Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I can appreciate Mr. Julian's suggestion that this committee address Bill C-11 first and then move on to this issue with Hockey Canada. I can maybe appreciate it in the sense of its just trying to get one thing done and then going on to the next, but I do believe that in this case there is definitely a responsibility that we have as members of Parliament to first address these very serious allegations with Hockey Canada.
It is not only because it's possibly Government of Canada funding that may have been used as part of what looks like a cover-up of sexual assault on an individual by hockey players, but also because I would never want Canadians to think that somehow we put off possibly looking into a situation where maybe professional athletes are given the benefit of the doubt or being passed by for scrutiny because we figured we had more important things to do. This is of utmost importance.
I know that Mrs. Thomas went through some of the details, and after hearing those details, I would suggest that in no way would I feel comfortable in saying that we do not look into this immediately. I think that would be most important.
I do believe that there was no timeline set for Bill C-11 to go back to the House. We do have time, so I believe that as a matter of urgency for our committee, and also just respecting the will of the House of Commons, which unanimously.... This is something that does not happen often, where we have a unanimous vote in the House of Commons to address a situation. I believe that our colleagues, members of Parliament from all sides of the House, are looking to us to address this. I don't think it would be responsible for us to go back to them and say, “Yes, but we had other things we were planning on doing.” This is something that has been handed to us as a committee, and we definitely do have a responsibility to address it, I would say, immediately.
I know there is going to be a little bit of time that will be needed to decide which witnesses we want to bring forward, and there are going to be legal issues here. There are sensitivities in a number of different ways that we would have to address, with some things possibly being in camera, so there are a number of things we have to consider.
I think it would be absolutely important that we move on to this new study, study the issue, do it properly and do what I would say is our job, to address these types of issues and to give Canadians confidence that we have taken this very seriously.
Once that is completed, we'll get back to Bill C-11. Bill C-11 is not going anywhere. This is something that...are changes to the Internet. There are different views on it, and we would continue to study that and continue to hear from witnesses, which is also, of course, part of our job.
I think it is of utmost importance that we do address this, especially considering that we don't have an actual timeline for either. I will say that even the House of Commons' unanimous motion that was provided to this committee did not have a timeline, but, considering the nature of those issues, I think it would be most important.
Even if you asked the Minister of Sport, I believe she also would agree that it is absolutely important that we look into the situation. It is very serious, and I would not want to face my constituents, letting them know that we put it off to address something else, and then all of a sudden the House adjourns or something for the summer, and we end up not looking into it. I think it is very important that we do look into this.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.