Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 15th, 2022

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Was this statement true?

[Pat McLaughlin]

I'm sorry; I missed that.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I'm asking you if this statement was true.

[Pat McLaughlin]

Again, I'm not being evasive. It's not my area of expertise. My understanding is that it is true. I know that a number of our members shared that on their website and with their members, and we also held virtual town halls to walk through questions that people had—

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. McLaughlin, they did, and that's the reason I'm so concerned about it, because Justice Cromwell, on page 151 of his report, found no indication that any safety, well-being or wellness initiatives were ever paid for from this fund. Basically, you advised your members that the fund had all kinds of altruistic components in addition to paying out these claims, but it turns out that it wasn't true at all. It turns out that was absolutely false, and he acknowledges that in his report.

Basically, it seems to me that there was a communication strategy to advise the public that the fund had various good things in addition to the negative. That's what scares me.

Let me ask you a different question. In 2014, the financial statement said, “The National Equity Fund balance has been accumulated as a precaution against judgments that may be made against the Association as a result of current or future claims.” That is true. Then, it says, “The Association is currently involved in defending legal actions resulting from accidents and injuries involved in CHA play. Provision has been made for estimated settlements and fees related to these actions.”

In 2015, the wording in the financial statement was changed from “accidents and injuries involved in CHA play” to “defending legal actions resulting from accidents and injuries involved in sanctioned hockey activities”.

Do you know why the change was made from the 2014 to the 2015 financial statement to change “accidents and injuries involved in CHA play” to “accidents and injuries involved in sanctioned hockey activities”?

[Pat McLaughlin]

I appreciate the question. This is one of these ones, again, Mr. Housefather, to which I don't have an answer. It's not my area.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Fair enough.

[Pat McLaughlin]

I do apologize. I take note of your previous comment on our communication. I'm going to go back and have a look at that to see what needs to be done to rectify that.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

That's fair enough, because my concern, again—and this comes back to Mrs. Thomas's question—is that you're telling the world that the fund is meant to defend legal actions resulting from accidents and injuries in “sanctioned hockey activities”, which is a wider thing, versus previously “in CHA play”. Before, you were saying it was on the ice; now, you're saying it's sanctioned activities off the ice.

Mr. McLaughlin, would you say that the 2018 alleged sexual misconduct incident with the players assaulting a woman in a hotel room would be “sanctioned hockey activities”?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Housefather, you are now well over your time. I understand you will have the next slot for questions. Maybe you can bring that up again.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Yes, for sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Now, I will go to Mr. Lemire for two and a half minutes.

Go ahead, please, Mr. Lemire.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. McLaughlin, the players who take part in Hockey Canada's programs, including the hockey championships, are borrowed from Canadian junior hockey leagues. You mentioned that you are still a signatory to the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner, the OSIC. However, Hockey Canada is not an OSIC member.

Would you still be able to borrow players from your partners and allow them to play in the impending world championships?

[Pat McLaughlin]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Lemire, for the question.

The answer is yes, we will. We have an arrangement with the Canadian Hockey League, and the CJHL. We look forward to those players being part of our programming.

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

Does hockey Canada meet all its obligations with Sport Canada? And has your funding been restored?

[Pat McLaughlin]

We have a number of commitments to Sport Canada for the funding to be re-established. As you mentioned earlier, we have signed with OSIC, which is a very important step for us.

We've also instituted mandatory sexual assault and consent training. All of our athletes, staff and volunteers are part of that.

We've been 100% compliant since September 1, which is really important as we move forward. We'll continue to build on that.

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

Indeed.

Earlier, you mentioned that Justice Cromwell was an expert in governance, that you were not, and that's why you had consulted him.

However, you also consulted the public relations firm Navigator, rather than experts in education, awareness, and prevention of sexual violence, assaults and bullying.

Isn't that a contradiction?

[Pat McLaughlin]

That may be one way to look at it. I prefer to look at it and say that we needed help in a number of areas. One of the areas where we needed help with was governance. Navigator helped us with that.

We have a lot of work to do on the education and sexual assault and consent training that you're speaking to. We worked with the Waterloo sexual assault centre and other experts—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Pat McLaughlin]

—to try to build us out to be much better than we are.

I look at it as an investment, the number. It's a multi-faceted approach that we need to take in order to move forward and drive transformational change.

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

We learned yesterday that some documents were submitted by Mr. MacKenzie of the Canadian Hockey League, including a copy of the Heinen Hutchinson report that he had received in 2019.

Did Sports Canada receive the same copy of the Heinen Hutchinson report in 2019?

Why don't you want to make this report public now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Please be concise, Mr. McLaughlin.

[Pat McLaughlin]

Thank you for the question.

I'm not sure what the CHL has done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

I think that is the end of Mr. Lemire's round.

I'm going to go to Mr. Julian for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to come back to you, Mr. Nicholson.

On the issue of Dan Church and the 2013-14 women's national team, you talked about performance issues. I'm curious as to why an NDA would be signed in this context. If a coach was fired for performance issues, was imposing an NDA something that Hockey Canada did systematically under your tenure, or were there special conditions around this that, in the opinion of Hockey Canada, required an NDA?

Is something being covered up? That is my question.