Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 15th, 2022

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

Over the last few months, it's been very challenging for this committee to get to the bottom of some of the accusations and even questions we asked previously around details like the secret funds. It took us a while to get to the point of figuring out that there were actually three funds.

I want to start off by asking Mr. Nicholson if there were any additional funds beyond the three.

[Bob Nicholson]

Thank you for the question.

I can only speak about the years that I was there. Those were the three insurance funds that were in place, to the best of my knowledge.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Do you know of any other, non-insurance funds that were put in place?

[Bob Nicholson]

To the best of my knowledge, no.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

You were the CEO of Hockey Canada from 1998 to 2014. Is that correct?

Would you say that, ultimately—

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

Madam Chair, I'm sorry to interrupt Mr. Coteau, but we're not receiving any interpretation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right. I shall pause while someone checks that out and fixes it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Michael, please begin. I'm starting the clock.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you.

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have about five and a half minutes left.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay. That's perfect. Thank you.

To go back to you, Mr. Nicholson, you were the CEO of Hockey Canada from 1998 to 2014. I would assume that in the creation, implementation and maintenance of these three funds, at least two of them were done under your watch. Is that correct?

[Bob Nicholson]

Yes, it is.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Do you ultimately, as the CEO of the organization, take full responsibility for these funds?

[Bob Nicholson]

From an operational standpoint, I do.

You know, we had full-time staff who were working in insurance and risk management. They had a committee, and we had representatives from all of our 13 member branches, and then we would take those recommendations to our board.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

We've heard the words used often in media and even in the community that these funds were intended to “cover up” these horrific incidents in many cases. Would you say that they were designed to do just that?

[Bob Nicholson]

I can tell you that during my time a majority of them were around the Graham James.... Graham James was convicted. Five of the six at that time were under Graham James, and we signed NDAs. The reason we signed those NDAs at that time was as much to protect the victim. We have a couple of those individuals—Sheldon Kennedy and Theo Fleury—who came out and spoke, but the other ones we've protected with those NDAs.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

You spent 16 years as the person in charge of Hockey Canada. Over those 16 years, how many cases came across your desk of alleged sexual assault. Do you know?

[Bob Nicholson]

I can't tell you exactly. Again, the majority came through Graham James. There was one other incident that was a similar situation to that, and then there has been some discussion on a referee situation. I can't really remember. There were a couple more than that at that time.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

During your 16 years as the head of the organization and having these cases come forward, do you know how many payments were made to victims of sexual assault?

[Bob Nicholson]

I looked at that, and I think there were seven, but I'm not confident in saying that number.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I'm going to read a list of different sponsors. I'm assuming that over the 16 years you attracted a lot of these sponsors to your organization: Bauer Hockey, Nike, Canadian Tire, Telus, Scotiabank, Tim Hortons, Esso, Sobeys, Recipe Unlimited, Chevy Canada, SkipTheDishes, PepsiCo, BDO, BFL insurance, Swiss Chalet and The Keg.

All of those organizations have stopped sponsoring Hockey Canada. I'm assuming that you attracted a lot of that business to the organization. From your perspective, why do you think these brands have stopped supporting Hockey Canada?

[Bob Nicholson]

It's really tough for me to say. They made their own individual decisions to do that when a lot of this became public. It is too bad, but I don't want to speak for them.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

You can't even speculate as to why they would leave sponsoring the organization. You were there for 16 years. You know these relationships well and what they're built on.

[Bob Nicholson]

You know, I didn't see them as sponsors. I saw them as partners, so they must have lost some trust in that partnership.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Mr. Nicholson.

Michael, your time is up. Thank you.

I will go to the Bloc Québécois for six minutes, please, with Sébastien Lemire.