Canadian Heritage Committee on March 27th, 2023

[Kim Shore]

Well, I am a parent of a gymnast. Because I loved the sport, I allowed my daughter to try it. She fell in love with it and was abused physically, emotionally and psychologically. She continues to live in chronic pain with a wrist injury.

I put in a complaint with Gymnastics Canada while I was a board member and said, “Please don't give me any special treatment,” and there were four or five other families from the same club who put in a complaint with me.

I didn't hear anything for eight or nine months. Then I got a call from ITP saying, “I need you to rewrite your complaint on the formal sheet and cite numerically the aspects of the policy you think every one of those coaches violated.” I burst into tears instantly, even though I'm supposed to be this educated.... You know, I helped make some of the policies at GymCan—

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

You're the parent.

[Kim Shore]

—and it was totally overwhelming. I live with the guilt every day that I let my daughter try that sport.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

[Ryan Sheehan]

It took me about 12 years to tell my parents remotely what happened, and even then, I definitely downplayed it. When I put out my post on social media, that's when they learned the details of it. I feel most bad for my parents because they noticed a shift about 15 years ago when the abuse started. The light went out in their son's eyes one day, and it's never come back. They've watched me for the last four years trying to build my life back and trying to get some light back in my eyes. I told them not to watch today. They don't know all the details of this, but I'm sure they will see it at some point.

The ripple effect of abuse is not just on the person. It's on my coach. It's on my teammates. When I show up to a meet, I'm a pariah now, but that affects a lot of people. That affects my club. That affects my family. That affects my friends. It's a long-reaching issue for one case of abuse.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

The parent I spoke of has now been isolated from the other parents because none of them would go further, and she's left standing. She's isolated, which makes it very difficult with the processes we have. Even though an organization has a structure and a stand-alone place to go to, the parent is left out there very much in a place of isolation. How do we solve that?

[Kim Shore]

The sanctions are based on only the one complaint, even if there are other witnesses, so that's part of the problem. They then get a two-year suspension for having harmed a child in ways that could last for years and years. The coach gets two years, because they only looked at one complaint, even if there were five witnesses. That really should have been five complaints, and maybe they should have gotten 10 years.

Who's making the decision on how much sanctions time these people are getting?

I can tell you, I will be 52 years old in two days, and the harm I went through then...I thought I had recovered from it, because I was out of the sport, but when I got back in and involved in the sport and saw that it was systemic and that my daughter was now experiencing it.... I thought I could fix it for her, so I was in there, working at the club every day, trying to educate coaches. I did provincial seminars and all the things. I joined boards with Gymnastics Canada, and I still couldn't make change.

It was just better to pull all my family out.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We'll go to the Liberals with Lisa Hepfner for five minutes, please.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to echo my colleagues in thanking you all for this really important, emotional and difficult testimony that you're sharing today.

Mr. Sheehan, I'm also echoing my colleagues and saying I'm really glad you made it through those terrible, difficult, dark times to be here today to share your stories and help us effect change.

I want to flag for the committee that even as early as last week, Minister St-Onge said it's not a question of whether there will be an inquiry, but what kind of inquiry it will be and how it will be structured. I think it's really important that we narrow down some of these cultural issues that we're seeing, because it's not just gymnastics, it's not just soccer and it's not just hockey.

One thing we talked about in this committee is the idea that sports organizations are really focused on winning and propping up the athletes who, at a young age, show extraordinary talent, and pushing athletes to go beyond what's healthy. They do this, instead of focusing on sport as something that everyone should do because it's fun, it's healthy and it promotes socialization, and there so many other intellectual and physical benefits.

I will start with you, Ms. Glover. What do you think about that idea that in sport in general, we're not focusing on the right things?

[Wendy Glover]

Thank you for saying that. That's exactly what's happened in the last 10 to 15 years, like we said earlier...trying to change youth sports into a breeding ground for the elite. It's supposed to be the long-term athlete development model, which enables everyone to play sport. There's social development, emotional, physical, team-building and a love of their sport. There are pathways to eventually become elite at that sport for the 5% who may move on past U18 or U21, and the fewer than 1% who may make money at that sport.

We seem to be able to move this professionalization of the sport younger and younger, and have moved away from, exactly as you mentioned, why you are playing the sport. It's celebrating the friendships and celebrating good coaches who want kids to come back year after year.

We have focused on the win-loss records and the shaming of teams if they are not at the top of their tiers. It has been to the detriment of the kids. The increased social media use of sharing results of teams, and highlights of players and athletes under the age of 18....

I don't know how it has been allowed, either, to constantly post children online. Other parents and associations...I'm not sure where they have permission to be doing that, because if you're highlighting one child's success on that sport that day, you're actually highlighting the failure of another. What is that doing to them?

There's a looking-glass, like a fishbowl, and they are constantly being evaluated. They're trying to move up or move down. They're assessed. There's a heightened sense of competitiveness, even in the lower levels.

In particular, I don't agree with what I call Halloween. Why are they dressing up like pro athletes when they are 12 and 13 years old? Other sports don't do this. You don't go to a swim meet, wear your suit and get pictures. You don't go to a volleyball tournament and post all kinds of things about looking like a pro athlete. We have moved that younger and younger. With the psychological development of children, and the identity versus role confusion that happens as a teen, you're messing with that.

Instead of developing athletes who are playing sports as something they do, you're tying it to their identity by calling them a soccer player, or a basketball player, which needs to be separated.

I'm sorry. I will finish there.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

That was a great answer. Thank you.

Not only does it affect the athletes who stay in sports, but I think it ostracizes a lot of kids. A lot of kids feel that sports aren't for them. They don't like any sports, they don't feel like they belong and they can't play.

I only have a minute left, but I do want to turn to Mr. Hedges.

You mentioned that OSIC should also be applied at a provincial and territorial level. I wonder if you would expand on that, please.

[Robert Hedges]

OSIC, or a form of it, needs to be nationwide. There needs to be a reporting mechanism for the grassroots. We can't have it just at the national level.

I don't really know the specifics of how that would look. It's out of our scope at AthletesCAN, but it has been talked about before. There needs to be some sort of reporting mechanism for all levels, so that we don't have, as was mentioned before, coaches or staff members who are working at a club somewhere and then leave—because nobody wants to prosecute them—and go join a club across the country.

Those types of reporting mechanisms need to happen so that there is a paper trail or a registry of some sort, so that we can now eliminate those people from the sports system.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We now go to Sébastien Lemire for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Sheehan, Ms. Shore, I think Sport Canada takes Ms. Kerr very seriously.

Could you tell us about her role at Gymnastics Canada and your experience with her?

[Ryan Sheehan]

My experience with her in particular was pretty harsh, I would say. Initially, I thought she was a person who was going to help me and be the person to do all of this.

She's been the GymCan athlete welfare officer for over 30 years. In my opinion, gymnastics has not gotten safer in 30 years, so I question what her role in that has been. I think her confidence last week to say that she knows everything and that they already have the solutions....

I didn't hear any solutions and I still don't.

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

In politics, you can often gauge how seriously something is taken by the amount of funding it gets. Ms. Kerr receives a lot of money in grants from the federal government, but based on what she told this committee last week, she's not in favour of holding an independent public inquiry, because it would cost too much and we already have that data.

What's your opinion?

[Kim Shore]

As Ryan said in his speech, it's the height of arrogance to say that we know everything. I agree that she's done a tremendous amount of research on athlete abuse. She's defined it and she's identified it, but that doesn't help us with the system necessarily. We can all agree that there is abuse in the system.

Where I was troubled, as a board member, was that the harassment officer role at GymCan—I think it could be similar in other sport organizations—was a volunteer position, from what I understood. There was no oversight. There was no accountability for the person in that role. It's almost like the role was built around someone they thought they could trust decades ago. The role evolved; the sport got worse.

I don't know if she or anyone in that role would ever feel pressured by a CEO to not say certain things. I outlined at least three instances in my testimony where I thought someone who was going to have the moral courage to stand up for athletes would have done so, but in fact, she or they—I don't know exactly—decided to not even do a safe sport investigation. They decided to handle it like an HR complaint.

The problem with that is then that coach actually went out into the community and started telling people he was let go for safe sport reasons. The CEO of GymCan had already put a statement out telling the community it was personal reasons. Then he was allowed to coach at other clubs because we hadn't done a safe sport investigation that would have likely labelled him inappropriate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Shore.

I'm sorry to cut you off, but I have to keep watching that clock and I have to keep everyone on time. I feel really terrible having to cut you off when you are speaking about your own survivor issues and about the harms that were done to you.

Now I'm going to go to Mr. Julian.

You have two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Sheehan, it saddens me greatly that you use the term “pariah” to describe when you go to gymnastic events. I think this is another by-product of a toxic system where whistle-blowers and survivors are treated as troublemakers.

Could you comment on the importance of the public inquiry so that people right across this country understand the systemic horrors that we've seen with Hockey Canada, Canada Soccer, Gymnastics Canada and so many other national sports organizations? The public inquiry brings that to light so that we as a society can contend with what has happened to survivors and what has happened to the victims.

[Ryan Sheehan]

I think a national inquiry would bring to light a lot of these issues. There are still so many stories that are underground. Like I said, since my story went public, I've connected with 19 others who have had similar experiences with this man alone. They're not willing to come forward. Some of them have been threatened with their lives for coming forward. Some of them are—

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

They are threatened by whom?

[Ryan Sheehan]

This abuser in particular has been known to abuse firearms. I connected with one survivor who said that his reluctance in coming forward was that he's seen this man use firearms inappropriately. That's the reason for his reluctance in coming forward.

That started a system of my connecting with my coach to see how late I can register for certain competitions so that people don't necessarily know where I am. Elite Canada was last weekend, and I didn't attend, because I was worried about my safety.

There's still a system in place at an NSO level that does not protect athletes. It's an old boys' club in a lot of ways. They sit there and protect each other.

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

Have you been threatened directly, or is it an implicit threat that you're concerned about?