunch of chairs. Schools are reaching out to it, but it's not mandated. The way the chairs are, anyone can play. I think that would be a step in the right direction.

[Shelley Gautier]

I think it's educating people about what's happening. In Ontario, the law says that everyone is equal, and so technically they have to provide disabled sport for people in schools, universities, and communities. Nobody has gone to court to test it, and because of that, it hasn't been said that you have to do this. We have this law in Ontario, and I think it's by educating.... I'm trying to educate them at U of T. I met with the president and informed him that we have to get something in here so people can get active and not only study.