Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 12th, 2023

[Isabelle Mondou]

Sport Canada is responsible for athletes at the national level, so the athletes who will be on the committee will be the ones who are active at the national level, or who have been active in the last year. Some are retired, but they are still very active as former athletes.

[Emmanuelle Sajous]

If I can add as well, the criteria we developed with athletes themselves. We had a committee set up with AthletesCAN and the athlete representation project, and they came up with those criteria, which we will share with the committee.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

When you say “active”, you're not necessarily meaning active as an athlete, but active in an organization.

[Emmanuelle Sajous]

Either they are still active as an athlete or they have been retired less than a year. I think that was the criteria. You have to be a recent athlete.

[Isabelle Mondou]

Some of them are still active on the board of the organization, or they are still active in other organizations such as AthletesCAN.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Do you have a budget figure for this committee?

[Isabelle Mondou]

Of the number of athletes or the cost of the committee...?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I mean the cost to the committee.

[Isabelle Mondou]

They are not going to be remunerated, but they are going to be compensated for any costs that they incur, so they will keep whole.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

My last one is on the number. How many are on this committee?

[Emmanuelle Sajous]

We didn't decide yet. It's still open. We're going to open it, and the minister will decide.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Okay.

I'm going back to another number in this report. It says, “Percentage of Canadians (children and youth) reporting that they experience sport in a safe environment.” That's an 85% number. How was that 85% number set? Do you have any idea?

[Isabelle Mondou]

I'm not sure which study you're referring to. I'm sorry.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

In the departmental plan, listed down about four steps here, it says, “Percentage of Canadians (children and youth) reporting that they experience sport in a safe environment.” The target is 85%.

[Isabelle Mondou]

I will have to verify the source. It's from one of our departmental plans. Normally what we do regularly is survey athletes and people who participate in sport. We do surveys almost every year on how people feel in terms of feeling safe and on other questions. That's probably the result you are quoting there.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

My question would be this: Why wouldn't you have 100%? Why wouldn't your target be 100% of youth feeling safe?

[Isabelle Mondou]

I think that's what we are hoping to get with all the measures, because clearly there is still a number of people in the system who don't feel safe for different reasons, which the minister has mentioned.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I agree, but when you set it at 85%, that means—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry, Mr. Shields.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

It was a nice try.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Yes, I'm always trying.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right.

Now I go to Taleeb Noormohamed for the Liberals, for six minutes, please.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all of you for being here. It's good to see you all back.

Ms. Sajous, it's good to see you after many years.

I actually want to pick up where Mr. Shields left off, if I might, because I think it's worthy of understanding the difference between 85% and 100%. Obviously, there is in that the implication that there is a gap of people who will not feel safe or be captured.

How do we manage that in a way that gives people comfort, that gets these athletes and their families to a place where they feel that they have been done right by us? At the end of the day, that's what everybody wants. We want to make sure that at the end of this process athletes, prospective athletes, their families and victims feel that they've been heard, and feel that they can look at this and say all of this will have been worth it if nobody else goes through this.

[Isabelle Mondou]

I'm feeling that the minister expressed it very well—this requires a change of culture in the sport system. There is, too many times now, a sense that some behaviours are acceptable, whether it's yelling at people or some more severe behaviours, which the commission is going to look into.

I think what you're raising is a profound change in what is happening in sport. That includes the sports organizations, that includes the people who work in sport organizations and that includes Sport Canada, but it also includes all parents and also the provinces.

We haven't talked a lot about the provinces and territories, but lots of the local clubs, provincial clubs, are under the jurisdiction of the province. That's why it's so important, as the minister mentioned. She's going to raise it and continue to work with our colleagues at the provincial level, because this is a system. If there is a gap in the system, obviously people will not feel safe.