Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 15th, 2022

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Sir, I read in one news report that of the $20 that parents pay to put their kids in hockey, $13 went to these reserve funds to, in part, pay off sexual assault victims.

Why do you think that outraged parents, and what does it actually cost to put kids into hockey so that they can have fun playing hockey?

[Bob Nicholson]

I really feel that when you look at the funds for hockey and what the costs are, you see that there's the insurance fund, which when I was there was approximately $11, and there's a fee of $3 for individuals to play. That $3 hasn't increased, I don't think, over the last number of years. Insurance might have gone up.

However, the real costs and fees to kids start to be charged at the provincial, regional and minor hockey levels. The majority of the funds that Hockey Canada generates go back to helping participants with the programs and that. Hockey Canada was fortunate to build a lot of revenue from international events: 18% of international events—women's world championships, world juniors—goes back to grassroots programming. I'm not saying it's for fees, but it certainly helps all of the grassroots programming that's developed in the country.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. McLaughlin, as brand manager, I'm wondering if you can describe for us what it did to the Hockey Canada brand when all of the sponsors mentioned by my colleague earlier left Hockey Canada and when places like Ontario and Quebec pulled out of Hockey Canada. What did that do to your brand?

[Pat McLaughlin]

There's no question that this has been extremely challenging, which would be an understatement. We had significant meetings with the members on October 15 and October 16. The members have made it clear that they're behind us, but they've made it clear that we need a lot of work to be done. With respect to the sponsors, I can share with this group that it's around $23.5 million to $24 million that our CFO has forecast will be the impact of where we are today.

Some of those dollars are due to the events we hosted—the world championships—during COVID. We had an obligation to the IIHF to host those, but more importantly, we wanted to provide an opportunity for our athletes to compete. It also came at an expense when you're running in a bubble with no fans and those types of things.

Specifically with regard to your point about the incident of 2018, we have sponsors that are in two or three categories. One category is that they're out altogether. The other category is that they've postponed or delayed, and there's another category where partners have said that they're going to reposition their dollars towards grassroots hockey, towards women's and girls' hockey, or towards para athletes. However, while that's great and we're very appreciative of the repositioning of the dollars—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Would you please wrap up, Mr. McLaughlin?

[Pat McLaughlin]

—the reality is that that's not dollar for dollar. It's cents on the dollar. It comes at a significant cost to us, without question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Now I think we have time for a third round if everyone tries to be concise and sticks to their time.

In the third round, we would begin with the Conservatives—Marilyn Gladu—for five minutes.

Marilyn, you have five minutes, please.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I must say it is really disheartening. I've been a parliamentarian for seven years now, and I was the chair of the status of women committee. From the beginning, we've been trying to reduce and eliminate violence against women and girls. I was presiding over...all of the military sexual assault history, of years and years of a culture that has really.... We've still not seen much improvement.

To see Hockey Canada in a similar situation, with allegations from 2003 to 2018.... I'm not sure how bad the situation has to be in order to have three funds to pay off victims, but this is really disturbing. I want to say that you can't change the past—and I hope that people will come forward, survivors—but you can change the future, so I want to focus on the culture change that's needed.

My first question is for Mr. McLaughlin.

One thing that's very important is understanding consent. Anybody who hasn't seen the video out on YouTube called “Tea Consent” needs to go take a look at that.

Have you been through the mandatory violence and consent training that you mentioned is part of your action plan?

[Pat McLaughlin]

Thanks for the question, and thank you for the work that you did. I wasn't aware that was the work that you do. I share the concerns that you and all Canadians have.

I have taken the training. I found it to be incredibly valuable. There's a lot more that I have to learn in this area, but it was certainly very beneficial.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

What do you think needs to be done in order to change the culture of the players? I think there's been a lot of effort spent on coaches, and I think that was right, but for the players to understand that naked and unconscious is not consent, what needs to be done?

[Pat McLaughlin]

It's a spectrum. To me, it goes back a little bit to Mr. Julian in previous hearings when he asked what we're doing around reporting of numbers and what we're doing around maltreatment, abuse and harassment.

There's a lot of work that we are doing. We're getting prepared to release a report in the next little bit that will share our first attempt to move forward and be better in this area. At the end of the day, a lot of it is around education.

We have a lot of work to do. I think we've been clear on that. We're not the experts; we are consulting with the experts. I think everyone here expects us to do that, and our members have been clear on that, so we come here from a position of.... Whether this is a power play or a penalty kill, running a world-class event or doing things through grassroots hockey.... We're not the best, but we feel we're good, and we can certainly get help on that, but at this stage that we're talking about, we need a lot of help.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Yes, certainly. Thank you.

I am also concerned that, although some of the allegations happened years ago, there don't seem to have been any consequences for those whom the allegations are against. Is your organization taking any action in that light?

[Pat McLaughlin]

I'm like you. I don't want to dwell on the negative past but focus on a positive future. What I can tell you is that we have an independent third party mechanism that's now in place. We have now joined OSIC, and I think that, working with those two expert groups, we'll be in a much better position as we move forward.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

This is a question for Mr. Nicholson.

You mentioned that Sport Canada was sort of in an oversight position, knowing what was happening at Hockey Canada all those years.

What control should the government be putting in place to ensure that we're not continually funding organizations that we then find out are having sexual assault issues or funding anti-Semites, and all of these different issues come up? What should the government do to show better governance there?

[Bob Nicholson]

I think you're doing a good job with the way the committee is working now. I think you're getting a lot more information to put the right platforms and the right topics in it to move forward.

On transparency, I'm assuming that Hockey Canada has really learned from this and that they will change their ways. I think the other key thing is for you as government to put in those platforms—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Bob Nicholson]

—that are really necessary for NSOs to get funding. A lot of it is around expenses. A lot of it is around communication internally within NSOs and then how they have to report to government.

I've even thought further of how you report to your partners, your partners being your 13 branches and all of your sponsors, because you need sponsors for sport to grow in the country for young boys and girls.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Gladu.

I will now go to the Liberal Party and Chris Bittle.

Chris, you have five minutes, please.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Housefather will take the questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right.

Go ahead, Anthony.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I want to come to Mr. McLaughlin.

First of all, again, I thank you for your sincerity in your comments today. Your tone is very clear.

My colleague Mr. Julian appropriated some of the questions that I had for you about Navigator. I think that the story today is that you've spent $1.6 million on Navigator.

In the Cromwell report, on page 192, it says that you're in charge of “developing and implementing Hockey Canada's communication strategy”, Mr. McLaughlin. You're saying that the board is the one that influenced you or instructed you to approach a crisis management company like Navigator. When it came to the board strategy in August, where the board took the position that it wanted to fight back and that it wanted to counter the negative media, are you saying that this came only from the board and that it was not Navigator's advice?

[Pat McLaughlin]

Thanks, Mr. Housefather. I'm not sure that I'm allowed to compliment you on your nice blue shirt, so I won't.

To answer your question directly, we were advised early on in June—and not by Navigator—that in situations like this, boards and senior staff quite often are in a defence mode. They try to defend and justify. I think it took all of us—not just the board—a while to get through that.

I do want to share one example if I can, and it's important. It will get back to the board comment in a second. We had a staff meeting on August 4. We thought we were doing a really good job of communicating with our staff. I can tell you that it was a disastrous meeting. I left that call with some of my colleagues saying, “We are not doing a good job of getting the message out.” It was awful.

Shortly thereafter, we found the same with our members. Really, the comments in the minutes are probably not the best terminology, and that's no one's fault but our own. It's really about our creating a more transparent environment and doing a better job—for example, on the questions we're getting today around the NEF and the Legacy Trust Fund—to communicate with people in the detail that's required. We haven't done a good job with that. That whole turn, Mr. Housefather, was about trying to do a better job ourselves with those people who matter most within Hockey Canada's environment.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thanks.

I agree with you. Certainly, the communications left a lot to be desired.

Let me ask you another question. You are in charge of communications. In July 2022, Hockey Canada sent a memo to its members about the equity fund. The report says that “the NEF is used to pay insurance premiums, deductibles, uninsured and underinsured claims, in addition to funding a wide range of safety, well-being and wellness initiatives, including 'counselling and treatment for players'.”

Were you involved in crafting that statement?

[Pat McLaughlin]

I didn't directly craft the statement. I certainly saw it before it went out, but I didn't directly craft that statement.