Canadian Heritage Committee on May 15th, 2023

Evidence of meeting #81 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was athletes.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Hockey Canada’s Involvement in Alleged Sexual Assaults Committed in 2018

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Jeremy Luke President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport

Anne Merklinger Chief Executive Officer, Own the Podium

Sylvain Croteau Executive Director, Sport'Aide

Karri Dawson Executive Director, Values-Based Sport, Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport

Noon

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport

Jeremy Luke

I absolutely agree with the approach that there needs to be enhanced education for coaches and for all athlete support personnel and education through the lens of information on one hand around the UCCMS and the rules and what those rules mean, but education also through the lens of values that are underpinned by a set of values that we want to see in our sport community. We ensure that all of our educational initiatives support those values, so at the end of the day we see coaches modelling the behaviours we want more than our informing them of the behaviours we don't want.

Noon

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Thank you.

Mr. Croteau, I'm amazed at what you're able to do with such a small budget, as compared to other organizations' budgets. It's impressive.

You mentioned several countries, such as Norway, Finland and France. What model do you think Canada should adopt? There is a crisis, and we need to find a different way of practising sport. Which country seems to be the best model for Canada to follow in the coming years?

Noon

Executive Director, Sport'Aide

Sylvain Croteau

I want to say England, which does a lot of great things. Honestly, though, I would also say that other countries look to Canada. Our system is not perfect and there are still many things that can be done, but the fact remains that some things in Quebec and Canada are the envy of other places. Few places have done as much to protect young athletes.

That doesn't mean that we should stop there. We must remain the leaders that we are, and stay ahead of the game. To do that, we can spare no effort. We need to think big and be bold. You mentioned how much we manage to do with our funding. We have to be creative and we can't be afraid to boldly go down different paths.

Noon

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Thank you.

I'd like to ask another question—

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry

The session is up.

I want to thank our witnesses for coming, for being very excellent and on time, and for giving us all the information they were asked for quite openly and clearly.

Now I'm going to suspend the meeting because, as you know, we have an in camera portion. I hope you all have the in camera coordinates. We'll just suspend for a few minutes while we go in camera.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]