Canadian Heritage Committee on June 19th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Hello, everyone.

This meeting is called to order.

Welcome to meeting number 89 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I wish to acknowledge that we are meeting on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House Order of Thursday, June 23, 2022.

While public health authorities and the Board of Internal Economy no longer require mask wearing, once again, given the pollution index in Ottawa at the moment and given that COVID is still with us, I would like to ask people to wear their masks to protect themselves and others.

I want to take the opportunity to remind all participants in this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted. The proceedings will be online and available on the House of Commons website.

Although this room is equipped with a powerful audio system, feedback events can cause problems for the interpreters. These can be extremely harmful to interpreters and cause serious injuries. The most common cause of sound feedback is an earpiece worn too close to a microphone. We therefore ask all participants to exercise a great deal of caution when handling the earpieces, especially when your microphone or your neighbour's microphone is turned on. In order to prevent incidents and safeguard the hearing health of the interpreters, I invite participants to ensure that they speak into the microphone into which their headset is plugged and to avoid manipulating the earbuds by placing them on the table, away from others.

Please, as soon as you are no longer speaking, mute yourselves, because that feedback also causes a loud noise in the room, at least for those of us connected virtually. We hear that loud noise, so I'm sure that the interpreters do as well.

Again, as everyone knows, for those of you who are virtual, there is a globe at the bottom of your screen. That is your interpretation. You can press it and get the audio in English or French.

You can speak only when the chair recognizes you, so please remember that, and again, please mute your microphone when you are not speaking. That's it, I think.

We're going to begin the meeting. 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 in Canada.

We have one witness for one hour. As an individual, we have Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, a circuit court judge from Michigan, U.S.A.

Judge Aquilina, you may now proceed with your five-minute opening statement. I will give you a shout-out when you have 30 seconds left, so that you can wrap up. If you don't get to finish all the things you want to say, that will come out in the wash when questions are asked by committee members. You can elaborate on what you want to say at that time.

Judge Aquilina, you have five minutes.

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, Circuit Court Judge, Michigan, United States of America, As an Individual]

Thank you.

During international crises and natural disasters, Canada supports refugees, has peace and stabilization operations, has disaster assistance and response teams, and acts quickly and appropriately when it receives a request for assistance from countries facing disasters, conflicts or acute food insecurity.

So, I have to ask you this: Why do your Canadian children have to reach across your borders to this judge to ask that child abuse stop in sports? Your Canadian athletes are asking for the 100% they give you. You are their Parliament parents, and they're asking you to protect, defend and provide for them. Their health, safety and welfare are in grave danger. They are at risk every single day they are performing with coaches who are untrained and uncaring and have a “win at all costs” attitude.

Athletes deserve and demand immediate and meaningful action and accountability. It will only happen with an independent judicial investigation where those athletes who are not tied to any body but who have come before you and are asking for help with their input.... When will Canada hear its children and take this meaningful action to protect them from the pain, suffering and trauma they suffer in sport?

Canada should be celebrating and honouring the excellence of Canadian athletes and their well-being, not profiting from their abuse. Athletes have the absolute right to expect safe, positive, healthy training without physical and emotional abuse. The current culture allows aggressive coaches who overstep, blur lines and abuse children. If you want to maintain Canadian sports' integrity, you need to protect the sports and the players. Remember, all athletes begin as children, and what's happening now in sports is that they are suffering a lifetime of abuse that has become normalized in sports. Allowing abuse in sports is allowing and condoning child abuse. It is the murdering of the souls of the athletes, who pay the price for the rest of their lives while everyone else profits.

Science and psychology have proven that positive coaching always leads to better athletic outcomes compared to negative, abusive coaching, which leads to a lifetime of physical and emotional harm and trauma. Abuse cannot be mediated. Minimizing the risk is not enough. Eliminating the risk of abuse is the only answer. Non-disclosure agreements, NDAs, cannot be mandated. They cannot be tolerated because they hide the truth from parents, the public, the media, and even you.

Sports cannot—and it is proven—regulate themselves. They need you. They need your help. All governing bodies must have half of the seats with athletes. Again, independent athletes, those voices that have independently come before you and said “help us”.... You need to listen to them. Those are the dissenters, and “dissenters” is not a bad word. When you have a dissenter, that means you have an open discussion and you get the right answer. These children deserve the right answer. They deserve protection, and they deserve it now.

To end the culture of abuse, sports must be under the oversight of the health and human rights committee for protection of athletes, because being safe is a human right. It is not a question mark. It is an absolute right. Sport must rebrand itself with zero tolerance for abuse of any kind. Safety must be a priority, not an afterthought, not a cover-up, not a back seat to money and medals. Before any meaningful action can be taken, you must—I implore you; I beg you—have this independent judicial investigation, because without it, you will not reignite the trust that you have lost.

The current reporting and investigation process is so closely tied to the organizations that monitor the athletes' career that the athletes do not report out of fear that more harm will come to them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 15 seconds, please.

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

Investigation and reporting procedures must be fully independent, with a safe reporting chain that eliminates the fear of retaliation. You need to flip the script and balance the power. Trust can only be ensured when there is a balance of power.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much for your testimony.

Now we're going to move to the question and answer period. This first round is for six minutes. That includes the questions and the answers. Once again, I'm asking everyone to be as concise as they can.

We begin with the Conservatives and Mrs. Thomas.

You have six minutes, please, Rachael.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you for being with us here today.

I'll get to my questions quickly, in the interest of time.

My first question has to do with testimony that we heard from Rachael Denhollander. She was here at this committee just a few weeks ago and, of course, you'll be familiar with her based on the Nassar case.

When she was here, she talked about how the same problems that exist in the U.S. exist here in Canada. She talked about our system with OSIC, which is the oversight body within the Government of Canada that's supposed to be investigating the complaints that arise. She pointed out the fact that the system doesn't work because there is a fear of reprisal and because people are ill-trained to look after these cases as they come forward. Furthermore, she said that it doesn't work because there are no “survivor protections” in place. She said that she sees the same things in the U.S. that she sees here.

I'm wondering if you can expand on that in terms of what you might see at play and how we might potentially tackle those challenges here in Canada in order to create safe sport for athletes here.

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

Rachael is absolutely correct.

The coaches have to have the proper training, education and professional development, including clear policies that are in place, and this isn't just training that they get once and it's forgotten. In the military, I was trained every single year on safety, on terrorism and on whatever it was I needed to be trained on. It has to be continuing checks and balances and continuing training, and we don't have that.

There has to be an understanding of legal and ethical boundaries and the duty to report violations, including severe consequences for failures, and that includes criminal punishment, if needed. We have the same problem in the United States, where coaches are simply moved: They need to be removed. Then, if there is a violation that is found after an investigation, they need to be punished and not put back in sport. There needs to be an absolute ban, because when you keep putting the problem back, the problem gets worse, not better. They find new ways, new inroads, to harm the children they are supposedly there to help and to coach.

We have exactly the same problem, and we're having the same issues in terms of investigation, training and treatment. Rachael is absolutely correct, but you have an opportunity to be a leader here in how it's done right.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Further to that, I'm just going to jump on what you said with regard to coaches: They shouldn't just be moved but rather removed.

Now, of course, our justice system, as in the U.S., is based on the principle that you are innocent until proven guilty. Functioning on the premise that an individual is innocent, I guess I have two questions for you that have come forward from concerned individuals. How do you ensure that these coaches really are guilty? Second, to what extent is their reputation deserving of protection before they are proven guilty? How do you balance that with the care that is desired for athletes, of course, in making sure that their well-being is looked after?

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

Well, hopefully it never gets to that, because they've done the right things with the training. You have to have a fair and impartial body that's doing the investigation. You need to not have leaks, but they need to be on the payroll and relieved of duties with the kids, the children. Then, if it's found to be a false allegation, they're returned. If not, they are simply removed.

Keep in mind that with sexual assault, with these kinds of assaults that we're seeing, the false reporting is no higher than with any other crime, so you are not talking about a lot of people. You're not talking about an athlete saying, “I have to get that coach because they didn't let me play.” You're talking about children who need to be listened to. Why are they saying these things? What is going on there?

There needs to be an investigation. If you have a fair and impartial process, there is no fear for that coach's reputation. There shouldn't be a headline that so-and-so was removed and here are the allegations, because they will never get their reputation back. But we can have an investigation. Police don't open their files and say that someone has been accused and there is an ongoing investigation. They try to keep it closed so that they can do a proper investigation, and then it comes to court.

Have a system like the judicial system and protect everybody's rights until there is a decision.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Moving to a slightly different note, but still related, we've had multiple sport organizations here in Canada, whether it's Hockey Canada or Gymnastics Canada, etc., that have had significant allegations come against them. Most recently, with regard to Hockey Canada, there was a decision made by the government to remove funding until there is some cleanup done. That funding was then granted back, in my estimation, without the necessary cleanup or proof thereof.

To what extent should the government hold these national sport organizations to account?

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

I would say, to the highest level. They should not fund child abuse. If they're not doing exactly what you said, which is removing the funding, then they are supporting child abuse. That cannot be tolerated. It has to be cleaned up, and they should not get the money back until it is cleaned up.

This includes sponsors, whether it's Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Levi's or whoever. There should be no sponsor supporting sports where there's child abuse, because that's what they're doing. They're making money from child abuse. Clean it up.

Money is power. Sadly, that's how we see it—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

The 30 seconds are yours. Do you wish to make further statements?

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

These children all grow up. It doesn't matter.... These athletes who are now adults were children. They grew up through this process. They've been groomed and gaslighted to shut up and live in fear. We need to keep them safe, protected and heard.

Canada truly could be the leader. You have this moment. There is no country doing what you're doing, so hurry up and do it. Hear the children and do the right thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to the Liberals and Anthony Housefather.

Anthony, you have six minutes, please.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Judge, for being here with us today. I very much appreciate it.

I want to come back to the Larry Nassar case for a second, because probably nobody can speak to it as well as you can. In the end, we all talk about Larry Nassar—even the appeals court in Michigan talked about the inflammatory rhetoric that you used in your judgment—but Larry Nassar wasn't the only person involved or to blame in this entire thing. There were coaches, including the Karolyis, who were running the national training centre. There was USA Gymnastics.

Could you speak to the level of culpability of everyone in the process that you found when you did the trial of Mr. Nassar?

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

Yes. If you go back and watch—I have not done it, but I remember very well—you'll see that the “sister survivors” and others testified in front of me. I heard 169 people testify, of whom 156 were sister survivors. I kept saying, “There's another crime, and there's another crime.”

People were not charged. Their crimes were not charged fully. Bystanders and enablers who were complicit were not charged, which sends a message that the only culpable person was Nassar. There were a whole lot of people—hundreds of people—who really should have been investigated, and they were not.

The harsh words I said to Nassar.... He behaved horribly in my court. You may not have seen it, but he behaved horribly.

Those sister survivors had the strength to tell their story, and their story is one that never should have been told in front of me. Thirty years ago, if one person had listened and done the right things, hundreds of girls would have been spared.

That's the opportunity you have now. You have heard from these children who are now adults—some are still children. Do the right thing now.

That's what was missing in the Nassar case. The right things were not done 30 years ago and then, even when the testimony came in front of me, the FBI failed. The investigation with the Karolyis failed. There were so many investigative pieces that failed our own.... Meridian Township failed to listen to a survivor and then paid for them to come to testify in front of me because of that failed investigation.

There were so many failures, and that's what really came in front of me. It wasn't just Nassar, but a whole broken legal system, a whole broken sports system and the fact that nobody listens to children. Why would children bring up this kind of abuse? There has to be something. Why would they know about this? Those are the biggest failures.

Bystanders and enablers need to be investigated, and there has to be some accountability, because if they're complicit in the perpetrator's act, they are equally punishable. They are co-conspirators.

In the Nassar case, there are a lot of documents and other things that were either hidden or destroyed. They have not come forward, so we may never know. I wish they would release the documents that they have so that we would know, and it would be an educational tool for all of us.

Again, that's why, when we have these investigations and when something happens, there has to be a full and complete investigation, so that we use these as teachable moments and we can continue to safeguard our children for future generations.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

That's why I wanted to raise that, because I think that part of the passion you're demonstrating for a national inquiry in Canada is because the United States never did a national inquiry. What I saw in the Nassar case was that, as a result of not having done something like that, you had all of these people who were equally culpable or partially culpable—I guess I can't say “equally”, but they were complicit in the culpability and knowledge and they did nothing—yet they seem to have been ignored.

Let me ask another question, Judge.

I know that Congress, in 2017, following the Nassar case, adopted the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017. Can you talk to us about that act, and how that has changed sports in the United States?

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

I don't know all the nuances about it, but I can tell you that the United States is still not a leader, because it has not changed enough. We still don't look at the enablers and bystanders. Although we have certain protections and training that have to come forward with sports to protect children, it is not enough. It's a nice attempt, but did they listen to the athletes? No.

What we have in the United States, from Congress on down to every state, is band-aid approaches, even with Michigan State University and U of M. They have made changes. They have change facilities, and they've done all sorts of things. If you read the headlines, it's a pretty bandage, but when you look behind the scenes, it is another false step.

Whether it's Congress or any other agency in the United States, the failure is not listening to athletes. It is not enough protection. It doesn't go far enough. It does not get to the enablers and bystanders, and it does not act quickly enough, nor are the checks and balances enough, because when you have false numbers and there's no double-checking, you think you're doing a great thing, but the score card is wrong.

I don't think Congress did enough.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Chair, do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 42 seconds, Anthony.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you.

I have one last question, Judge. You understand the multi-jurisdictional issues in Canada, where the federal government has responsibility for our national teams and our national federations, but the vast majority of abuse occurs under our provincially governed systems.

Based on your experience, how should the national government, or the national Parliament, resolve that issue, where we don't have jurisdiction but want to enforce things on the provinces?

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

I think we said it earlier: Money talks. Stop the money until the problem is corrected, and it will be cleaned up really quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Anthony.

I would like to go to the Bloc Québécois and Sébastien Lemire for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Judge Aquilina, it is a great honour to meet you today. Your presence here today caps off more than a year's work on this issue.

Sport is not a topic that is easily put forward in Parliament. We had to be creative. This debate was the subject of motions in the House of Commons. Moreover, in three days, on June 22, it will be a year since I proposed a motion that was anonymously adopted by all parliamentarians to hold a public inquiry into abuse and mistreatment in hockey, particularly within Hockey Canada.

Since then, things have of course evolved. We did some remarkable work thanks to a consensus. All the political parties agreed to get to the bottom of what is happening in hockey. I wanted to mention that.

The matter then moved on to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women to talk about the status of athletes, and then it came back to us at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

We have heard testimony from athletes. Many athletes told us about what they had experienced. The interesting thing is that we also offered them a framework that gave them some protection, which is essential for people to speak freely.

We are now waiting for the Minister of Sport, Pascale St‑Onge, to announce an independent, public inquiry to investigate all abuse in sport.

You are encouraging us to conduct that public inquiry, in particular to make Canada a leader internationally in this regard.

Why is it important for the United States and all the countries that are watching us right now to receive that strong message in support of a paradigm shift in the world of sports to promote the health and safety of our young athletes?