Canadian Heritage Committee on July 27th, 2022

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I practised insurance defence law for 20 years before I went into politics.

[Barry F. Lorenzetti]

My condolences.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Yes, thank you. That's why I went into politics. Finally, it's of some value here.

[Barry F. Lorenzetti]

Well, absolutely, you're really giving me a hand here.

Just to be serious for a second, the insurance companies can drag this out, as you well know, for two or three years with their reservations of rights.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Yes, so a reservation of rights letter, for those who don't know, would be an insurance company's saying, “We will work with you and possibly defend you, but we reserve our rights to deny coverage down the road if we determine that there's something that's not covered.” Is that right? That's what you mean by that.

[Barry F. Lorenzetti]

That's perfect.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

In this case—and I forget who asked the question—you said AIG, it sounds like, gave authorization to Hockey Canada to negotiate a settlement. That's not uncommon, is it?

[Barry F. Lorenzetti]

No, it's not uncommon. It's not an everyday occurrence. I think, given the circumstances and the insistence of Hockey Canada to protect the name of the victim, AIG took this into consideration seriously.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Right, so AIG would have done that with that issue in mind. I'm not trying to import their views. I don't know what they were thinking, but that would be a logical conclusion.

I think I will leave it there, sir.

I think that these issues between Hockey Canada and its insurer are not necessarily relevant to the issues at hand here, but I just want to say thank you for being here. I appreciate your answering my questions.

[Barry F. Lorenzetti]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much. You're just under the wire, James Maloney.

Now I want to go to Martin Champoux from the Bloc Québécois for two and a half minutes.

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

Madam Chair, as Mr. Champoux is absent, I will take the floor.

Mr. Lorenzetti, when did Hockey Canada start covering the Canadian Hockey League?

[Barry F. Lorenzetti]

I can't answer that question, but I can certainly provide that information to you later.

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

Thank you.

Will the all of the lawsuits basically be paid by the 650,000 families who registered their child in an amateur hockey league, meaning people who were never informed, but whose registration fees went from $8.90 to $20,000?

Are those the families who will pay for incidents involving players from other leagues?

[Barry F. Lorenzetti]

Registration fees paid by these families will not be used at all to pay for that. As I said, the fund is a...

reserve fund. The reserve fund also includes coverage for uninsured claims and insurance premiums.

I believe the one important comment that I would make with respect to the fund is the fact that it is not unusual. It is, in fact, prudent risk management to have a fund. Let me tell you why. You keep coming back to the registration. If Hockey Canada had not kept the fund and eventually had an uninsurable loss of some significance, you're right—the only way it could probably recover would be to increase registration fees for these kids. This is prudent so they don't have to go back. They're reserving this fund over a number of years.

I really don't have much more to say with respect to the fund.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

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

That's our understanding. Mr. Glen McCurdie stated it in his 2021 affidavit, paragraph 15.

There are many factors. Our understanding is that it has an impact on registration fees.

Can you help us clarify the number of settled claims? When representatives for Hockey Canada testified, we heard about nine claims, but you told us there were twelve.

Can you confirm where we're at? Why is there a difference between the number of claims? What about the three missing claims?

[Barry F. Lorenzetti]

I can't tell you why there's a difference. I'm just quoting it based on my experience and the chart I have in front of me. It says there were 12 claims over a period of about 25 years.

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

Thank you, Mr. Lorenzetti.

[Barry F. Lorenzetti]

It's my pleasure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you. That's enough time.

Now we go to Mr. Julian for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lorenzetti, you've been on the board of the Hockey Canada Foundation. What other roles have you played within Hockey Canada?

[Barry F. Lorenzetti]

Aside from being a contributor to the assist fund and some charitable donations, my only role was as past chair and vice-chair of the foundation.