Canadian Heritage Committee on July 26th, 2022

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

But the other parts.... I understand that we don't have the interim report, so we don't know to what extent you made other recommendations, but even there it has not been fully implemented. Is that correct?

[Danielle Robitaille]

I think that this is a question over which a claim of solicitor-client privilege has been made, and I'm not authorized to waive it.

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

How did—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

That's the end of the session. I want to thank the witness, Ms. Robitaille, for being present. We have now run out of time for this hour, and we will be suspending to move to the next session with the deputy minister and the department.

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I now call this meeting to order. Pursuant to the standing committee's recommendations, this meeting is with regard to Hockey Canada's involvement in alleged sexual assaults committed in 2018.

For this hour, we have appearing Michel Ruest, senior director, programs, Sport Canada branch; and Madame Isabelle Mondou from the department.

Mr. Ruest, you specifically were asked to come to replace someone else. We, therefore, would like to give you six minutes to begin, and then we will move on to questions and answers.

Begin please.

[Michel Ruest, Senior Director, Programs, Sport Canada Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and esteemed members of the committee.

My name is Michel Ruest, and I am the director of the Programs division in the Sport Canada Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage. I have been in this role since the fall of 2017.

With me today is Isabelle Mondou, deputy minister of Canadian Heritage.

As the director of the Programs division, I am responsible for the management of Sport Canada's three funding programs; the athlete assistance, hosting and sport support programs. I'm also responsible for interacting with federally funded national sport organizations, Hockey Canada being one of them.

First, I would like to explain the process of how Sport Canada receives notifications of incidents of harassment, abuse and discrimination, and also when it became a requirement for national sport organizations to disclose those incidents to Sport Canada.

The disclosure process came into effect in June 2018 following a ministerial announcement by Minister Duncan about stronger measures being put in place by Sport Canada to help counter abuse in sport.

As of that date, federally funded sport organizations were to take all necessary measures to create a workplace free from harassment, abuse or discrimination of any kind.

They were required to disclose any incident of harassment, abuse or discrimination. They were to make provisions—within their governance framework—for access to an independent third party to address harassment and abuse cases, and they had to provide mandatory training on harassment and abuse to their members.

Sports organizations were also required to have a formal policy to address harassment and abuse in order to receive federal funding.

Following the announcement of these requirements in 2018, federally funded sport organizations began to disclose to Sport Canada incidents of harassment, abuse or discrimination in June 2018.

I will take a moment to describe the disclosure process to Sport Canada for you. The Sport Canada program analyst is advised by a given national sport organization that an incident has occurred. This information is then conveyed to the program analyst's manager, director and director general. It is then entered into a tracking document, and statistics relating to the number of cases and sports involved are communicated to higher levels.

On some occasions, allegations have been communicated by other stakeholders and to various departmental officials. When this happens, the program analyst checks with the organization to confirm the information.

The role of the program analyst is to ensure federally funded sport organizations have appropriate policies and independent processes in place and that, when an incident is disclosed, to ensure that organizations activate their internal policies and that complainants have access to an independent third party to review complaints and conduct investigations, or else they are referred to the relevant authorities, if required.

Note that Sport Canada does not have the mandate or authority to conduct investigations into incidents. Disclosures include minimal information and, in accordance with the Privacy Act, they do not include the names of any individuals unless they are already in the public domain.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We will begin the question and answer period. Thank you very much.

We're going to begin with a six-minute round, starting with the Conservatives and John Nater.

Go ahead, John.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Madame Chair.

Hockey Canada says that they notified Ms. Nicole Mulligan on June 26. Is that accurate?

[Michel Ruest]

Yes, that's correct.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

On what date did you become aware of these allegations?

[Michel Ruest]

The same day.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

You noted the process that the managing director and director general would be notified. Were they notified on the same day as well?

[Michel Ruest]

According to procedure, it is usually done the same day.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Who else in the organization was made aware of these allegations?

[Michel Ruest]

Once the director general is informed of a case, we communicate statistics on the case to officials at higher levels. At this point, that's the program officer, the director and the director general.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Was the minister's office made aware of these allegations?

[Michel Ruest]

That was probably the case, but not specifically. The information provided to the higher levels includes statistics on the cases so they are aware of what is going on in the world of sport.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

At that time, then minister Kirsty Duncan made an announcement. Two weeks later, these allegations came to light, and no one within the department saw fit to notify the minister or the minister's office of these major allegations from one of the largest national sports organizations? No one thought that was necessary?

[Michel Ruest]

We did the checks to see if the authorities had been informed, if a third party had been made available to the alleged victim, and if Hockey Canada had provided that information.

That's what we did at the time.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

In your opening comments, you made note that you're responsible for funding programs, including the national sport support program and the hosting program. You were personally made aware of these allegations, correct?

[Michel Ruest]

Yes.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

When $1.5 million was given to the national sport support program and $50,000 through the sport hosting program—I can go on—at each point in time, when Hockey Canada was being given millions of dollars, you were personally aware and didn't flag in the process that there were these major allegations within Sport Canada?

[Michel Ruest]

This is a level of risk we take into consideration in our funding analyses.

However, since investigations were ongoing, there was no need at that time to restrict or remove funding.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

So you didn't consider it a significant risk that an organization was under a cloud of sexual assault allegations? You didn't consider that was a sufficient risk to flag each time these funding decisions were being made? Is that what you're saying?

[Michel Ruest]

At that time, we were waiting for the results of the investigation.