Evidence of meeting #88 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.
5:40 p.m.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
My next question is for Mr. Adams.
I would like to talk about the situation of women within Sail Canada. How many women coaches are part of the Sail Canada national coaching team?
5:40 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sail Canada
Currently, we have one contract woman coaching our top-level athletes.
We have other up-and-coming female coaches coming through the system who are more at the provincial level. We are engaging them in training camps and other projects that we're working on with our provincial partners to give them more experience and develop their skills, but we currently have one contract female coach.
5:40 p.m.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
You supposedly fired Ms. Lisa Ross because you did not receive the money from Sport Canada.
Did you submit a request to the program that encourages gender diversity? Was she hired solely for diversity reasons, or did she become a permanent member of the personnel because of her skills?
5:40 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sail Canada
She was a full-time employee at the time, but no, we did not seek...outside of the legal advice, if I understood your question properly. She was a full-time employee whom we terminated for financial reasons, again, just because of our budget situation, which meant that we had to make a number of cuts going into this fiscal year.
5:40 p.m.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
There seems to be some contradiction. On the one hand, you did not have money to pay her. On the other, the person who replaced her would have received higher pay. To put this into perspective, it would seem that she was fired because she was pregnant, basically.
Can you confirm or deny this information?
5:40 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sail Canada
There are two things that are false.
First, because of our financial situation, we terminated Lisa's contract, which cost us—in terms of her salary, benefits and travel—about $120,000 per year. We've contracted a female coach to provide similar services for $20,000 a year. We're effectively saving about $100,000 in our budget, which really allowed us to balance our budget this year but still provide the services that we need to provide to our athletes.
Second, as I said before, the decision to terminate Lisa was made in February. Regarding the decision about when to inform her, we picked the date of March 17 because she was doing some coaching internationally. In the meantime, we had those two dates. We had the termination letter.
We decided that we were going to give her notice after the European championships, which were going to take place on March 17. On March 8 she announced to us that she was pregnant, but we had the termination letter. We had all the documents in place. We made the decision between the high-performance director and myself that the best time to do that with the least disruption to our team would be March 17.
As I say, in the meantime, she announced that she was pregnant. We respected that, but it had nothing to do with the termination. We have many practices.... We've had within our own staff many who have had maternity leave, five in the last five years. There's no way we discriminate between women. Half of our staff are women.
The second in command is a woman, and we've had various maternity policies. We have one person who has just come back from maternity leave. We have one currently on maternity leave. There is absolutely no way that this had anything—zero—to do with her pregnancy, and all of our records will show that.
5:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Kevin Waugh
Thank you, Mr. Adams.
Thank you, Mr. Lemire.
Ms. Smith, we've been around this table for a year. I will say this: Gymnastics Canada has had more complaints than any other sport. That's why some of these questions have been directed to you. I know you're brand new as the chair, but we would like some answers.
I've been around this table for a year, and gymnastics is right at number one for complaints. That's why you're here today. We are disturbed with what we have seen in the past from your organization. Unfortunately, I only have one round here, but let me just say that as the vice-chair here today I wasn't too happy with some of your answers. You have to come here better prepared. We've been studying safe sport here for a year, and gymnastics is one of the sports that we are very concerned with in this country.
I will leave it at that. Our final question will go for six minutes to the NDP with Peter Julian.
Mr. Julian.
5:45 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair. I would like reiterate your comments to Ms. Smith.
We want to see the documents that we've requested, Ms. Smith. We want Gymnastics Canada to be fully accountable. Gymnasts for Change has been extraordinarily brave in stepping forward. We've had members of that organization, including Kim Shore, testify before this committee, and Canadians are expecting answers.
I think it's fair to say that we have been very disappointed with the lack of transparency so far, and the lack of responses to the legitimate questions that are being asked. This comes from all members of this committee. We want, in the same way that Hockey Canada initially was unable or unwilling to answer questions.... We have the ability to ensure that we get those answers, and we want to see the organization change.
I wanted to start off by asking a very simple question. Does your organization maintain a list of banned or suspended coaches?
5:45 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Do you have some sense of whether we're talking about a dozen, 100 or five?
5:45 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Could you share with us those numbers, along with an indication of whether these are coaches who have been banned or coaches who have been suspended? Also, if they've been suspended, what is the trigger to get them unsuspended?
5:50 p.m.
Chair, Gymnastics Canada
I can share that list with you for certain. I would be happy to share the list with this committee.
5:50 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
How many complaints are you currently looking at within your organization—ones that have been filed?
5:50 p.m.
Chair, Gymnastics Canada
I don't know the number of complaints. They're not reported to the board, but I can find that information for you.
5:50 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Yes, that would be helpful, as well as the nature of the complaint and how it is being investigated. That would also be very important. This is information Canadians need to have, as well, to restore confidence in the organization.
Again, I would like to commend the work of Gymnasts for Change in bringing to light many of these abusive practices and helping us, as a committee, try to navigate the recommendations we'll be bringing forward to the federal government, so we can ensure safe sports in this country, including gymnastics.
I would like to move on to you, Mr. Adams.
What happened looks very bad on Sail Canada. Could you share with us what the total budget was for Sail Canada last year, and what it is for this year?
5:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sail Canada
In terms of what we just finished, we had about a $3-million budget in total.
I don't have this year's in front of me, but I've had to cut about.... The budget last year still left us with a $150,000 deficit. I had to cut approximately $300,000 from the budget for this year in terms of balancing the budget and making priorities move forward for this particular year, because we're in the year where athletes are qualifying for the Olympics. It's getting those athletes qualified. That's where the focus of our funding for this year is going.
We've had to, as I said, cut about $300,000 from our budget.
5:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sail Canada
No. As I said before, every coach who's funded, with the three national-level coaches—
5:50 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
I'm going to quote from a CBC interview that was done with Lisa Ross:
Nine days after telling Sail Canada...she was pregnant...Ross was fired.
Ross was in Andora, Italy, where she'd been coaching Canadian sailors at the European championship. She was about to head to Spain for more competitions and training camps....
...“It was a five-minute phone call where I was fired, basically, without cause.”
If you're saying there was a long lead-up to this and it was something considered for some time, why was she in Italy and heading to Spain for competitions—obviously assigned by Sail Canada? Why was her firing done in a phone call?
5:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sail Canada
A couple of things.... One was that when we made the decision, we still had some athletes who Lisa was coaching. Her trip was already planned for the European championship. That's why, as I mentioned before, even though the decision to terminate her was in February, we made the decision that we would actually give her notice the moment the European championship was over, which was on March 17.
Because she was still in Europe and we didn't want her to go on to another competition at that point in time, we arranged the phone call. We arranged the meeting on March 17. That was the day that we said we would give her notice. That's all the documentation that we had. We had a meeting with her, and please respect that this was not an easy decision. We realize that the optics don't look good. That's all part of it, but all of the records will show that the decision to do this was in good faith.
When I had negotiated a contract with Lisa, she demanded that the termination clause in her contract be increased from what the Nova Scotia labour laws required, which was six weeks. She demanded that she be given another week for every year that she worked, which I abided by. She also wanted her probationary period taken out of her contract, which I also was.... She was very clear that the funding came from the gender equity fund, having emails to that effect. She knew that this position could be terminated. She negotiated a termination clause in her employment contract, which I honoured, and gave her the extra notice.
March 17 was the day that we were going to notify her. We arranged a meeting with her. It's one of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make in my 40 years involved in sport. Firing someone who had a family, who had done some service for us, but I think that.... You know, Lisa still has a career in sailing. She will be hired by other groups. I mean, she's a good coach, so—