You have 11 seconds.
Evidence of meeting #41 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was players.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #41 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was players.
A video is available from Parliament.
1:55 p.m.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
I hope they will be fully heard and that we will be able to restore dignity to our sport.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
1:55 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The allegations of the gang sexual violence contained in the victim's statement from 2018 are profoundly disturbing. The evidence that is emerging around the allegations of a vicious sexual assault in 2003 are disturbing. Reading the allegations contained in the Canadian Hockey League lawsuit is profoundly disturbing. It was a full range of physical and sexual abuse.
You, as the stewards of our national sport, were responsible during these periods, and your organizations were responsible for putting an end to the abuses that we're seeing. Our committee has the responsibility to continue its work to achieve that end.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much, Mr. Julian. We're right on time.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming and for spending three hours with us. You have heard suggestions that we may actually want to look at this again in September. But, as chair, I also note that I think that if Hockey Canada is going to represent Canada and junior leagues in hockey, there should be more diversity on their board—a diversity of gender, a diversity of racialized communities and a diversity of indigenous peoples. We need to represent Canada when we're making decisions with what is, in effect, Canada's national sport.
I want to thank you again.
I think what I would do is suspend for about three minutes so that people can have a health break before we go on to the final hour.
Thank you all very much.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
We now begin this meeting. This is the final hour of these hearings over these two days.
Barry Lorenzetti is the founder, president and chief executive officer of BFL Canada. Now Mr. Lorenzetti, you have five minutes to make a statement. I will give you a 30-second warning when your five minutes is going to be up. You also will be facing some questions and answers.
If you need any kind of interpretation, you will see at the bottom of your screen a globe, and if you press that, it will give you interpretation in French or English, whichever you like. If you have any problems hearing or any technical difficulty, just flag it right away. We will suspend the meeting so that we can fix it for your.
Mr. Lorenzetti, welcome to the committee. You can begin your statement now for five minutes, please.
2:05 p.m.
Barry F. Lorenzetti Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, BFL Canada
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd just like to mention that I have in my presence my lawyer, Marc-André Coulombe from Stikeman Elliott. You had received notification of this on July 26.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Yes. Excuse me, Mr. Lorenzetti. Your lawyer is not allowed to speak. He can advise you at your side. Thank you.
2:05 p.m.
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, BFL Canada
That's understood, thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee for inviting me today to appear as president and CEO of BFL Canada.
As an active member of our community, I consider it my personal responsibility to be present here today. I, like every other Canadian, was deeply saddened and shocked by the alleged sexual assaults that took place in June of 2018.
I have since read the open letter issued by Hockey Canada to Canadians and most recently their action plan to address behaviour in and around Canada's game. As a supporter of our game, I am relieved and will continue to follow closely the concrete actions introduced by Hockey Canada and its senior management to address these concerns. More importantly, I am pleased to see that Hockey Canada has reopened the investigation and that all players will be required to participate.
Like many of you, I'm convinced that professional sports must change, including hockey. That is why, for several years, BFL Canada and I committed to supporting girls and boys who play hockey through donations and participation in various initiatives.
As an entrepreneur and father of two young women, I consider it essential to eliminate barriers women must face, not only in sport, but in other areas too, including business.
For this reason, I started the Barry F. Lorenzetti Centre for Women Entrepreneurship and Leadership at the John Molson School of Business in 2021, amongst other endeavours, notably the High Performance Centre for Women's Hockey and other programs for women's hockey and our family foundation. I say this only because I want to reiterate the importance of these hearings in shedding light on the issues we continue to face in hockey and professional sports, and on the responsibility that I believe we all must take in ensuring that we create a safe and inclusive space, not only in sport but throughout Canadian society.
Before I answer your questions, and as previously communicated to this committee, I do wish to clarify that BFL Canada is an insurance brokerage and benefits consulting firm. We are not an insurance company, and we are not Hockey Canada's insurer. As an insurance broker, we have certain statutory and legal confidentiality obligations pursuant to our code of ethics and the Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services.
Although I am here voluntarily today and intend to answer each and every one of your questions to the best of my abilities, I am of course limited by these confidentiality restrictions, which I cannot violate. That being said, I will do everything I can to assist the committee.
I understand that the committee has very broad powers, but I would respectfully ask not to be placed in a situation where I would need to reveal confidential information that is readily available from other sources such as the insurer or Hockey Canada themselves, who are not bound by these same restrictions. With this in mind, I am here today to answer your questions and hope sincerely that my answers still serve to contribute to these hearings and, more generally to an essential dialogue that all Canadians should share.
Thank you.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much, Mr. Lorenzetti.
I'm going to move to the question and answer component. We begin with the Conservatives for six minutes.
Who will be the Conservative questioner?
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Mr. Lorenzetti, it's interesting that you're with BFL Canada brokerage and that you were also on, what happened to be, the 2018 foundation gala board of Hockey Canada. That's where this incident allegedly took place—at the gala.
I don't know if you heard that night what happened or if it was the next day. When did you find out about these allegations?
2:10 p.m.
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, BFL Canada
Thank you, Madam Chair.
To begin with, I was not personally at the London, Ontario gala. I had previous family commitments.
To answer your specific question, I learned of this incident without detail probably a couple of days later.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
That's interesting, because the chair of the Hockey Canada Foundation had no knowledge of what took place that day. In fact, it was several weeks or months later. Hockey Canada never informed him. He was the chair of the Hockey Canada Foundation gala and was never informed of the incident that I've talked about, and yet you being a board member, albeit not at the event, knew a couple of days later.
Yet, Mr. Andrews, I think it was, had no knowledge of this. He had no correspondence from Hockey Canada itself and yet you as a citizen had knowledge a couple of days later.
Who told you about it?
2:15 p.m.
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, BFL Canada
I learned of this through my claims manager. Of course, as you can appreciate, any information that I would receive is client privileged. I want to reiterate that I knew nothing about the horrific details of this until I found out along with all of my other fellow board members of the foundation.
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
2:15 p.m.
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, BFL Canada
We found out, I would think, just around the time the writ was issued, about May of 2022.
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
2:15 p.m.
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, BFL Canada
I was shocked.
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
You're in insurance. We had the event that took place in 2018 and then we have an agreement with the plaintiff.
Go through the steps that you as an insurance broker went through in finding out that a deal had been done between Hockey Canada and the plaintiff.
2:15 p.m.
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, BFL Canada
Could you be more specific? When you say a deal was done, do you mean when the claim was settled in 2022?
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
2:15 p.m.
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, BFL Canada
This was a decision that was made by Hockey Canada. It was referred to the insurance company, AIG, and AIG gave their blessing to Hockey Canada to settle this claim for, as you now know, the reasons that Hockey Canada gave with respect to this settlement.
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
How does BFL Canada work with Hockey Canada? Give us some insight on what you do in that company of yours.