Evidence of meeting #104 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was athletes.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Is it not the case then that as the minister of government.... This is the problem I find with the Liberal government. You act as though you're not in power. You've been the minister of this, you're now back and you have the ability to provide regulation and oversight that doesn't require any of this. It's also true that recommendations can come from a commission that further enhance your ability to hold people accountable.
Do you not agree that this is your prerogative as the minister?
NDP
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Now we'll go to the Conservatives and Kevin Waugh.
Kevin, you have five minutes, please.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister and officials, for being here.
In your news conference yesterday, you blamed the problems we see today on the sports system. I've been saying for two years that we can blame it on Sport Canada. I think they threw your former sports minister, Ms. Duncan, under the bus. They're unaccountable to anybody. We have seen this time and time again. The 62 NSOs can go to them with an issue and the accountability stops there.
I really have a problem with Sport Canada, and you do too. I know because you're a former Paralympian. You know the issues with Sport Canada. We don't take them seriously, and the 62 NSOs never have. It's an organization, as I said, that is unaccountable, and I think it is going to sink this report, if you don't mind me saying so.
What are your thoughts on that?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
I don't disagree with everything you've said. I think that there is a need for strength and accountability. I think there's a need for Sport Canada to get back to the core business of government, which is oversight of the dollars we spend in a sector.
That's exactly the direction I've given to the department, but we need to get our house in order. I've made that pretty clear.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
What changes have you made then as minister to Sport Canada, because you know there's a problem there?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
We're recently hired a new director general. As I said, we are integrating the funding. Sport Canada has a group of individuals who are not trained in compliance and accountability who manage the funding framework, and then we have a separate new group of client compliance and accountability. Those two are being integrated so that the expertise in compliance and accountability is not going to be overridden by the sport administration expertise.
I would say, with respect, that a lot of Sport Canada officials have—
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Another problem I have, Minister, is that there are five or six, or even seven, sport organizations that really don't need government funding. You can't dangle the carrot to them and say, “If you don't do this, you're not going to get federal funding.” I can name six or seven of the sport organizations that today don't need a dime from you.
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
I don't think you're wrong. That's the problem with the levers we currently have, and you're not wrong. I think about that and I'm trying to—
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
I can name them too, but your point is well taken. If the lever I have is funding and they don't need the funding, what levers do I have?
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
You have nothing then. That's the issue particularly with gymnastics, with Hockey Canada, with soccer. That's the crux. You've just said it—funding does not fix everything.
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
I've now been at ESDC and PSPC before that, and in any kind of grants and contributions model with stakeholders, the lever you have is the grants and contributions. If people don't need your money, you can't make them do things unless you have a regulatory body, and I think that is what is needed.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
When Canadians are listening here today, they want timelines, they want fines and they want legal action. Can this happen?
Liberal
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
We can't right now, no.
We can sue them for non-compliance with our funding agreement, because that's the contractual relationship we have.
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
That's not exactly what we would do. We would more likely cut off funding.
Your point is so well made. I'm not disagreeing with you about how blunt the tools are.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
We have a discrepancy in this country where we have 62 NSOs and 50-some of them are on the verge, any day, of not being in compliance because they don't have the capacity.
I can go through those organizations that, with your announcement yesterday, are kind of sitting back and thinking, “How are we going to deal with this? We have no people in the office.”
December 12th, 2023 / 12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
I would say a couple of things to that.
I think part of the challenge for them is that we've really heavily laden our funding requirements with things that we actually don't need in order to make sure they're providing safe sport.
We've really front-end loaded a lot of paperwork and administration. Part of the exercise of streamlining and making it risk-based is getting through all that noise. I want to know the 10 things that we need to ask of these people to be able to hold them accountable.
Are they in compliance with the not-for-profit act? Do they have a certain governance structure? Do they have all of these policies?
I think there are just things that we can do. I also think that there's an exercise to be done to reduce the number of national sport organizations that we have.