Canadian Heritage Committee on April 24th, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Good morning, everyone. I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 76 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

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

We have a number of witnesses. Four are in front of us, and two are on video conference today.

Myriam Da Silva Rondeau is an Olympian and teacher. We have Rachael Denhollander, attorney and victim advocate. She is on video conference. Ciara McCormack is a whistle-blower and professional soccer player. Andrea Neil is a former Canadian women's national soccer team player and assistant coach. David Wallbridge is a lawyer, and he's on video conference. From Fencing for Change Canada, we have Emily Mason.

For those on video conference—that means Rachael and David—on the bottom of your screen there's a globe for translation. You will get questions in English and French, so act accordingly.

Everyone, we have at least 30 minutes of testimony here this morning.

We'd like to start with Myriam Da Silva Rondeau for five minutes.

Myriam, the floor is now yours.

[Myriam Da Silva Rondeau, Olympian and Teacher, As an Individual]

Thank you.

It's important to understand that in sports, everything happens quickly. Competitions represent points, and points are what lead to being selected for training camps, the national team or even international competitions. They are what makes it possible to reach a classification and move up through the ranks to the very top. Without these points, there's no advancement.

In this process, which looks simple, here's what complicates things:

Athletes who refuse to sign the contract submitted to them can't take part in competitions and don't get any points. The timelines are also short. It can be only a few weeks or even days ahead when you're selected to take part in a competition where points can be earned. The current whistle-blowing mechanisms take months.

So I ask you: if you were in our position, would you blow the whistle on anyone?

Then there's the matter of points and selection. It may look simple from the outside, but everything is governed by often exhaustive and malleable documentation from the federations. In connection with this, I would ask that we table the document I sent to the clerk yesterday evening.

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

Mr. Clerk, the document has not been translated, but I'd like you to distribute it, please.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Does anyone object to its being sent around?

I think it's in French, is it not? Is it in both languages?

[Myriam Da Silva Rondeau]

I'm sorry. It's in English, because they are documents from my federation.

My comments are in French.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

It's not perfectly translated. Is that fine, if we have it sent around to everybody?

Ms. Gladu.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

As long as it's eventually translated in both official languages and sent to the committee, I think that would be fine.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

It has been sent to translation, so it could take a little while.

Are you fine with that, Chris?

[A voice]

Yes.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you.

Ms. Rondeau, please continue.

[Myriam Da Silva Rondeau]

Among the documents I sent you I found the summary of Boxing Canada's changing selection criteria from 2011 to 2021. These were approved by the board of directors. Oversight by Sport Canada, when there is any, is substantial. Without any context and a lack of familiarity with the community, it's easy to approve a document without asking any questions.

Once again, when athletes follow the existing mechanisms, it can take several months. In the meantime, the athlete does not take part in any competitions or training camps, and cannot accumulate any points. Like it or not, whistle-blowing is something you have to think about carefully.

There is also the stigmatization that goes along with whistle-blowing and using the existing mechanisms. When a fellow team member and I made a complaint to the federation, it took barely 24 hours for the coaches and athletes to identify us as those who were accusing the high performance director. Needless to say, we felt excluded. The people in power quickly lined up some allies. I believe you now understand why.

After two weeks, my mental health had suffered a great deal: loss of appetite, trouble sleeping, self-mutilation and isolation. The doctor put me and my teammate on sick leave. We could have been sent to a safe place, such as another gym or another club, until the situation had been dealt with, but the president of the federation refused. To receive certification, and financial support from this committee, several federations require total centralization and the rules are strict and inflexible. If we were given permission to decentralize, it would have to be given to others as well. That's what we were told. In the interest of equity, we had to remain inactive until we were prepared to return to this toxic environment.

When we said we wanted to take part in the training camp, our applications were denied, because we had missed too many of the regular training sessions, even though the doctor was in agreement and an accommodation had been requested. This inevitably meant losing our points, which would of course have an impact on our certification and potential selection. I would remind you that all of that was happening at the same time as Sport Solutions was in contact with the federation and the high performance director. It's a lot for an athlete to handle, but that's how things currently work. It's also important to understand that the federation—in my case it was the high performance director—could simply take away my certification in the blink of an eye, as well as any funding, without anyone, even you, having anything to say about it. I could also have complained through various existing mechanisms. Once again, that might take months. So we go for months without any financial resources and that's why we eventually give up.

Under the current system, athletes are responsible for the oversight of their federation. This can cost us dearly, because all reports and actions taken, and any accusations and complaints made within the Canadian sport system can be taken over by each province's own justice system.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Please wrap up, because you're over five minutes.

[Myriam Da Silva Rondeau]

In other words, the system and the mechanisms that are supposed to protect us are like a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.

I'll ask the question once more. In light of the information I've given you, would you be prepared to point the finger at anyone? I did so, and I paid the price, both in terms of my career and from the psychological and financial standpoints.

How many athletes are willing to pay that price, by which I mean putting their career, and their mental and physical health, at risk, until a national inquiry is held?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you.

We'll go to Rachael Denhollander, who is an attorney and victims advocate.

Rachael, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Rachael Denhollander, Attorney and Victim Advocate, As an Individual]

Thank you, members of Parliament. It is a privilege to be here with all of you today.

Like so many others who have testified at this committee, I am also a survivor of sexual abuse in the athletic community, having been victimized by Dr. Larry Nassar, the former Olympic team physician for our United States women's gymnastics team.

I am also an attorney with a background in public policy. My professional field of expertise is abuse prevention, crisis response and institutional transformation.

I am privileged to educate at our U.S. military academies, medical conferences and law school and bar associations, as well as universities, non-profits, law enforcement agencies and the largest Protestant religious denominations in our country.

Often, when I come in to work with these groups, I'm asked, “What is the most important thing we can do to prevent abuse?”, with the expectation that my response will be some sort of policy change or education program that can take place. However, this is incorrect, because policy changes and education programs are only as good as the motivation and knowledge that accompany them.

If any institution is truly serious about preventing child abuse, the single most important thing it can do is pursue honest and transparent assessments. Far too often, when an abuse crisis occurs—whether it is in the athletic community, the religious world or universities—the response of leadership is to attempt to simply move forward with education and reform. “Let's move our organization into the future.” This is a critical error for two reasons.

First, when harm has occurred, it is the responsibility of the organization and the leadership to aid in the healing. As adults, we know this. We teach our children to accept responsibility for the harm they perpetrate. My four-year-old knows to say “I am sorry that I hit you and that I took your toy. What can I do to help you feel better?”, yet somehow, as we move out of childhood and become leaders in the country, it has become acceptable for leaders who are in charge of the safety of thousands of children and athletes to refuse to acknowledge the massive failures that have led to the life-altering abuse of the innocent who were placed in their protection.

The survivors of every one of these abusers have asked for answers. They have asked for truth and transparency, and they deserve this. This is critical to their own healing process, because the heartbeat of survivors is to know that what happened to them is not going to happen to the next generation.

Second, honest and transparent assessments are critical for child protection, because you cannot fix what you will not accurately diagnose. When the culture that led to these abuses is not thoroughly understood and honestly discussed and diagnosed, education programs are a mere Band-Aid designed to make a gaping wound look palatable. When the policy and structural breakdowns in an organization have not been thoroughly understood, policy reform fails to be effective.

When you, as Canada's leadership, do not have thorough and complete information on and an understanding of which individuals in leadership enabled abuse, turned a blind eye or perpetuated a destructive culture, you will have no ability to discern whether the leadership changes are effective or simply a regime change from one toxic system to the next.

It is more than appropriate for you, as Canada's leaders, to ask how it is possible that GymCan, for example, could select as one of its high-performance leaders a U.S. high-performance coach from my country, who was part of the deeply abusive system that produced my perpetrator, Larry Nassar. Why did complete regime change in USA Gymnastics result in GymCan selecting one of those very same coaches to run its allegedly new and improved program?

It is more than appropriate for you to ask how GymCan can in one breath say it has changed, while in another it refuses to release the alleged investigation clearing Mr. Gallardo of abuse allegations. The survivor who has come forward testified that she was never consulted during this investigation.

It is fitting for you, as Canada's leaders, to ask how GymCan can suggest that true change has taken place after Kyna Fletcher was named as national team lead, when Ms. Fletcher silenced her own athlete who spoke out about the sexual abuse she suffered from a coach who has now been banned for life. Ms. Fletcher testified on behalf of this prolific sexual abuser against the athletes who had risked everything to protect the next generation.

Ms. Fletcher and the victims of David Brubaker literally stood on opposing sides of stopping a pedophile. GymCan looked at those 11 victims of childhood sexual abuse and at the woman defending the abuser, and they said to the woman defending the pedophile, “We pick you.”

It is appropriate to ask how GymCan can profess to prioritize athletes' safety after retaining Lorie Henderson to run their junior national program, despite multiple athletes reporting abuse by Ms. Henderson.

It is absurdity in the highest degree to suggest that there is an understanding of these issues and that anything has changed, when this has taken place. It is fitting that this has come before the heritage committee, because your children are your heritage.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you, Ms. Denhollander. We have to move on.

We go now to Ciara McCormack.

[Ciara McCormack, Whistle-blower and Professional Soccer Player, As an Individual]

My name is Ciara McCormack. I'm a professional soccer player, a whistle-blower and a board member of PFA Canada, the first pro soccer player union in Canada.

As an athlete, I was forced to leave Canada to escape abuse. Today, 16 years later, I live abroad, not feeling safe to stay in Canada, professionally or personally, because of the truth that I have shared.

Online, as I have watched these government hearings and seen countless athletes bravely retraumatize themselves, telling their horrific stories, I can't help but ask myself this: How many more stories will it take for those of you in government to demand a national inquiry and implement real change?

In 2007, I left Canada after reporting abuse by my former Whitecaps and Canadian national team coach, Bob Birarda.

A year later, in 2008, he was fired for sexual misconduct against Canada under-20 national team players, yet inexplicably was allowed by Canada Soccer to continue coaching teenage girls. For 12 years, I and others reported this known predator repeatedly, to no avail.

In February 2019, seeing no other options to get him off the field, I published, in my blog, a story entitled “A Horrific Canadian Soccer Story—The Story No One Wants to Listen To, But Everyone Needs to Hear”. The blog went viral, and victims came forward.

Today Birarda sits in jail, convicted of sex crimes against four former teenage players, over a 20-year period. The last victim was from 2008, the year that the Vancouver Whitecaps and Canada Soccer covered up publicly his departure as a “mutual parting of ways”.

However, the worst of the ordeal was not Birarda's abuse. Rather, it was realizing that for the decade we tried to report Birarda, the silencing we faced wasn't born out of a dysfunctional system, but rather was done with a wilful precision, a system where to play sports in Canada meant and means doing so with a deliberate lack of protection from abuse, as well as the threat of retaliation for speaking out about it.

As I watched a few weeks ago while MPs in this room spoke glowingly to members of Canada's women's national team, I couldn't help but think of Charmaine Hooper. You probably have never heard of her. I bet you didn't know that she was the most decorated player in Canadian soccer in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I bet you also didn't know that in 2006, she and two other players, who together had represented Canada 243 times, didn't show up to a national team game in protest of an abusive national team environment and were thrown off the team. Despite using all of the “proper” resolution channels, including the SDRCC, none of the three ever played for Canada again.

I bet you believe the heroes in Canadian soccer from the last three decades were those scoring goals and winning medals, but I'm here to tell you that the players who deserve your admiration are the ones you've never heard of, the ones who took a brave stand against abusive coaches and administrators with no protection, and lost everything. Their voices and treatment matter equally, if not more than those of the players who stayed silent and played on, and their stories deserve to be told through a national inquiry.

These hearings have outlined rampant conflicts of interest, zero oversight over money, and a massive power imbalance between athletes and the gatekeepers of Canadian sport organizations, causing immense harm. Many of these groups and people have testified or been spoken about during the government hearings in the last few months.

Let me recap some of the learnings, starting with Canadian Soccer Business, a for-profit business that has made a preposterous and secretive 20-year deal with our non-profit NSO, Canada Soccer. The committee is now aware that there is no record in Canada Soccer meeting minutes that this ludicrous deal was ever ratified, and Canada Soccer board members have stated explicitly that they did not sign off on this deal.

We've heard from and about Victor Montagliani. He was found in these hearings to be involved with the above CSB deal. He was also identified in the July 2022 McLaren report to have been directly involved in covering up for a now-convicted sex offender, along with Peter Montopoli, someone who should also be called to answer for his despicable conduct in his time with Canada Soccer. Both continue untouched in their prominent roles at FIFA.

I can't help but wonder this: Will you force us to watch Montopoli and Montagliani take centre stage at the Canadian taxpayer-funded 2026 FIFA World Cup, despite the documented harm they have caused, or will this government step up and take a stand against their behaviour?

Outside soccer, we've heard about for-profit “safe sport” groups such as ITP and Sport Law, operating like wolves in sheep's clothing, that present themselves as a safe place for vulnerable, abused athletes, not revealing that in actuality they are paid by and to protect the interests of sport organizations that have caused these same athletes harm.

Then there's an academic receiving millions in government funding to research safe sport, who, according to a witness who stood before you, attempted to silence him when he came to her with an abuse claim in her role as welfare officer at Gymnastics Canada, an organization riddled with abuse.

There are law firms such as Ruben Thomlinson, displaying zero moral compass, that present their normalized lie to sport abuse victims, such as our group, as doing “independent investigation”, when in reality they're glorified PR jobs with an attorney-client privilege for abusive organizations. Neither fits the definition of either “independent” or an “investigation”. It's a team effort to operate the status quo of harm.

The list goes on and on, so I again ask all of you here today, what will it take for a national inquiry to finally commence, or will this silent complicity by the Canadian government continue?

Those whose egregious actions have been revealed in these committees are hoping that you will forget about their conduct and allow them to retain their money and power, and that in a few short weeks this will all go away. Instead, I'm pleading on behalf of Canadian athletes for you to loudly support a national inquiry, an inquiry that will shine a spotlight on how abuse has been allowed to happen, build a new sports system based on safety, accountability and transparency, and allow people like me to finally feel safe to come home.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you very much, Ms. McCormack. You did it. You hung in there.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Well done.

We now have Andrea Neil, former Canadian women's national soccer team player and assistant coach.

You have five minutes, Ms. Neil.

[Andrea Neil, Former Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team Player and Assistant Coach, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I played in four World Cups, was a captain on the national team, and also helped coach Canada in a fifth World Cup, so I bring over 30 years of experience from which to speak.

It's been encouraging to witness these hearings. At the same time, it's been disheartening to watch the responses to your questions and the answers of Canada Soccer. They haven't always been accurate or honest. I know because I was there, deeply involved in the reporting on the Bob Birarda sexual abuse case, the federation's mishandling of finances and its neglect of the women's program. Their communication style is harmful and not trustworthy. This is often the case.

I know that this is how the old boys holding the purse strings of power operate. They deny, deflect and launch a media blitz of misinformation designed to manipulate and defend. It's a pattern of behaviour that I encountered in working with them. They did more to protect themselves and a sexual predator than they ever did to safeguard players.

They responded to a head coach's concerned reports of funding going missing, misleading financial statements and other unethical acts not by investigating and sanctioning the manager involved but by instead promoting him and punishing the women's national team coaches who came forward to report the wrongdoing.

As a monopoly not subject to proper oversight, Canada Soccer operates with unchecked power and control, which has created a culture of exploitation and a lack of accountability. Individuals in power in our federation have taken advantage of this authority. They have promoted their own power, influence and wealth at the cost of the safety, health and human dignity of those they are meant to serve.

This is not surprising, as our leaders are so deeply embedded in FIFA, an organization renowned for its sexism and corruption, but with Canada about to play host to the World Cup, it behooves us to pay attention.

The last time we hosted, we violated our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms by giving women's teams inequitable and dangerous working conditions. What legacy does Canada want to leave this time?

It should alarm our country that the same men, Victor Montagliani and Peter Montopoli, who have done such a deleterious job of running Canada Soccer, are now in positions to oversee our country's hosting of the 2026 World Cup.

The leaders of Canada Soccer have consistently failed to take responsibility. With the Birarda case, we saw their appalling failure to respond to several red flags of abusive behaviour. These went well beyond sexual text messages, despite how Montagliani is trying to misrepresent and excuse himself now. There was sexual and psychological abuse of players on the team by Birarda. One ended up as a key witness in his criminal conviction, but Canada Soccer didn't act to protect the community. They negligently shifted his predatory behaviour on and shrouded the reason for his departure, so he was back coaching vulnerable girls just weeks later.

It took players enduring a three-year criminal justice process to get Birarda out of coaching, and their purpose was to protect others. Canada Soccer should have done that in a day, with one sound decision.

Business-wise, Canada Soccer clearly lacks acumen, transparency and accountability. How else can we explain not being able to make one of the best women's teams in the world financially sustainable? Canada won gold in the last Olympics and bronze in the two games before that. They have been world-class for decades but get met with bush league budget cuts and an opaque and questionable business deal that redirects their marketing and sponsorship earnings to the owners of men's professional teams. This is unacceptable.

In the past, anyone who has asked for accountability or proper governance was exiled from the federation or silenced through things like non-disclosure agreements. This toxic and authoritarian culture needs to end. We need a radical overhaul, with much wider representation and scrutiny.

The problems with Canada Soccer have long been apparent. The heritage committee threatened to pull funding on the federation back in 2008. Please take the action that will institute real change. We need a national inquiry.

When Ben Johnson's steroid scandal rocked Canada, we responded by becoming a world leader on doping in sport. This is a pivotal moment for Canadian athletes, to be sure, but we can meet it with the wisdom and the compassion that have been missing from this all. We can transform this difficulty into a more ethical, healthy, dignified and effective way of administering sports in our country.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you, Ms. Neil.

We'll now go to video conference and David Wallbridge.

David, you have five minutes.

[David Wallbridge, Lawyer, As an Individual]

Good morning, Mr. Vice-Chair and members of the committee.

My name is David Wallbridge. I am a labour and employment lawyer in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

I want to begin by acknowledging that I'm in Mi'kma'ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq people.

I'd also like to acknowledge and thank the committee's staff for their assistance in arranging for my video appearance.

Most of my practice involves representing employees and unions across Atlantic Canada in the public and private sectors. Beyond the representational work, I have an ongoing interest in legislative matters affecting workers' issues and rights.

From a workplace perspective, the provinces, in particular, have abandoned most athletes, particularly hockey players, but in some cases any athletes working for a team, such as soccer, lacrosse—it doesn't matter what sport.

This committee should be very concerned about the workplace rights of players. From a safety perspective, having basic workplace rights and a means to having those rights enforced, helps to balance a very unbalanced power structure.

Many of my comments will focus on the Canadian Hockey League and its affiliate leagues and teams.

The players who work for Canadian Hockey League teams are young, and they're chasing a dream. It puts them in an extraordinarily vulnerable position.

In general, young workers are more vulnerable than others. They're inexperienced, often working their first job. They're not aware of their rights. Many are minors working for adults.

It's the same for major junior hockey. You have 16-year-olds working with 20-year-olds or older. That's who the employer employs.

Watching some of the games, it's unimaginable, as an employment lawyer, to think of a situation where an adult can get into a fist fight with a minor and there are no consequences. What's most troubling is that the owners profit from it.

I understand it's a unique workplace. Being an employee player on a hockey team is different from most workplaces. There are bosses. There are job requirements. The team earns revenue. The owners desire to make a profit off the labour of their players. It's really not much different from any other private sector enterprise.

What has happened in the provinces is nothing short of a complete withdrawal of any protection for these employees. Most provinces have exempted athlete employees and hockey player employees from many of their minimum labour standards.

What happened in Nova Scotia, where I'm from, just as an example, was astonishing. With no public consultation, and with, reportedly, no Canadian Hockey League lobbyists registered in the province, worker rights were taken away in the middle of the summer by regulation. It was reported by CBC News that, essentially, the league called, and the premier changed the law. It was law reform in fast-forward. This has now spread to most other provinces—the lack of minimum labour standards for employees.

What should the committee do about it?

The committee needs to recommend, or have as part of any inquiry, some option to intervene on behalf of employee players. The committee should recommend an inquiry, or that the federal government instruct its legal counsel to come forward with whatever proposals are required to put in place proper workplace protections for the health and safety of employee players.

This could include taking action under the Canada Labour Code to have it declared as federal work or undertaking. This should all be part of any review of safety in sport, not just for hockey but for all other athletes. This is really about, and we've heard it from other witnesses, the shocking imbalance of power that exists, while a significant imbalance of power is between these employees and their employers, the teams and the league.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you very much, Mr. Wallbridge.

We will now move to Fencing for Change Canada and Emily Mason.

Thank you, Emily, for providing your comments to us in advance.

You have five minutes.

[Emily Mason, Fencing for Change Canada]

Thank you.

Good morning. I'd like to begin by thanking you all for inviting me here today to speak to you about our little sport, which I think is more often associated with The Princess Bride or Star Wars than with a modern Olympic event.

My name is Emily. You may also know me as the unnamed athlete in a recent Reuters article detailing some of my experiences while training under Igor and Victor Gantsevich at Dynamo Fencing Club in Vancouver.

I'm here today to speak not exclusively to my own history of abuse but on behalf of the dozens of other Canadian fencers who have been brave enough to share their stories and desire for change.

As you have already heard with respect to so many other sports, for decades a culture of toxicity, bullying and abuse has been pervasive in Canadian fencing.

I'd like to tell you a story about a coach named Kyle Foster. In 2018 Kyle Foster hosted several female national team athletes at his home for a training camp prior to an international event. Some of those girls were underage, and while they were under his care, Mr. Foster brought out sex toys. He demonstrated how to use those sex toys on himself and on some of the athletes. He encouraged them to go to a sex club. A complaint was filed; wrongdoing was found, and as a sanction Kyle Foster received a year-long no-contact order with respect to some of the athletes who were involved.

In 2020 another complaint was filed, again alleging sexual harassment involving a minor. The independent third party investigation again found wrongdoing. What were the sanctions? There was an apology letter as well as a one-year order of no contact with the survivor, and a four-month ban from competition during the time of the pandemic, when there were no events being held regardless. After some push-back from the survivor, the CFF posted these sanctions on its website, though they were taken down after four months.

Kyle Foster is the owner of the Canadian Fencing Academy in Oakville, Ontario, team leader at Toronto Metropolitan University fencing, and an accredited member of the Canadian Fencing Federation, the CFF. If his recent social media is any indication, he has been advertising his children's programs as recently as February 8.

I wish I could tell you that these were the only incidents of misconduct that we've heard about over the past months, but the heartbreaking reality is that we've heard story after story of maltreatment at the hands of coaches and other individuals associated with the CFF from across the country. Again and again we have also heard that survivors are afraid. They are afraid that if they come forward they will face not only personal retribution from their abusers but also the risk of losing their national team spots. This is because under the current CFF selection policy, national members may be chosen by majority vote of CFF officials and staff rather than by results or official rankings. For many athletes, coming forward with their stories of abuse could mean losing not only their profession but also their lifelong dream of competing for Canada.

Stories like Kyle Foster's show athletes that their voices will not be heard even if they decide to navigate the complicated process of reporting their maltreatment. What is left for athletes to do? If they choose to come forward, they risk everything that they have worked for in exchange for what? An apology letter.

This is why we created Fencing for Change. We love this sport. This is where we've grown up, met our closest friends and learned our most valuable lessons. Our athletes are hurting. My friends are hurting, and it's time for change.

Our hope is to keep the positivity that sport can bring while making the culture one that supports athletes' success on and off piste. To achieve that change we must first understand the full breadth of the issue. This is why having a public inquiry into Canadian sport culture is so imperative. That is not to say that an inquiry will solve the issues that it will uncover, but it will provide an informed framework on which we can build a supportive future.

We are at a pivotal time in the history of Canadian sports. The momentum of athletes' coming forward is a force that is too strong to silence or to redirect. We now have the responsibility to decide what kind of legacy we will leave behind for all future athletes. Will it be one scarred with our stained history of abuse, of sacrificing children's well-being and of prioritizing medals over the lives of athletes, or will we be part of the change?

We as athletes have done our part. We're here to ask for your help in the next steps towards a safe and inclusive community of sport in Canada, in which all are welcome to experience the absolute joy that sports can bring. That step can be achieved only through a national public inquiry.

Thank you.