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.