As you know, Ms. Gladu, I served as minister from 2018 to 2019. You're right that in 2019 the position of sport minister was eliminated. At that time, I did ask what we would be doing on safe sport going forward. I was told that we had to get back to what sport was really about. I said, “So not protecting children.”
I think what we've seen in the last few years is that athletes saw some momentum, but then there was a hiatus and there was frustration, rightly. Then 2022 was really the year of athlete advocacy.
What we've also seen through this committee is that there has been some absolute resistance to moving forward on safe sport initiatives. I can tell you that I faced it from Hockey Canada. There was resistance to moving forward with the helpline. I'm not sure why anyone would resist a helpline that athletes could call from across the country to say what their issue was.
There was also real resistance to the third party investigator.