Canadian Heritage Committee on March 27th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Kim Shore]

Quickly, I would just say that the money would be better spent towards a national inquiry so that we could develop a proper framework rather than just send piecemeal money.

I had the experience as a parent where the coaches emailed us and said, “You must send your child to practice whether they're sick or not. We will decide how to remedy or change their assignment for the day—unless they're vomiting or have a fever.” So when my daughter was too exhausted or injured to go to gymnastics, I would literally check what I wrote the last time. Oh, I picked vomiting a couple of weeks ago? This time I'll say she has a fever and can't come to practice—because she's eight years old and doesn't trust that you're going to modify her practice.

Parents are groomed out of their own control. Even if we have education, we still have to change the culture.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Shore. I think we have to move on now.

We'll go to Chris Bittle for the Liberals.

Chris, you have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much.

We started this inquiry on Hockey Canada. It's gone on from there, and rightfully so. When we were dealing with Hockey Canada, my own personal impression was that we didn't address enough what was going on in the CHL.

Ms. Glover, you're there. I know that you're not the general manager of the London Knights, and these decisions aren't yours, but with a situation like Logan Mailloux, how does your organization address someone who has come to it and who hasn't necessarily committed a crime, per se, and has been suspended by the NHL? As a teacher and as someone who's looking to make sport safer—I take you at your word—how do you address this situation?

[Wendy Glover]

I address this situation in the way that I would if I was teaching a student at my school who experienced difficulty and needed support, guidance and discipline.

As I work with kids as they age through high school, it's very common for students to make mistakes. They are adolescents. The prefrontal cortex is developing. They are plus or minus four years from their chronological age in regard to physical, intellectual or social maturity.

I look at the student in front of me as an individual. How do we evaluate and develop your value system? How do we fill the gaps in what you may be missing?

It is no different from the 500 students I have mentioned who have already gone through my program. I take them for what's in front of them and how to help them move forward.

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

Do other OHL clubs have an individual like yourself helping out?

[Wendy Glover]

Other OHL clubs have an academic adviser, for sure. I think my particular area of education and what I do as a day job is quite unique, since I am involved in the sports community. As well, I teach values and social and emotional learning through sport.

For the certifications that we talk about, we do all kinds of them. Besides respect in sport, we do understanding teen dating violence, communication, conflict resolution and leadership, etc. It's a bit of a unique program. The other teams probably wouldn't have somebody on staff who is able to look at the players through a more holistic lens, as I do.

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

Looking up an article, I see in The London Free Press that the individual—it's clearly the team's PR and the newspaper picking it up—is an “on-ice leader after adversity”. It doesn't mention the suspension or the goings-on at all. That's kind of washed away.

Is that redemption possible?

[Wendy Glover]

That's not for me to decide.

As I said, I work with the kids who are in front of me. If I was working with this student at school, it would be private. We don't share information about students under the age of 18 on indiscretions that they may have at school, or on suspensions or various disciplines that students always have in a high school.

As for what they are doing and what the league is doing, that's not what I am privy to. I stay in my lane.

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

What is the impact of billeting?

We've talked about parental responsibilities. If we're sending young, impressionable, developing kids away to an environment that is about winning at all costs, which we have also discussed, what is the impact of that? How do we mitigate the loss of that direct parental supervision?

[Wendy Glover]

I think it's extremely challenging to move kids away. The last two years of high school are difficult for an adolescent who is, as I mentioned earlier, trying to establish their identity, place, friendships and what they may or may not be doing after the age of 18.

The situation is very difficult because the sport itself is different from, say, swimming, archery, tae kwon do, gymnastics or whatever the case is. I can't think of a different sport—correct me if I'm wrong—where you are playing on a team with players who are one step from the NHL or actually signed in the NHL, or one year away from playing in adult recreation leagues perhaps, at the age of 21.

It's very difficult for the players to be in that situation where they are very close to pursuing dreams, but also very close to seeing that the doors are closing in that respect.

Living in the billet situation without the day-to-day with their families is challenging. However, they are willing to do it. My own children did it. It's a risk that many want to take.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

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

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is for Mr. Ross of Scholars Against Abuse in Canadian Sport.

In the open letter you published over the holidays, you wrote: The establishment of the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC) in June 2022 is not a solution. Without complete independence from Canada's sport authorities, the OSIC will always lack the powers necessary to resolve this crisis. The OSIC is an inadequate response to the toxic culture of abuse. It lacks the necessary independence, capacity, authorities, expertise, and mandate to conduct an inquiry of the breadth and depth required.

Could you please elaborate?

[Dr. MacIntosh Ross]

Yes. My primary problem with OSIC is that it's very reactionary, and I think I speak for many of the scholars involved in our group. Something bad has to happen—first—for OSIC to get involved. What we talked about, in the letter to the Prime Minister, was getting ahead of things and trying to be preventative and shift a culture that is already, as you said, very toxic.

We can't do that by simply reacting to individual cases all the time. We have to react to those cases—we need a reporting mechanism in place—but, at the same time, we need something more robust that can actually shift things in a meaningful way. We could all look at it and be happy about it, and athletes could put their faith in it. Every time you see one of those letters come out on “Fencers for Change” or “Figure Skaters for Change”, it's because a lot of athletes don't have faith in the sport system, right now. They have to take another route. They don't trust the people up the ladder to report these things. If that's the case, OSIC is not going to work.

Perhaps it will take time to get established, but the same argument being made there.... The opponents of an inquiry are saying, “Well, you have to give OSIC time to develop. It needs time.” However, the second we say “inquiry”, they say, “That's going to take too long.” Which one is it? Do we have time to do this? Do we want to get it right? Why are the goalposts different when it comes to an inquiry and OSIC? I would argue it's because there's been a lot of input into OSIC by very influential people who want to defend what they created. I think that's a natural response, but, at the same time, you need to remove yourself from that situation and think about what's best for the whole nation.

I think that's a national inquiry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I'll now go to Peter Julian for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to go back to Ms. Glover and Mr. Sheehan, and the question about ensuring we don't revictimize victims when putting a public inquiry into place.

How important is that for a public inquiry, so we avoid the kind of situation Mr. Sheehan described?

[Wendy Glover]

Obviously, it's extremely important. I don't know how, moving forward, we can create a reporting system and maintain complete privacy for them. Look at how difficult it's been for him. I can't speak to that. It needs to go far above my understanding of this. I feel so terrible that they've had to explain it, in this way, but it needs to happen, somehow.

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

I'd like to come back, Mr. Chair, to Ms. Shore, Ms. Glover and Mr. Ross on the responsibility of Sport Canada.

The toxic sport syndrome crisis we're seeing in this country is something that overlays almost all sports. It's just unbelievable. It's so saddening that we haven't protected athletes, our children or the public.

What responsibility did Sport Canada's hands-off attitude have, over the last couple of decades? We've been through sexual abuse and anti-racism recommendations. None of them have ever been implemented, with Sport Canada insisting those be conditions for government funding. How responsible is Sport Canada for this incredibly toxic crisis and the mess we're seeing in this country, right now?

I'll start with you, Ms. Shore.

[Kim Shore]

How else do I say it? I mean, aren't they the “go-to”? The buck stops at the top. I would argue that, perhaps, the individuals consulting to get their on-the-ground information have vested interests in supporting their own businesses or the funding they receive.

I think there's a desperate need in Canada and Canadian culture, in general, for a persona of “We're all nice, and we're all about the best interests of everybody else.” However, I'm not sure that's as true now as it was 50 years ago. Perhaps we need to look back to see how to get back some of the Canadian values we had decades ago, when we really did care about our neighbours and children.

My experience is this. I've been told to mind my own business by other parents whose children were doing fine in the gym. When I started speaking out on behalf of other children I saw in peril at the gymnastics club—not my daughter, because she was doing fine, at the time—they told me to mind my own business.

I think it still takes a village to protect children.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Shore.

Now I go to Martin Shields, for the Conservatives.

Martin, you have five minutes, please.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

It's been very enlightening today and very much appreciated. I think it's interesting that you mentioned, Ms. Glover, the skills that kids learn in swimming. They all take the swimming program and work up through the levels. That's how they're taught swimming. It's a life skill.

One thing I did get involved with at schools was we taught all the kids how to skate. That was just part of the phys ed curriculum. We started in grade 1.

It's very different in the sense of sports organizations. There's a very different reaction in an arena versus when you're starting soccer with a four-year-old. It's the butterfly league. Whether they chase the ball or the butterflies, nobody worries about it.

But in a hockey arena, it's entirely different. How do we deal with this? You're talking about culture, and it's very different. How would a national inquiry deal with the differences that we have and how hockey is seen in this country?

[Wendy Glover]

Each sport, as we've clearly mentioned today, needs its own lens. As you mention, hockey is a little bit different from soccer or the other sports. Canada Soccer restructured the delivery of the programs. You see the mini-fields, and it's a little bit more age-appropriate. Hockey has also tried to follow suit. That doesn't mean the parents or the players understand why. It doesn't mean the coaches want to follow it to understand the psychosocial development of the child at that age, and can deliver it effectively. There's a gap in understanding, a gap in application of the concepts that already exist.

It already exists. I've seen it in hockey. Like I said, my children went through it. My husband was a coach. I understand the various stakeholder views. A lot of people don't understand how you actually move on in a sport, who actually moves on in the sport and then the lure of sport entrepreneurs, all these extra people who charge extra money along the way as you get older. It's just a convoluted mess of information. We need to redo the whole thing.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That's my challenge. In the sense of a national inquiry, we had Bruce Kidd with us here. He said that 30 years ago we had the thing, and nothing changed. That's my fear.

I'll share my time with my colleague, who was has a question.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Mr. Hedges, you haven't been forgotten. We appreciate your being here. We've heard a number of times about the need for investigation. It's one thing, as we've heard from our academics, to define what “abuse” is, but it's another thing to do something about it. Those steps need to be done. We can define as much as we want, but if we don't take the proper steps to do something about it, then we're lost.

Mr. Hedges, you talked about the safe sport summit that you did. One of the things that you talked about was a universal code of conduct, etc. You also talked about conducting investigations. Can you explain to the committee what your organization is doing along those lines, please?