Canadian Heritage Committee on April 24th, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you, Ms. Mason. In fact, thank you very much to all four of you.

We have questions and answers now. The first round will be for six minutes each. We'll start with Mr. Shields from the Conservative Party.

Go ahead, please, Mr. Shields.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here. We very much appreciate your stepping forward. As you've heard, many others have appeared before us, and we appreciate that very much.

Ms. Mason, in the sport of fencing, there are many different parts. It's what we see in the international competitions with Olympic athletes in the profession that you have chosen.

I will start with a different type of question, to get a sense of how this has affected your family. How has this affected, more broadly, the people you live with outside of the sport? How has it affected you and your family?

[Emily Mason]

When I left the sport, I was 17 and I was a broken individual. I was in a mental health crisis. I attempted suicide. I was seeing a mental health professional. The difficulty my family has gone through in the years since I left the sport has been immense. It's been five years now, and it will be a part of our lives for years to come.

No parent wants to send their child into an environment that they believe is abusive, yet few children recognize their own situation as being abusive when they're in it. I didn't know what happened to me was wrong, so I didn't come home and say something was wrong. The guilt they feel from that is a difficult thing for all of us, I think, to come to terms with.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you. I appreciate that. I think that's a critical piece to what we have learned about and need to pay attention to—the extended family and what it causes for them.

When you talk about the organization, would you say the case of mishandling extends to the current executive level of this organization?

[Emily Mason]

I would say, echoing Ms. Denhollander's statement, that the current leadership has a responsibility to aid in the healing and to take accountability for all accounts of mishandling that have come forward, regardless of whether it is happening now or it happened historically. We need these issues to come forward. They need to handle them appropriately, if they were involved or not. It makes no difference.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

We've heard testimony today about policy, which is something we've often looked at in organizations: Do they have a structure? Do they have a policy? However, we're hearing there's more to it than just the structure and the policy. You've heard that. You've experienced it.

Beyond the structure and policy that we often talk about as we look at organizations, in your opinion, what we should be paying attention to?

[Emily Mason]

Besides the structure and the policy, I think it's incredibly important to pay attention to the broader culture that allows for these individuals to exploit children. I think, in fencing specifically, and in other sports, there is generally a level of tolerance of maltreatment and abuse, because those individuals get results. I think that's unacceptable, and I think that's something that's going to require a systemic change beyond policy. It's going to take an entire framework shift in how we approach sports.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

You mentioned an example of those people who are chosen to be in events by a vote rather than by performance. That's something we are not going to see in a policy. How are we going to find that level at which we reward people's performance rather than via a voting structure? How are we going to find that?

[Emily Mason]

In the case of the Canadian Fencing Federation, it is actually part of policy that they vote on our team. However, if you look at other fencing organizations, like in the United States, for example, they use a ranking system that is objective. If you're looking for those policies, they exist. There are examples of how to do it better that you can observe, for sure.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

How far we dig into this is up to us. We could make sure we find those things you've highlighted in policies, such as the structure you mentioned. Are there other pieces in policies that you haven't mentioned today, that we need to pay attention to in your organization?

[Emily Mason]

In our organization, I think it's incredibly important to pay attention to the complexity of the policies, particularly surrounding the reporting of abuse. It's incredibly unclear whether athletes are supposed to go to their provincial organizations, the national organization, OSIC, or selection policy 1 or policy 2. It's incredibly complex, and a lot of it is out of the hands of the survivors themselves. It's a huge limiting factor, I think, in athletes choosing to come forward.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That's an understanding of the structure. What about the whistle-blower? How scary was it for you to come forward?

[Emily Mason]

For me, I'm given a sense of protection, knowing that I'm no longer a competitive athlete.

The reason I'm sitting here today and not some of our Olympic athletes or athletes who are still competing is that they're still terrified. They're afraid of our high-performance director. They're afraid they're going to be removed from the team.

I'm very lucky, in that sense, to be able to have the distance and to speak about my experiences. Even so, I'm still afraid of my abuser. It's just that I'm fortunate enough to know that there's nothing he can take away from me anymore.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That's because you've lost it already.

[Emily Mason]

Yes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you, Mr. Shields. Thank you, Ms. Mason.

We'll go to the Liberal Party now, and Mr. Louis for six minutes.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses, virtually and in person, for being here and for the bravery they're showing.

There was no pathway for many of you. You're the ones who created that path. That's an important legacy. You need to know that there are people now who are brave enough to come forward because of people like you who led that way.

However, you're saying that those who are brave enough to call out those issues are still suffering retribution, and that's one of the things we really need to focus on.

Ms. Neil, as a former captain and a player for the Canadian nationals—I think you mentioned you were at five World Cups as a player or a coach—I appreciated your submission in writing. You talked about how the current system puts the onus on the athletes to hold the organizations to account. That's something we need to address. You talked about “mismanagement”, and “financial practices”. You talked about “dispensing of the norms of good governance”, and then the “failure to adhere to [their] own policies”.

We've seen so many times, in this study and elsewhere, that organizations do their own reports, their own studies, and they seem more performative than anything.

What are your concerns about organizations that say they will take care of it—that they'll handle their own strategy development plans—and that then try to rebrand themselves? How can we hold them accountable?

[Andrea Neil]

Well, first of all, when you consider performance, a lot of the performances are occurring in spite of it. When players and athletes are calling for transparency over and over again, it means they do not trust, and trust is fundamental to any human relationship.

When you're talking about the ethics of how people are going about it, you can see a pattern of behaviour over time. That's why I cited 30 years. With what people and the leadership are saying, and the lived values of what they're doing over time, you can see the attitudes come out through the behaviours of what the reality is. Right now, with the sports organizations, there's a big gap between what they're saying and what they're doing. This is a massive problem.

Leaders need to take a reflective approach to what has come forward—whistle-blowers coming forward or people saying there's a lack of transparency—and look at their own leadership approaches. That takes a lot, and it takes a lot of vulnerabilities of leaders to do that. That takes a lot of work and humility.

If you want to make the problem go away, then now you need to excuse the whistle-blowers. There's a conflict within the person, and they have to rectify that somehow, within themselves, to change their own behaviours or to make voices go away. It's a double-edged sword. There's the first victimization, say of the former U-20s, and then there's the institution's response to that. That can be as harmful, if not more harmful. It impacts, as Emily just mentioned, the culture, not just then, but into the here and now.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I appreciate that answer.

Also in your suggestions were the executive's financial practices. What can we do? With regard to the importance of that forensic auditing, how can that also have organizations held to account?

[Andrea Neil]

Absolutely. I think that the national inquiry is the scrutiny that needs to happen. A forensic audit into the finances going back 20 years will give evidence of the patterns of behaviour that have occurred financially. When questions have been asked in the past by coaches or athletes striving for compensation, for example, for player compensation packages, and that transparency is not forthcoming, or money and camps all of a sudden seem to disappear, that's really questionable. It's hard to steady a boat in the direction of performance if there is a lack of trust there in our relationship.

I think the time is now for a deeper scrutiny. That's not to criticize and blame and shame people. We need to know where we are and where we've been in order to course correct and aim in an appropriate way.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

You also mentioned in your written submission that your success—that of both the men's and women's national teams—has come despite the current system.

Can you describe how a safer and more responsible culture will not only benefit the safety and well-being of our players, which is first and foremost why we are here, but also focus on more success? Sometimes, we're seeing a push-back of.... The suggestions are that it will come at the price of a loss of competitiveness.

Can you help by explaining how, with this system, we can successfully bring up a generation of athletes who are safe and can still be competitive?

[Andrea Neil]

The start point is to define what safety is. That means free from harm, and that has to be our aim. In order to create an environment and culture in which people can be healthy, thrive and perform at their best effectiveness, it has to be free from harm, because you cannot thrive if you're in defence mode and protective mode.

What damages human relationships, for example, is a lack of trust. That is fundamental. If you don't get that going, and the very people who are assisting to help chart the course, as far as the boat is concerned, are often drilling holes in the side of the boat.... How can you perform if that's happening and it is not an honest and supportive relationship moving forward, when people inside the boat are having to bail water? How can you perform under those circumstances to the best of your ability?

You may be able to override it for the short term, but it comes at the cost of relationships, health and well-being. It doesn't just impact a person then and there. It impacts their careers, but it impacts their health and well-being for decades down the road.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you, Ms. Neil, and thank you very much, Tim.

We will move to the Bloc and Sébastien Lemire. Go ahead, Sébastien, for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I must admit that I am truly shaken this morning, even though I had prepared myself for this encounter and for the kind of testimony we were likely to hear.

Thanks to each and every one of you for your courage.

I'm angry about people's indifference to the situation. I'm not sure that the committee is the right forum. Your testimony needs to be heard by a judge or an independent commissioner so that concrete measures can result from your testimony, whether in terms of the judiciary, the police or at another level.

We've heard a very wide range of stories that affect sexual, financial, psychological or physical aspects of life. These cases of abuse are very difficult. I can't understand why things aren't moving more quickly at the political level and I'm genuinely sorry about that.

Thank you for being with us today. Your testimony will truly move things forward.

I'm going to begin with Ms. Denhollander.

Ms. Denhollander, I'll begin by calling attention to your courage. You were the first person who dared to speak out. You were pivotal in effecting a major change around the world, because of what you did and what you said.

How important was Judge Aquilina's inquiry in advancing the claims made by American gymnasts?

How do you feel about what you heard today in the testimony?

Thank you.