Canadian Heritage Committee on April 27th, 2023

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. You were here previously, and most of your testimony was to do with a different subject matter, but you did initiate this conversation at the end, which I very much appreciated.

Thank you for what the work you have been doing. We've heard many challenges, but this is something more positive in what can be done.

I know the commissioner, and if we do get time in this study, he's willing to appear here. The Alberta Junior Hockey League is in playoffs at the moment, which includes the town I'm in, of course.

I talked to the commissioner, who has participated, from my understanding, in sessions with you. His evaluation of what you're doing and what you're attempting to do with the players in the league, 16-year-old to 21-year-old young men, is that he felt it's incredibly valuable. You've quoted him. I would look for more responses you may have had from other sources. What other feedback are you getting on what you are out to accomplish?

[Jill Shillabeer]

We have had a great response. We like to call Leading Change a promising practice that has over 10 years' worth of evidence-based research behind it. We've been doing this work for a very long time, and all of our evaluations are really quite positive.

I can tell you stories about players. We meet them in their locker rooms. We often speak to them about how it is for them and how they are doing, because they just want to chat afterwards.

I can think of one player in particular who is aging out of the league this year. She said that five years ago when she started, this conversation would never have happened in the AJHL, but now it just seems normal. She said that it is making them a better team and stronger players, and that they're able to talk about things that are more difficult than they could previously.

If it pleases Madam Chair, I would like to hand the mike over to my colleague Anthony, who went through the training as a Stampeder about 10 years ago and has experience as a facilitator as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Certainly.

Go ahead, Mr. Parker.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Before you go there, I appreciate that you identified where you held these sessions. You held them in their locker rooms, in their environment. You came to them where they worked.

[Jill Shillabeer]

Absolutely.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That's an important piece of this for those players and that made a difference, from what I've heard.

Thank you.

Mr. Parker.

[Anthony Parker, Leading Change Facilitator, Alberta Council of Women's Shelters]

Thank you.

Yes, I can definitely relate to having taken part in this training, and then, of course, proceeding to becoming a facilitator.

I think the point you just brought up about bringing it to the players in their locker rooms is that it has proven to be tremendously valuable. Coming from that environment, I understand what it's like to be in that hypermasculinized environment, where we're expected to adhere to some certain norm, whatever that may be.

Being in their environment in the locker room, which is their comfort zone, we're able to go in there and really just have positive face-to-face conversations in an environment where their guard is going to be down a little bit more and they're a little bit more receptive.

I can also attest to the fact that I remember having the mentality when I started this program that this was not going to be something that could be done in the locker room with my guys. I could see myself having this conversation outside of the locker room. I can come to say now that I was pleasantly surprised in the response I got.

I'd like to also mention, as a further example, the impact that this program can have. I remember having a conversation with the Calgary Canucks in their locker room just a couple of months ago. It was a wonderful conversation. They're a great group of guys, and they were very receptive and they were thankful to us for coming to have that conversation. They found tremendous value in it coming from somebody who had been in their position.

I was wonderfully impressed when, the next day at my kid's school, I happened to see four of the Calgary Canucks taking part in a reading program with K-to-six kids. It just goes to show, when you have that positive impact on those players, how that multiplicity can affect everything. They're going to now have the opportunity to have a positive impact on all of the people in their communities.

I'd just like to share with the committee what a wonderful impact that has had, and I was able to witness that first-hand.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

In a sense, this is not an easy and cheap process. It takes resources and it takes authentic voices. The request for multi-year funding is critical. This one year one-off, I think, is short-sighted.

How has the response been to this request to be out there for those who need to be the authentic voices and participants in this, because this is not an easy thing to do? What has been the response to the multi-year funding for it? What has been the response to this message?

[Jill Shillabeer]

We've not yet been able to secure multi-year funding, so we're currently in that position of trying to find funding—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Excuse me, please. Someone in the room has their mike on. Can you please turn it off?

Thank you.

Ms. Shillabeer, go ahead.

[Jill Shillabeer]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

As I mentioned, we haven't as of yet been successful in securing multi-year funding to support the program. I would advise, though it is expensive for us as a charity organization, from a government budget perspective, it is relatively inexpensive. I don't know that there is a women's organization out there that hasn't yet figured out how to turn a dime into a dollar.

In terms of the authentic voices bringing this work forward, it's really important that this be informed by the lived experiences of people who have experienced violence. Being an organization that is a member-based organization representing women's shelters in the province, we have been able to bring that forward and represent those voices.

When I mentioned that we had been presenting at a national conference on this work recently, it was a women's shelters conference. We do have interest from a number of other organizations across the country to be able to take this prevention work forward; however, again, funding becomes the challenging issue in trying to make sure that we are able to travel to meet all those teams.

In Alberta, we went from Fort McMurray to Brooks and east-west from Grande Prairie to Lloydminster, so we were in all corners of Alberta. That does take time, staff and resources, and there are travel costs involved.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Could you give an estimate of the resources and time it took to run this program for one year in one province with one group of people?

[Jill Shillabeer]

I would estimate, in terms of time, that it was a huge commitment, because we were doing everything during the season. We were very focused on this, and primarily that was it for about four months. That was with a team of two and a half staff of ACWS as well as some of our community facilitators such as Mr. Parker.

In terms of costs, we have costed out, looking at the next year of implementing our year-two curriculum. We're looking at between $40,000 and $50,000.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

That's it, and we're going to move on to the next questions. They will be from the Liberals.

Chris Bittle, you have six minutes, please.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much.

I'll direct my questions to Dr. Macfarlane. I agree with you. We wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be discussing many of these issues if the NDAs stood.

I come at it as a former practitioner in civil litigation, where the use of NDAs and confidentiality clauses in settlement agreements was pretty standard. Even if it was a small claims court dispute on something relatively minor, or with a firm precedent, we always had a confidentiality clause in there.

Is what you're proposing eliminating NDAs with respect to violence and harassment, or should it be across the board with respect to settlements?

[Julie Macfarlane]

That's a great question.

The legislation that we are advocating for is limited to non-disclosure agreements that cover up misconduct, sexual misconduct, harassment, bullying and discrimination.

Can I just add that there is an astonishing number of cases of proven discrimination? I'm talking now about pregnancy discrimination, discrimination against people with disabilities—they're not being accommodated and they're being forced out—many cases of discrimination on the basis of race and anti-indigenous racism.

We are seeing an enormous proliferation of the use of non-disclosure agreements in these cases. Much as you've indicated, they have become the default. We have data now that shows that a significant number of people.... For example, in the United States, there are three studies that now show that one in three people is subject to a non-disclosure agreement. There is data that we have put together from the quantitative survey we've been running that shows that a third of the people who answered that survey have also been asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Let me pause a moment and suggest that there is an important distinction here between a confidentiality agreement, which simply says the amount of the settlement will not be divulged.... That is, I know, standard practice. In fact, there's an exception in the legislation for just that.

There may also be the need for confidentiality that the parties both agree to in terms of not speaking to the media or making this public. However, what non-disclosure agreements are doing now is preventing people from speaking up for their entire lives, because these are indefinite agreements. They are until the end of one's life. In fact, I've heard arguments that they endure, even after the death of the predator.

These are agreements, for the lifetime of the victims who sign them, that they cannot speak to anybody. We're talking about family, friends, therapists, counsellors, elders and people who might support them. This is why it was apparently impossible for Soccer Canada to put a red flag on Mr. Birarda. It was because he would have negotiated a non-disclosure agreement that would have kept everything that he did secret, and everybody would have been too afraid to break that and make it known that he is somebody who should be treated as a possibly dangerous person to be coaching young people.

Yes, we are confining this to those cases of misconduct, sexual violence and abuse, harassment and discrimination.

I would also say the committee should be aware that these NDAs are also being used in consumer disputes. The reason we didn't know about tainted baby formula for almost 20 years after the first settlement was made, and that the formula kept on being sold and poisoning babies, was because of an NDA.

We see them, as well, in professional services disagreements, when there is apparently an oath taken to never speak of this again. We see them in complaints in care homes, where people who speak up about concerns about the care being given to their relatives, or even professionals in the care homes, are being immediately NDA'd.

I think that is extremely dangerous, and I don't understand why there is any reason to perpetuate something that has, to a great extent, caused the revictimization of folks in sports and beyond.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much. I agree with you.

You mentioned legislation in Ireland with respect to the whole country. I'm wondering if you could speak to the jurisdictional issues in Canada. Who would have to pass such legislation? What level of government would that be?

[Julie Macfarlane]

Obviously, you would know, as a lawyer, that employment law in Canada is almost entirely provincial. We have been moving province by province, because it needs to be done at a provincial level.

However, I would add, and I have permission to inform you today.... There is a whole group of people who are employed by the federal government, and there are many organizations and agencies that are funded by the federal government, including Hockey Canada. There will be a bill tabled shortly in the federal government to protect those workers in the federal government from being NDA'd.

Again, we have many examples of individuals working for this government who have raised complaints about discrimination and complaints about sexual harassment, and they have been NDA'd and terminated. I think it's very important to protect that group as well.

However, the vast majority of our work, because that is a jurisdiction of employment law, is done province by province.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds, Chris.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much, Dr. Macfarlane. I'll take the last few seconds to thank you for your work. It's very important work.

I kind of laughed to myself when you said that I do “know” that. Of course I do, because I'm a University of Windsor grad—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

—and I had excellent professors at the time.

I want to thank you for all the work you're doing and the important work you're moving forward with.

Thank you.

[Julie Macfarlane]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Chris.

I will now move to the Bloc Québécois and Sébastien Lemire.

Sébastien, you have six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mrs. Macfarlane, let me begin by thanking you for your work, which we can acknowledge and recognize today. My team and I thank you for your dedication to this cause.

Today you have seen a part of our work.

I am shocked by the image protection operation orchestrated by Hockey Canada and the inaction by its managers. Last year, when we began this study, I said that the use of non-disclosure agreements was abusive. I thought the timing of your statement was especially interesting.

Do you support the idea of an independent public inquiry to shed light on the abuse we see in all sports, not just hockey or soccer?

I think that you follow the work of our committee and even that of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.