Canadian Heritage Committee on June 19th, 2023

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you very much.

Thanks to the witnesses for being with us today.

Judge Aquilina, you said earlier that an adult should be present. That is interesting because it has often been said that parents had no business there.

As to Hockey Canada, we know that an inquiry is still ongoing. It takes time, as my colleague just said. At the start of the inquiry, when the government recognized all this abuse, it withdrew funding from Hockey Canada. A bit later, it reinstated that funding without seeing the results of the inquiry.

I am wondering whether, in doing that, the government is not somewhat complicit, especially since a very small part of Hockey Canada's funding comes from the government while the majority is from major sponsors. I do not understand why the government reinstated its funding without getting to the bottom of things.

What do you think?

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

I totally agree. I think they are complicit.

If, for whatever reason, they needed to re-fund them, it should have gone along with a string of “Let's have training and education. Let's have a reporting process and let's do the right things.” However, if they simply gave the money back, saying, “Enough time has passed and we haven't seen anything”, then they are complicit. They are co-conspirators, and the sponsors should be pulled out. If it's Coca-Cola or whoever that supported them, don't buy Coca-Cola. The public has to speak out as well.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

In other words, we could say that money rules sports. There is a lot of money involved.

Sponsors play an important role. When Hockey Canada executives realized they were losing major sponsors, they started taking things seriously. So the sponsors have a direct impact on what is happening.

Should the sponsors also be included in the reprimands? There are part of the system, after all.

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

I agree that they're associated with the abuse. I don't know how you would make them responsible, except that the media is the watchdog. The media should be saying, “These are the sponsors. Don't support them until this gets cleaned up.” In that way, that is a big enough sanction. When people stop buying and say, “I'm going to buy the other brand, because this brand abuses our children, our athletes and our country”, they will take notice. Money talks, sadly.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

That's interesting.

I have one last question for you.

You said earlier that deadlines have to be set for inquiries. In some cases, it can take 5 to 10 years to complete them.

How can we set deadlines when the organizations don't set any themselves?

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

Get more investigators. Where's the money? If you need more investigators.... If you have five and you need 10, get 10 or 20 or whatever it is. If it boils down to money, fund the investigation. Do it properly and get it done. Have a timeline. What's the excuse? Are there only two investigators? Is that why it takes five years? Let's get more investigators, and let's get the job done.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Now I go to the Liberals for the final question.

Chris Bittle, you have five minutes, please.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Your Honour, for being here today.

I think one of the reasons the committee wanted to hear from you was your trauma-informed approach to the evidence you heard, which, unfortunately, is absent in typical courtroom processes. I was wondering if you could speak to that, because I know the minister has said that it's not a matter of whether there will be an inquiry, but how. Can you speak to how important it is for it to be trauma-informed?

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

Yes. If you are not trauma-informed, you are not going to have people speak their truth. They need to feel that there is a safe place to speak.

For me, I have the gavel. I try to be the good witch and not the bad witch. I try to be the healer and the hammer. I think what you have to be is the healer, to listen and find out, like a doctor, what's going on with the patient. You'll then have to make the tough decisions.

Without listening and without open-ended questions like “What would you like me to know?” or “How can I help?” or “What do you think should happen?”—make them part of the equation—you will never get at the truth, and isn't that what we're here for? We're here for the truth of the matter and to once and for all clean up sports.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Absolutely. I think we're all in agreement on that.

Would you agree with me, though, that it is going to take a very specific individual to lead this inquiry and it shouldn't be a matter of taking existing judicial inquiry rules and putting this on safety in sport, because it's a different process?

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

Right. I can tell you that, with my approach, even attorneys will ask to approach the bench and they'll say, “Your Honour, how did you get this information out of my client when I've met with them half a dozen times and I never learned that?” I say it's the open-ended questions. You have to listen. You have to believe. You have to tell them you are willing, no matter what they say, to hear their truth. It's not your story. I create that and I can tell you that over 20 years I have heard things that astonish people, that I got that information. I hope that's what you do.

I did that in my practice. I did it in my 20 years in the military. I've done it on the bench. These open-ended questions, listening, eye-to-eye contact, paying attention and giving them uplifting.... I tell them, “Thank you for being here. Your story is so important. You matter. I know it's difficult to come forward, but I want you to know you are the superhero. You speak for so many who cannot have a voice and who do not have a voice. Thank you for being their voice.”

They come to me and they write me letters across the world saying, “I heard what you said; I'm not committing suicide today. I heard what they said; they spoke my words. I'm going to get help.”

That's what you need in sport. Listen, be the voice, be the healer and be the hammer.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I'd like to go back to some earlier comments to clarify.

On the one hand, you were discussing the statute of limitations in terms of victims and survivors being able to tell their stories. At the same time—not through you, but perhaps from some of the questions—there's a veiled criticism of the London Police Service's investigation into the Hockey Canada incident. To clarify, I think the reopened investigation has been going on for less than a year.

Given the difficulty of cases involving sexual assault, should there be a time limit on police investigations? Doesn't that fit into saying that there should be a statute of limitations? It doesn't exist in cases of what we would call indictable offences—you would call them felonies.

[Judge Rosemarie Aquilina]

You're talking about two different things. The statute of limitations is for a victim who's traumatized and who may not even remember they were assaulted because the body does not let them. The body says, “I'm going to save my life first.” They may not remember or be able to come forward with their trauma.

When we're talking about an investigation, there has to be some finality or some closure. There has to be something, so if they're stopping a hockey team from performing or they're investigating a person, they're not stopping their lives completely. They're really apples and oranges.

If the time limit is, for example, five years, why not put more officers on it? Why not put a bigger investigative team? If they find nothing, maybe there's nothing to find and they can close it. If there's more evidence, they can reopen it. Why are you pulling funding, stopping hockey and doing all these things to the whole team? If there's a bad egg who's being investigated, pull them out, pay them or do what needs to be done there and continue the team with a different coach.

There are lots of options. I don't know why those options have not been explored. Why would you do that to a whole team that hasn't been involved in this? I think the options there have not been fully explored as to how they can go forward with an investigation in a timely manner and still have the sport continue.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I think we've come to the end of the session. I want to thank Judge Aquilina for her testimony and her very inspiring words.

I would like to suspend the meeting so we can go in camera and speak to the analysts about drafting instructions for the report.

Thank you again.

[Proceedings continue in camera]