Thank you, Ms. Hepfner. You and I have talked long about these issues.
Outside of teaching at the university, my life was coaching and teaching dance. My whole life was devoted to young people. I really believe that every athlete should go to practice excited and looking forward to practice, to being in the gym, on the field or on the rink, and that they should look forward to being physically fit, to being trained by good coaches who want to develop good athletes and good people, and that they should enjoy sport and share the love of sport.
I also know the darker side of sport. While I have not experienced the horrific abuse that you have heard about at this committee, I am a former gymnast and I know what it's like to be told to eat Jell-o, laxatives, toilet paper and water pills, and what it's like to be weighed and shamed. I wanted to do everything so that no young person would ever face that going forward. That's why I said that my number one priority was ending abuse and having safe sport, and I said to the sport community and to officials that we are drawing a line in the sand and the days of hear no evil, see no evil in sport are over. We have a duty of care to our athletes, and we need to make it easier for athletes to come forward. There is a responsibility to get the perpetrators and the enablers out of the system.