Canadian Heritage Committee on March 23rd, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Kevin.

You know it's with great affection that I refer to the “Waugh principle”.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

We now go to the Liberals, and it's Tim Louis.

Tim, you have five minutes.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair, and thanks to all of the witnesses for being here both online and in person. I'll cut things down, because I've learned so much already.

Ms. Forsyth, I heard the need for more education, and I've heard you, in previous testimony, compare it to how we treat concussions now versus how we used to treat them. You've said that much like concussions, once we know better about this type of abuse we can do better.

Can you help explain how we need to address the culture that “it's always been this way”, or people saying that this was what they went through when they were in sports and they came out okay? What are some of the measures we can take as parents, associations and governments, and what solutions already exist? You use words already like “deprogram” and “ingrained”. That's an uphill battle.

[Allison Forsyth]

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that question.

Again, we have incredible researchers on this panel who have done the numbers and the science behind this. Mine comes from the first-hand experience of standing in auditoriums full of football coaches bearing down on me with their arms crossed, and saying, “Who are you to tell us we can't run suicides anymore?”

I'll just speak from that first-hand experience where what I see, when it comes to coaching, we would now probably consider, depending on the severity of it, as psychological abuse—the yelling, the berating and the toughen-up method of yelling at children to do better.

Children do not have the ability to separate who they are from what is happening on the ice or on the field. What we know now, in my understanding, is that we are traumatizing that child's brain much like a concussion when we are yelling and screaming at them. As a coach and as an athlete, I was yelled and screamed at, and that was just normalized back then.

I wish I had a magic answer, but it's actually looking at each individual sport and the behaviours that are paramount in that sport. Ice hockey is the perfect example of where I do see a lot of psychological maltreatment with the coaching style.

The other thing I work with coaches on is the reality. I just want to share that we're working with generation Z athletes now, who are age 12 to 25, primarily. They don't even respond to negative reinforcement coaching. The example I use is that when we know better we do better, because not only do we understand, I believe, more about what trauma is, but we also understand that we're dealing with a new generation of athletes who adapt and respond differently.

The last thing I'll share, if I may, is that when it comes to something like, say, running of “suicides” or hockey bag skating, now that those are considered a form of punishment, we have to look at where that starts, because there is a progression of harm. If coaches are just making athletes drop and do 20 push-ups, would that be considered an egregious case of maltreatment? Likely not. But can that easily progress to children skating around in a circle on the ice until one child vomits in a garbage can, which is quite common? Absolutely, it can.

That's when I mention that we need to eliminate the beginnings of the microaggressions and the conditions where more egregious abuse can occur. And that, unfortunately, will not be covered in your online training. It needs to be very much resourced in every single organization across this country.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'll turn to Madame Poirier. How do we get athletes to trust the system that they believe has failed them?

If they don't trust the system, what can we do to build that trust so that they have the courage to come forward and file a complaint? You seem to be perfectly situated to answer that question.

[Vicky Poirier]

Everything is based on three fundamental components.

The first is an ethical culture of reporting. We need to make sure we promote a simple policy that athletes understand. We need to make the “I'm filing a complaint” button known. We also need to put the education tools in place.

The second component is to show that we have a robust, confidential and anonymous mechanism.

The third is demonstrating that we have the capacity to handle complaints objectively, independently and in accordance with best practices. To give athletes confidence, we need to promote all three of these components.

The best example is what happened in Quebec over two years. The number of complaints increased by 234% from the first year to the second year.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I think I'm out of time, but I would have asked if we could scale it up to a national level.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thanks, Tim.

Now we go to Monsieur Lemire for two and a half minutes.

Go ahead, Sébastien.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to come back to the question of money. Indeed, in the sports world, the money is there. It's not a problem. There is no lack of money, but the money often ends up with the wrong people. That in and of itself shows the need for an independent public inquiry.

Moreover, Ms. Forsyth, I would like to thank you for having the courage to be part of the solution. You are a role model and that needs to be pointed out. Thank you very much.

Unfortunately, my time is limited.

Ms. Poirier and Mr. Weill, I would also like to thank you for being part of the solution.

Could the mechanism created by ALIAS be used, for instance, in the context of an independent public inquiry so that the federal government can help uncover even more incidents?

What gaps do you currently see in the complaints management system? Do you have any solutions for that?

[Vicky Poirier]

In fact, all of the complaints we receive are handled confidentially. So in the context of a public inquiry, ALIAS could share its experience by anonymizing everything it knows and sees. We have a depth of experience on which to build recommendations.

Moreover, in the brief we submitted, you will find nine basic recommendations to ensure that things work better in the future.

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

Thank you for your answer.

I would add that, in an independent public inquiry, we could also hear anonymous testimony that could also lead to recommendations in this matter.

Ms. Fowler, I loved your presentation on health and healthy lifestyle habits in sport.

I would also like to recognize your expertise with first nations. Since we are dealing with important issues related to reparation, I would be remiss if I did not ask you a question about that.

I heard of the fantastic possibility of allowing the Iroquois nation, which invented lacrosse, to take part in the Olympic Games under the colours of their nation.

Do you think we should support that type of initiative?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm afraid we're going to have to stop there, because we've gone over the two and a half minutes. Ms. Fowler can elaborate on that when she gets a chance with another question.

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

Madam Chair, given the delay in interpretation when a francophone asks a question of an anglophone, would it be possible to give an additional 15 seconds to the witness for her response?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I think we can do that. All right. You have 15 seconds, but a hard 15.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[Dr. Teresa Fowler]

In a hard 15 seconds, thank you so much for that question.

I first need to make a caveat: My experience with first nations is through our own children, who are of mixed race; they are first nations. Absolutely, I really believe that we need to pay more attention to indigenous sport in this country.

I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Fowler.

We now go to Mr. Julian for two and a half minutes, please, Peter.

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

Thank you very much.

I want to go to Mr. Gumbley and Professor Kidd.

The issue of OSIC and whether or not it covers players in the Canadian Hockey League, for example, is an important one, so I want to put that to you, Mr. Gumbley. Do you feel that a mechanism like OSIC would be an important protection for players in the Canadian Hockey League?

For Professor Kidd, I have the same question on expanding it to all types of amateur sport.

[Randall Gumbley]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I do feel that OSIC could add some benefit to the Canadian Hockey League, but the issue is that the CHL operates in a vacuum. They don't fall under the NSO Hockey Canada. They're a pro league. NSOs and the federal government are not able to enforce any laws with the CHL. That's evident from my conversation with the previous ministers, where they have informed me that they have no jurisdiction over the Canadian Hockey League. In order for that to happen, there would have to be some governance changes within the policies of the federal government and the NSOs to bring the CHL in under that umbrella.

My position is that the Canadian Hockey League is a professional ice hockey league. It's a pro sport business, and I don't believe they fall under those kinds of auspices.

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

Thank you.

Go ahead, Professor Kidd.

[Prof. Bruce Kidd]

Well, the goal is to have OSIC cover all levels of Canadian sport. I fully agree with that.

As we've heard all afternoon, the challenge is, one, Canadian federalism. You have to get an FPT buy-in for that.

Secondly, the largely autonomous nature of Canadian sport in this country is a challenge. It's instructive that 30 years ago when we implemented anti-doping, it had to be done through a consent mechanism, not by an imposition mechanism.

I think we need a strategy to get consent buy-in across the country at every level. We have to enable OSIC to develop the capacity, and then, as an outgrowth of the educational campaign that I talked about, Allison talked about and others have talked about, we need to persuade people to enable their participants to have access to either OSIC or aligned bodies that are being created in provinces such as Quebec. That's going to take—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Professor Kidd. We can elaborate at another time.

We're going to go now to the Conservatives.

Mr. Shields, you have five minutes, please.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I appreciate all the witnesses being here today.

Professor Kidd, I remember you as a participant and you as an athlete. I remember watching you when you were a young athlete, by the way—

[Voices]

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