Canadian Heritage Committee on March 23rd, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I call this meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 71 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I want to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of Thursday, June 23, 2022.

I'm going to suggest a couple of housekeeping things to you.

While masks are not mandated any longer, it is recommended that you wear one to protect yourselves from respiratory illnesses,.

I want to remind everyone that you are not allowed to take screenshots—

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

Madam Chair, I apologize for interrupting you. We're not receiving the interpretation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Are we not getting translation?

When I checked in everything seemed to be fine with the translators. I don't know what's happened since.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Michael MacPherson]

You should be good to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I shall continue and suggest to everyone that you are not allowed to take photographs or screenshots. Everything will be out on the public website so that you can see yourself and whatever was said.

Everything you say should go through the chair, so please remember to go through the chair when you're speaking. Don't speak unless I indicate that you are given the opportunity to speak.

At the bottom of your screen is a little globe icon. You can click it. For those of you in the room, I think you know what to do; you've been doing this for long enough. You can get the floor, French or English. For those here virtually, again, if you click on that you can get English or French translation.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by this committee on Tuesday, September 20, 2022, the committee is meeting to continue its study on safe sport in Canada.

We have a lineup of witnesses. For the witnesses, each of you has five minutes if you're here as an individual. If you're with a group, the group has only five minutes to present. I will give you a literal shout-out when you have 30 seconds left.

I shall begin with—

[The Clerk]

Dr. Fry, you can't see, but MP Martin Shields has his hand up.

He's requesting the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I can't see him actually, no.

Mr. Shields.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

I would request five minutes for committee business at the end of the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We're already starting this meeting very late, so it's going to be a truncated meeting. If no one is in disagreement with that, we could certainly try to give you that five minutes, Martin.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

For the witnesses, I will just list them and then I will call their name when it's time for them to go.

We have, by video conference, Dr. Teresa Fowler, assistant professor, Concordia University of Edmonton; Dr. Gretchen Kerr, professor, the faculty of kinesiology and physical education, University of Toronto; and Bruce Kidd, professor emeritus, faculty of kinesiology and physical education, University of Toronto.

Then we have ALIAS Solution Inc. Representing them, we have Vicky Poirier, president and chief executive officer, and Danny Weill, executive vice-president.

For ITP Sport and Recreation Inc., we have Allison Forsyth, chief operating officer, and Ilan Yampolsky, chief executive officer.

Then we have the World Association of Icehockey Players Unions represented by Randall Gumbley, who is a consultant.

I begin with Ms. Fowler, please, for five minutes.

You can begin now.

[Dr. Teresa Fowler, Assistant Professor, Concordia University of Edmonton, As an Individual]

Thank you. My name is Dr. Teresa Fowler. My pronouns are she and her. I'm coming to you from Concordia University of Edmonton, which is in Treaty No. 6 territory, a Métis nation of region 4.

Thank you to the committee for the time to present today and for allying parliamentarians who are working to move sport in Canada to be safe, inclusive and a site for children and youth to flourish in good health. During my five minutes I will speak about cultural reproduction through my lens as a researcher in masculinities, specifically in hockey culture, and the current brand of culture that needs to be shifted.

Cultural reproduction is a process by which cultural values and practices are passed down from generation to generation, and occurs through various mechanisms, including socialization and the media. Socialization is how individuals learn and internalize cultural norms and values through interactions with families, with peers and within social institutions such as sport. The media also shape individuals' perceptions of the world and reinforce certain cultural values and beliefs, such as broadcasting more professional men's sporting events over women's.

Cultural reproduction perpetuates existing inequalities and power structures, such as the culture of silence in sport. The culture of silence occurs when individuals or groups refrain from speaking about important issues or concerns due to fear, shame or a belief that their voice will not be heard or valued. Various factors, including power imbalance, social norms and the fear of retribution or backlash, can perpetuate the culture of silence in sport. For example, in our research with professional men's ice hockey players, many spoke about the precarity of their positions on their team. For some, there was a constant reminder of this as they had to walk past a shopping cart by the doorway—if a player did not meet the coach's expectation, they would find their equipment in a garbage bag in the shopping cart. Another player was told to not ask questions when they moved up to a different league.

In 2017, former NHL player, Corey Hirsch, wrote a poignant essay in the Players' Tribune about the impact of the culture of silence on the inability to talk about mental health issues openly. These are his words. He said:

After the morning skate, I grabbed an extra stick blade from the bin and stuffed it in my bag. When I got back to my hotel, I sat on the edge of the bed in silence and took out the blade. My plan was to break my hand and hide the injury until the next day at practice. That way, I could go down after taking a shot, and the team would send me home to recover without knowing what was really going on.

The culture of silence can have negative impacts on both individuals and society as a whole. It can prevent important issues from being addressed and perpetuate social inequalities and injustices. The culture of silence reproduces in sport due to the precarity of athletes' positions. Parents fear that their children will be benched; and children fear not meeting someone's expectations, so they remain silent even when abused. However, the culture of silence also silences. If the culture of silence continues to reproduce in sport in Canada, we will continue to have abusive players become coaches, and those coaches moved around due to their perceived fame.

Last summer we witnessed the strength of the reproduction of this culture of power through this committee, as Scott Smith refused to acknowledge his role in perpetuating a dangerous culture, and when Andrea Skinner stated to this committee that leadership changes were unnecessary. However, we have also seen positive outcomes from this committee, such as the changes happening within sport, some level of accountability, as well as people are now talking about sport in a critical way around their kitchen tables.

What we also need is action. To move sport to a place where it is safe, we must first know what we mean by “safe", and for whom. Certainly sport is not safe unless you fit the norm and you're silent, which is how this culture reproduces. For example, professional men's ice hockey remains homophobic, as highlighted by James Reimer of the San Jose Sharks this weekend refusing to wear a Pride jersey and then othering Nazem Kadri, the first Muslim to win the Stanley Cup. There are currently no outed gay men playing in the National Hockey League, and we only say “out” because it is normal to be in a heterosexual relationship.

If “safe” means that children and youth can participate in a sport free from maltreatment, then sport must disrupt how it reproduces an unhealthy culture. For that disruption, I suggest the following.

I support a call for a judicial inquiry into sport in Canada. A judicial inquiry is a powerful mechanism to reveal truths to engage accountability and transparency in government and other public institutions that receive funding from the federal government.

I call on the Government of Canada to move sport into the portfolio of health. By shifting sport into health, the lens changes. The focus changes. Instead of chasing medals and continuing an unhealthy culture, sport can be centred on health, reducing obesity, increasing well-being and providing children and families with the means to live active and healthy lives.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Dr. Fowler.

I want to ask a quick question. I have two people from the faculty of kinesiology and physical education at the University of Toronto. Are you coming as a group, or are you coming as individuals? You are written down here as individuals.

You're individuals. Okay.

Ms. Kerr, you have five minutes, please.

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr, Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to appear before you today. It's wonderful that the Canadian heritage parliamentary committee has taken such interest in the state of Canadian sport. Sport is clearly in the public interest, but only rarely do Parliament and its committees take such an active interest.

This presentation and that of my colleague later today will build upon the points we made in the brief submitted to this committee last December with our colleague Peter Donnelly. Specifically, I will emphasize three points: one, that attention must be paid to all forms of threats to athlete welfare; two, that significant progress has been made with the UCCMS and OSIC, but this must be extended across the sport sector; and, three, that further advancements must be athlete-supported and research-driven.

First, it’s important to clarify what we’re talking about with the term “safe sport”. As stated in the Universal Code of Conduct to Prevent and Address Maltreatment in Sport, the term “maltreatment” is used intentionally. This term is an umbrella term, also used by the World Health Organization, that encompasses forms of abuse, including sexual, physical and psychological abuse, as well as neglect, bullying, harassment and discrimination. This breadth is important, as all forms of maltreatment are violations of human rights. At their foundation, they represent a misuse of power, and all can be associated with short- and long-term negative health outcomes.

While the negative effects of sexual abuse seem intuitive to us, research evidence indicates that repeated experiences of psychological abuse, neglect and discrimination can be equally harmful to health and well-being. Further, all of the prevalence studies conducted in Canada and internationally show a consistent pattern, namely that psychological abuse and neglect are the forms of harm most commonly reported by athletes regardless of sport, level of participation or gender. It’s these forms of maltreatment that account for athletes’ descriptions of their sport contexts as toxic, and they must be addressed in future safe-sport-related policies and education.

One of the strengths of the UCCMS is that it reflects this breadth of harms. Compared to the case in other countries, the UCCMS provides the most comprehensive and realistic standard of what harms can be in sport. Another strength of the UCCMS is that it was initiated by athletes through their call for a harmonized code of conduct across sport, so every athlete, regardless of level, sport or geographical region of the country, can expect adherence to the same code. The UCCMS was developed through broad consultations across the country in every province and territory. These consultations revealed a challenge facing the sport community—namely, the need to dismantle the assumptions that psychological harm is “just sport” and thus is widely accepted as a normal and even necessary tool for realizing athletic talent and winning. This finding also runs contrary to expected conduct in other domains in which young people engage.

The UCCMS represents an important accomplishment and important first step in changing the culture. It articulates prohibited conduct and becomes the standard for expectations by participants and sport leaders alike, but our work is not done. Now it needs to be rolled out across the entire sport sector as a requirement, and all sport organizations, from community level to provincial and national levels, must be aligned in its adoption.

The second sign of progress is the establishment of the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner, which, again, arose in response to athletes’ calls for an independent reporting and complaint mechanism. It was also informed by research indicating that fewer than 15% of athletes who have experienced maltreatment have ever submitted a formal report or complaint. While the implementation is slower than we’d like, it’s an important first and positive step in the right direction.

We must keep the foot on the accelerator to continue this important work and avoid what we've seen in the past—cycles of attempted reform in Canadian sport following high-profile cases, public scrutiny and proposed reform, only to have those reforms diminished.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Kerr, I would ask you to wrap up. You are very much over time.

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much. You can probably elaborate in your answers later on.

I will now go to Professor Kidd.

You have five minutes, please, Professor Kidd.

[Professor Bruce Kidd, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

My purpose today is to urge you to affirm the important reforms that have recently been introduced, the Universal Code of Conduct to Address and Prevent Maltreatment in Sport and the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner, and see that they are effectively implemented and sustained.

I speak as someone who has been directly involved in the policy debates in Canadian sport for more than 60 years as an athlete, researcher, athletic director and chair of federal, Ontario and Commonwealth policy advisory bodies. From that perspective, I've seen more progress towards safe sport in the last four years than at any other time. I fear that unless the UCCMS and OSIC are systematically and resolutely implemented, they will lose support and be quickly forgotten, as earlier reform proposals were forgotten.

I remind you that as an outgrowth of the progressive ideas set in motion by protests, headlines and hearings associated with the Dubin commission more than 30 years ago, Sport Canada enacted a strong policy to address sexual harassment, only to let it slide into oblivion. At the same time, Canada took a much more inclusive, athlete-centred approach to governance through the Canadian sport council, only to let it fade and die in the cutbacks of the 1990s. Progress can be reversed.

As Gretchen said, the UCCMS was initiated by athletes. It is evidence-based and has the support of a broad coalition of national sports leaders. It is one of the most comprehensive of such codes in the world, and a huge Canadian achievement, but it's barely known. To realize broad cultural change, the UCCMS must be effectively rolled out and communicated so that the prohibitions and empowering values it asserts are understood and embraced at every level, from the professional leagues and the Olympic sector to university, college and school sport to the sandlot. We need a massive pan-Canadian campaign in English, French and indigenous languages, with active workshops, athlete leaders, public service announcements, media discussion and full FPT endorsement. It must become as well known a characteristic of the Canadian sports system as anti-doping, fair play and the pursuit of excellence. It should be a basis for hiring, evaluation and promotion.

In terms of OSIC, the federal government must ensure that all sports bodies sign on. As I understand it, the PT sports ministers have agreed to sign on, as Nova Scotia has now done, or create their own aligned structures, as in Quebec. We must hold all 13 PT governments to such commitments.

Making an effective new organization with care and attention to both trauma-informed procedures and natural justice will take time. I should point out that getting the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada up and running 20-odd years ago took four years of careful work. It has also taken time to establish sexual harassment policies and procedures in such public institutions as universities. Let's give OSIC our understanding while asking it to communicate widely, involve athletes in its decisions and test its various procedures before a full release to ensure confidence and credibility.

In addition, athlete representatives must be embedded in all decision-making bodies with parity, voice and vote. The Red Deer declaration, developed from recommendations of a broadly representative group with wide consultation, must be fully implemented. Canada must create and enforce a code of conduct for governance the way Australia, the European Union and the U.K. did a decade ago.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Prof. Bruce Kidd]

There must be significant investment in capacity-building. Canadian sport is already woefully underfunded. We cannot achieve safe sport without additional staff, extensive training and other resources.

[Professor Bruce Kidd, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Out of crisis comes change. While this is an exceedingly difficult time for Canadian sport, public attention and extensive discussion have generated promising solutions. Yet, unless a concerted effort is made to implement the reforms on a comprehensive and sustained basis, their potential will only evaporate in the same way as early reforms.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Professor Kidd. You can expand when question period occurs.

I'm now going to go to ALIAS Solution Inc., with Ms. Poirier and Mr. Weill.

I don't know which one of you will speak, but you have five minutes for the group.

[Vicky Poirier, President and Chief Executive Officer, ALIAS Solution Inc.]

Honourable members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and members of the Canadian safe sport community, we thank you for inviting us here today.

We are the heads of a company that specializes in receiving and handling complaints, a company that contributes greatly to safety in sport.

Indeed, the entire Quebec sport and recreation community benefits from our reporting mechanism and our services as the Office of the Complaints Officer. For two years now, we have been serving 90 sports and leisure federations, in accordance with the mandate we received from the Regroupement Loisir et Sport du Québec. We are also appearing before you today as parents of competitive athletes, for example, in soccer, rugby, baseball and hockey.

My name is Vicky Poirier. I am a chartered professional accountant, a forensic accountant, and the founder and president of ALIAS. I am accompanied by my colleague Danny Weill, the executive vice-president of ALIAS.

When a person finds the courage to blow the whistle, it is essential that he or she be treated with kindness and professionalism and that the case be handled efficiently.

I became involved with ALIAS because of my forensic accounting background while investigating devastating financial fraud. I felt that the frauds could have been prevented if someone had dared to speak out. But witnesses didn't speak up because they were afraid of retaliation and of not being believed. So I created ALIAS, an anonymous and confidential reporting mechanism designed to handle a complaint from receipt to resolution.

Afterwards, I quickly realized that the majority of the situations denounced were not financial in nature, but rather related to human interactions. The passion that lay dormant in me was ignited. Since that day, we have been receiving and processing all kinds of complaints.

At ALIAS, we are guided by three main principles: ethics, efficiency and objectivity.

This path led us to the world of sports, where we act as the Office of the Complaints Officer for the province of Quebec, as mentioned above.

[Danny Weill, Executive Vice President, ALIAS Solution Inc.]

Recently, the federal sports minister called on all provinces and territories to have a centralized sport policy, as is the standard set in Quebec. We are proud to be setting the pace for Canada, and through our lived experience, we hope to help other provinces do the same.

Over the last two years, in Quebec sport and leisure, ALIAS has received and managed over 500 complaints. We have established a standard of initial contact within 48 hours of a claim's being received, and within 10 days of receipt, we analyze and confirm a claim's eligibility. For the complainants, this gives them comfort that their matter is being addressed and taken seriously. For the organizations involved, this ensures that they are on top of the issues happening amongst their stakeholders, with best practices to resolve these.

In the brief on safe sports submitted by ALIAS to the Canadian heritage standing committee on March 22, 2023, we put forward recommendations that summarize the three following principles.

One is the standardization of process. As is done in Quebec, each province can and should have a centralized policy and process for complaints, case management and case follow-through. The execution must be done by a qualified multidisciplinary team.

Two, programs must be built for scale without compromising quality or confidentiality. Given the importance of each individual report, the program must be built to ensure that each intake is treated expeditiously with care and confidentiality. There must be no degradation of quality based on scope and scale.

Finally, communication is key. This means communication of the mechanism itself, so that sport stakeholders know how and where they can make a report; ongoing communication with the person who has filed the report; and ensuring that all stakeholders involved throughout the reporting process remain informed.

In closing, as leaders in safe sport in Canada, it is our responsibility to contribute to the efforts to put an end to the toxic culture of silence. By offering a voice for victims and stakeholders in sport, we are sending a powerful message that any form of unacceptable behaviour will not be tolerated. With sport being such a central fabric to society, the government's interest to promote best practices in reporting acts of wrongdoing will have a major impact on the lives of Canadian citizens.

We thank you for your time and attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I now go to the next witness, which will be ITP Sport & Recreation Inc.

We have Ms. Forsyth and Mr. Yampolsky. You have five minutes for either one of you who wishes to speak. That's not for each, but for the group.