Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada Committee on April 10th, 2019

[Doug Eyolfson]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Now each party is going to have an opportunity to have one last question. We're going to start with the Conservatives with Dr. Kitchen.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

The paper that was just published this year in the BMJ on the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine's position statement on concussion in sport estimates that over 50% of concussions in high-school-aged youth are not related to organized sports. Only 20% are related to organized school team sports and anywhere between 2% to 15% of participants might experience a concussion. How can we take this information and extrapolate it to our school system and our public health programs?

[Gerry Gallagher]

I'll first turn to Andrew to talk about what we do know about the Canadian context for that, and then perhaps I can add comments.

[Andrew MacKenzie]

One of the data systems that we have available would let us replicate analysis like that. It wouldn't be quite the same as the Americans. We're already working with Statistics Canada to develop a special survey on concussions. That survey will be collecting data next year. It will let us do a very similar analysis to what the Americans have done to get a clearer picture of exactly what's happening.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Now we're going to move over to the Liberals with Madame Fortier.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

That was my question, too, although not related to the article.

Here is one of the main questions.

In terms of elite, school or even community sports, and diversity across the country, be it when it comes to rural areas or indigenous groups, there is one particularity. In other words, how do we address the challenge of bringing together various communities?

Can you tell us what the challenges are, if there are any?

Could you also tell us what to do to truly become engaged on the ground?

[Gerry Gallagher]

That is the advantage of doing research based on public opinion.

As I said, we carried out a study a year and a half ago. It focused on the general public, parents, coaches, educators, as well as health professionals. It was a matter of measuring knowledge, generally speaking, on concussions in order to take action when a situation arises and provide access to tools. That was an initial survey.

We carried out another study last winter. We are currently analyzing it, so we don't have the final results. This time, we also questioned young people. We asked them the same questions to see what they think. We had three sets of questions to establish a comparison. I feel that this helps us understand the issue.

It is true that, in every context, there are very different situations, but there is incipient openness. In other words, it is not just a matter of telling people to use the tools they have. We are really also trying to understand the attitudes on this issue. That was brought up earlier. It is one thing to have information, but it is another to apply it, be it in the health sector, in a school or at home.

There is another aspect we have not yet discussed. When a situation occurs in a school or in the sport community, there is a team spirit aspect involved. Research has taught us how certain players may react.

They don't want to let their team members down, so they may not let on that they're not feeling quite on.

We are talking about elements of this kind, but that is truly an overview. We are not there yet, but this helps open the door a crack.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

To conclude, our last question is from the NDP and Ms. Hardcastle.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

We mentioned this at the end of our last meeting when we talked about the role of officiating. There is a role for officiating in the culture shift that needs to happen, but also when we're introducing new information.

And even in education now, I'm thinking in our school system, for your games to be sanctioned the same pool of officials are qualified, whether they're doing the school hockey league or the minor hockey association. I feel that's untapped potential.

I'd like to hear your ideas on that, or where you've identified some of the opportunities.

[Andrew Campbell]

I think one of the unfortunate parts within the sport system in Canada is that there isn't an equivalent for officials of the Coaching Association of Canada.

We are looking within every national sport organization, trying to get into the officiating side, and that is one of the big pieces on prevention: rule changes and officials. Officials can often see when a player is no longer reacting in a way that would be considered the regular way that the individual would be playing. At those times, our precautionary principle with concussions has to be removed.

Certainly you would have officials who could be in that position. How to crack that nut is one we've been looking at, and quite frankly, it's a difficult nut to crack because there isn't a single national certification. We've been using the same thing on the coaches' side. The Coaching Associating of Canada has been a major partner, and I was going to use that again with—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

On behalf of the committee members, I'd like to thank our witnesses for their statements and their answers.

If we have missed something that you feel is vital and would help inform our report, we ask that you submit that information to our analysts. We'd like to put it into our report.

That will conclude our meeting.

[Andrew Campbell]

Could we also thank the committee for the excellent work? We've been impressed with whom you've had.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Campbell.

The meeting is adjourned.