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.