Canadian Heritage Committee on May 1st, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Good morning. I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 78 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I want to acknowledge that the meeting is taking place on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Obviously, this meeting is taking place in a hybrid fashion.

For those of you who are together in the committee room, you do not have to wear a mask. It's not compulsory, but it is something that you might want to think about doing. COVID is still around, and so are other respiratory diseases.

I want to take this opportunity to remind all participants that they cannot take photographs of this meeting or of their view on Zoom. The proceedings will be made available on the public website, so you'll be able to get anything you want off that website.

Also, when you speak, please make sure that you address everything through the chair.

There will be a question and answer period. During that time, again, you cannot speak unless the chair recognizes you.

The other thing I want to say is that it's important.... If you look at the bottom of your screen, you'll see that there's a little globe icon. When you press that, it will give you translations in English, French or the floor language—the original language, whichever you choose to use.

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.

Today we have quite a few very important witnesses who, I gather, have expertise on this issue in different ways.

We have, as individuals, Shauna Bookal, manager of equity, diversity, inclusion and student experience at Ontario University Athletics; Whitney Bragagnolo, Ph.D. candidate and sport governance and anti-corruption consultant; Dr. Joëlle Carpentier, professor, school of management, Université du Québec à Montréal; and Richard McLaren, chief executive officer, McLaren Global Sport Solutions.

Also, we have, from Égale Action, Sylvie Béliveau, director, gender equity; and from Laboratoire de recherche pour la progression des femmes dans les sports au Québec, we have Dr. Guylaine Demers, professor and director.

Before we begin the meeting and I let the witnesses speak, I notice that Mr. Housefather has his hand up.

Mr. Housefather.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, there have been discussions amongst the parties over the weekend. I think we all were profoundly disturbed by the testimony of Mr. Steven Reed, the former president of Canada Soccer, who came before us last week. We recognize that we've heard from many former presidents of Canada Soccer, but we have not heard from the current president, Charmaine Crooks, who is now running for re-election. I think it is important that we do so as quickly as possible, given what occurred before the committee last week.

Madam Chair, I believe you'll have unanimous consent to the following motion:

That, in relation to the committee's study on safe sport and the testimony we have heard from previous witnesses, that Canada Soccer President, Charmaine Crooks, be summoned to appear before the committee for two hours on Thursday May 4th, to clarify her position on issues surrounding Canada Soccer including responses provided by previous witnesses.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Anthony.

Peter.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I support this, Madam Chair. I think we all do. This is a very important summons.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Mr. Lemire.

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

Madam Chair, I appreciate Mr. Housefather's leadership on this. I will be supporting the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Is there anyone else?

Go ahead, Marilyn.

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

Thank you, Chair.

The Conservatives also support this motion, and we appreciate Mr. Housefather's bringing it forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, all.

It would seem to me that we have unanimous consent for this motion, so it is passed.

(Motion agreed to)

The clerk will duly note we are going to ask Ms. Crooks to be here next Thursday, which would be the 4th.

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Rachael.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I thought I would add one more order of business, which is a motion put on the table on April 24 with regard to bringing the Auditor General forward. The motion reads:

That, considering the Auditor General report tabled on Monday, March 27, entitled “Progress on access to high-speed Internet and mobile cellular services lags behind for rural and remote communities and First Nations reserves”, the committee invite Karen Hogan, Auditor General of Canada, to testify before committee as soon as possible for no fewer than two hours.

I would seek the support of the committee to move that quickly, and we can hear from witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Does anyone wish to speak for or against this motion?

Go ahead, Chris.

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

Thank you so much.

I guess I'd like to hear from my other colleague as well. I don't know that this is in our bailiwick. I think this is more of a study for the industry committee, especially with the issues we have before us at the moment, and I don't see this study ending any time soon.

I'm wondering if it's a better option to table debate on this, hear the witnesses and have a business meeting in the near future so we can plan out what our committee's doing. Ultimately, I think this is probably something for our colleagues on the industry committee to handle.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Chris.

Sébastien, you have the floor.

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

Being on both committees, I feel compelled to jump in. I would be interested in hearing what Mrs. Thomas thinks of the idea. If she agrees, I would be glad to put forward the motion on the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology to see whether it would be considered in order there. I think the motion deals with a critical issue and warrants debate. I'm not opposed to the idea of having the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology deal with it.

Otherwise, I will support having this committee deal with it. It's essential to examine access to high-speed Internet and mobile cellular services in rural communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Is there anybody else on the floor? I see no hands—

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Michael MacPherson]

Mrs. Thomas has her hand up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Go ahead, Rachael.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I would clarify that the Auditor General sent a letter both to this committee and to the industry committee, offering to come speak on this report, so, given the Auditor General's letter indicating she would like to come or she would be willing to come.... Further to that, we know that some of the funding comes from Industry and some of it comes from Heritage Canada, so it does fit nicely within this committee and its framework or its mandate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Does anyone else wish to comment on this?

I note that Monsieur Lemire decided we should debate this more fully. I think we have witnesses waiting, and I wonder if.... I know we are trying to have a business meeting coming up soon to discuss the parameters for a lot of work we intend to do, that we are doing, etc.

Mrs. Thomas, how do you feel about putting this forward to a business meeting, or do you want to deal with it now?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Chair, I have no problem doing that, in the sense that I certainly want to get on with this meeting. I'm surprised that there wasn't unanimous consent. Again, the Auditor General wrote to this committee offering to come, and it's clearly within our purview. It's not meant to be a complicated motion or to cause trouble, so I am confused by that.

I would highlight that I have had this tabled since April 24 and there just hasn't been opportunity to bring it forward, so I wonder when that opportunity might present itself, then, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

If you're willing to put it forward to a business meeting, I think we could ask the clerk, given what our agenda is and what it looks like we're going to be doing for the next four meetings, if he believes we could have a business meeting very soon.

Mike, do you think there's room in terms of resources, etc.?

[The Clerk]

As far as resources are concerned, the committee would have to put in a deviation request, which has been done. If you're speaking specifically about adding time to Thursday's meeting, we would have to wait to hear back if resources are available. Otherwise, the committee does have a full schedule with the May 8 meeting, so it would most likely be Thursday, May 11.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Pardon me? Did someone ask a question?

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

If I may, Chair, perhaps we could take just 10 minutes of committee business on this at a future meeting. We're not opposed to this. We have some amendments to it that we'd like to make, but we're not opposed to the Auditor General's appearing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

It sounds like Thursday may be our best option, i.e., the next meeting of this committee, if we can get an extra half an hour or something like that to be able to do this.

Clerk, when will you know whether we can or cannot?