Were there any records—
Evidence of meeting #61 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 hockey.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #61 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 hockey.
A video is available from Parliament.
10:55 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
Mr. Julian, I can tell you that had that been the case, I would have not completed the mandate.
10:55 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Were there any records that you requested that were non-existent?
10:55 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
Yes, as I noted in the report, we obviously wanted to see any existing policy documents concerning any of the various funds that we studied, and we learned that there were no such documents. It wasn't a matter of the documents were missing. As far as we could understand, the documents had never been created.
10:55 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Thank you for that.
Were there any questions that you asked where you simply did not receive a satisfactory response?
10:55 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Your final report was issued on October 31. Your report recommended that the current board not re-offer. On October 11, after the appearance here before the Heritage Committee, the current board announced that it was not going to re-offer.
Was there any communication made, prior to October 31, of your recommendation? Would it have been known to the board members on October 11 that you were recommending that the current board not re-offer?
10:55 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
No, I believe that my recommendation followed that appearance. We might have to double-check the chronology, but the two operated independently in my mind.
10:55 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Yes, I understand that, but is it possible that the board, or some members within Hockey Canada, were aware at that point that it was your intent to make that recommendation?
10:55 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
To the best of my knowledge, they would have had no indication that was coming from me until they received it.
10:55 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Okay. Thank you for that.
You mentioned earlier that your responsibilities did not include responding to specific cases, but we have these horrific allegations from 2003 and 2018. In terms of how Hockey Canada responds to these horrific allegations, the issue of how Hockey Canada handles sexual assaults or horrific allegations of sexual violence is extremely important.
Are there any elements, beyond your report, that you can tell us, as a committee, are important for Hockey Canada to do moving forward?
10:55 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
I think you'll see from the length of the report that I didn't leave too much out. I can't think of anything that I felt was important that emerged from my review that is not referred to in what I've provided.
11 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
You mentioned earlier, you said—and I have quotation marks around you, so I hope I've recorded this accurately—that there was concern that the issue of the amount of the monies available in the funds could “invite claims, if people recognized the size of the reserve.”
Is that an accurate portrayal of how Hockey Canada saw the issue of governance in responding to these horrific allegations, in a way that was not forthcoming to the public?
11 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
In fact, you've referred to the reference I was searching for in response to Mrs. Thomas a few moments ago. All I can say is that was the explanation that was offered for the reluctance to disclose the size of those reserve funds.
11 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
What is your response to that? Certainly we've seen the response of the Canadian public, the sponsors and the provincial federations to Hockey Canada's, quite frankly, stonewalling on information of this nature.
What is your response when you see what was an internal decision within Hockey Canada to try to handle these issues quietly rather than responding in a transparent way?
11 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
I've responded to that in many different ways. I think two of the most important are, number one, having a clear and robust policy framework to deal with these matters, and not dealing with them as ad hoc one-offs. Second of all, transparency is obviously important. The COC code suggests that financial statements ought to be made public. In my view, that's sound advice.
11 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Do you believe Hockey Canada should be releasing the victims who want or choose to do so from the NDAs that link them to the compensation they received?
11 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
I don't want to opine on that. I don't know all the facts. I certainly didn't study that issue at all.
11 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Kevin Waugh
Thank you, Mr. Julian.
We'll move to our second round. This will be a five-minute round that will start with the Conservatives.
Go ahead, Ms. Gladu.
December 13th, 2022 / 11 a.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Justice Cromwell, thank you for being here today. I'm going to be taking up questions with a view to trying to figure how to close the loopholes in order to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.
Now, speaking as a professional engineer who travelled globally and worked for national and global organizations, in every organization there would have been a governance description that would have a code of conduct and HR procedures for dealing with issues of harassment, etc. Did you find any such governance documents within Hockey Canada?
11 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
Yes, we did. I think we detailed them in the report.
We certainly also found that there were areas where, as you say, the policy framework was lacking, in our view. We made specific recommendations in that regard.
11 a.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Yes. I did appreciate that. I thought you did an excellent job of detailing the gaps that were there.
The reason I'm so concerned is that I would have expected, if there were gaps at that level, that at the Sport Canada level, where Sport Canada is funding organizations, they would have had some policy requirements as well. I did go to the government website and print out quite an extensive policy document from Sport Canada, but nothing in there talks about actions or codes of conduct to prevent abuse or how to address the situation if someone comes forth with an allegation of abuse.
When I see the numerous sports organizations.... We've heard about swimmers and gymnasts. There's quite a list here that Sport Canada is funding. I think it's important to fund, but in order to make sure that this rampant abuse that is happening across all of these organizations is ended, do you have some recommendations for us on what ought to be done at the Sport Canada level, including with regard to the auditing of those who are funded to ensure that we have compliance and a safe environment?
11 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
As you'll understand, my task was to assess the governance of Hockey Canada, not to do a review of Sport Canada. I more than had my hands full in 89 days to do Hockey Canada. It was not practical to go further, and I had no mandate to do so.
I did set out in the report some of the current aspects of Hockey Canada's involvement in these issues. I wanted to set out the full legal context within which the governance of Hockey Canada has to be assessed. I noted some academic writing to the effect that Sport Canada perhaps ought to play a more robust role. I did note the sorts of conditions that were included in the contribution agreement, which is their behaviour modification tool. I also learned in the course of my review that, in that context, Sport Canada is in the midst of revising, as I think the minister and other officials indicated in their testimony before you.
I'm in no position to say what is the best or what they ought to do. I simply tried to note what the existing situation is and what is said is being done as we speak.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you.
One of the other concerns I had throughout this was that I had previously been involved when the sexual misconduct in the military was being reviewed. It was troubling to learn there were incidents from 1994, and carrying on and on and on and on, without really firm action being taken. Even from the time the newest allegations came out, it took almost a year of getting the runaround before we had a new minister put in place. I believe she's going to provide an update today on what is happening there.
In terms of the Hockey Canada history, it seems to me that there were a number of payouts for assault from the different funds—the $8.9 million in 1989, the $7.6 million paid for nine other ones out of the national equity fund, and 12 additional claims through the insurance fund. During all this time, it didn't appear that there was any action taken.
Is that a fair statement, from your review of their activity?
11:05 a.m.
Senior Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, As an Individual
I don't think it's entirely fair because certainly there were programs, both at the local level and assisted nationally. Whether, of course, they were robust enough or adequate is a whole other story, but I think it would be unfair to say that nothing was done.