Canadian Heritage Committee on July 26th, 2022

[Danielle Robitaille]

I received word through outside counsel that the complainant was willing to participate. I reached out to general counsel Sean Kelly and asked for instructions to reopen my investigation, and I obtained those instructions.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

So you got a new mandate.

Is that correct?

[Danielle Robitaille]

It's the same mandate: Search for the truth.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Have there been any changes to this mandate? Was anything new added to your mandate?

[Danielle Robitaille]

No.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Has there been any communication with the Canadian hockey leagues, with the teams, to force players to be more involved in the investigation?

[Danielle Robitaille]

I don't think that's relevant at this stage in their careers.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Did you interview the person responsible for player security, at the hotel, as part of your investigation?

[Danielle Robitaille]

Again, I want to be very careful about the details of my investigation. I can indicate that I reached out to a number of witnesses, and I obtained a range of evidence.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Have you contacted David Andrews, who was president of the American Hockey League at the time these events occurred?

He told us that he didn't know. However, some players were members of the American Hockey League.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

It's the end of the session. Thank you.

[Danielle Robitaille]

I never spoke to that person.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry. The question has ended.

I will go to Mr. Julian for two and a half minutes. Thank you.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Did you hear about the shocking allegations from around 2003? Again, there were allegations of gang sexual assault. Did you hear about them at the same time as we all did, through the media?

[Danielle Robitaille]

That's correct.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Okay, so there is nothing internally prior to that.

[Danielle Robitaille]

No.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

We have with Hockey Canada, sadly, a history of not following through on recommendations. We think about the anti-sexual abuse recommendations that were supposed to be put in place by Hockey Canada. They were not put in place. Anti-racism tracking, which was committed to a couple of years ago, has not been put into place.

You are preparing recommendations for systemic change within Hockey Canada. To what degree are you confident that Hockey Canada would follow your best advice when, in these other shocking allegations and systemic problems, they have been unable to do so?

[Danielle Robitaille]

What I would say is that I complete mandates that I'm asked to complete. In this case, implementation or compliance was not part of my mandate. If I'm asked to oversee that component of a mandate, I'm happy to do that.

I think confidence in Hockey Canada vis-à-vis implementation is for the committee to determine. I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Have you seen implementation? You did table an interim report that tackled some of the systemic problems that have resulted in a complete lack of confidence, in my opinion, of the Canadian public in Hockey Canada. Has it implemented any of the recommendations that you made in your interim report?

[Danielle Robitaille]

I can indicate that I've seen some implementation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

What has been implemented?

[Danielle Robitaille]

There were recommendations around alcohol that were implemented.