Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Respected committee members, I am happy to be here today.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.
I'd like to start by talking about sports. I love sports. I love playing and I love watching, and I have all my life. If I had never played even one second for the Montreal Canadiens, I would look back today and think I had gotten out of sports everything there is to get.
Adults always think they have to justify sports. Sports are to get kids outside, to get them moving, to keep them busy and out of trouble. A century ago in England, it was said that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Sports were thought of as a test of manhood. That's how things were looked at and expressed at the time.
Sport built a sense of collective purpose. It taught teamwork. It pushed young people to rise to an occasion and find in themselves what they and no one else knew was there, and to aspire to and achieve something bigger than they are.
The point is that sport always was and is our own creation. It's what we did naturally from the beginning of time. We saw a rock and decided to kick it or hit it with a stick. It was about boys and men, and now it's about girls and women too. It's what we want it to be. It belongs to us. And though it has changed immensely over time, to a great extent it still fulfills these purposes and hopes. Because we created sport, if we don't like something about it, we change it, a little or a lot, in one direction or another.
In Montreal in 1875, a bunch of rugby players wanted a winter game to play. So they found some ice, some sticks and a lacrosse ball, and started to play. Then they wanted to show off this game they had created, so they decided to play a public game, with spectators, in the Victoria Skating Rink. But they had a problem: the Victoria rink had glass windows, and a lacrosse ball bounces. Spectators could be hit and windows could be broken. So they created a flat, round, wooden disc that stayed on the ice and didn't hurt. People said they couldn't play this game without a ball, with a dumb wooden disc; it would be impossible. But that's what they did.
This was also a game that was played without substitutions. Years later—maybe because the pace of play had picked up and players got tired, or maybe because lots of others wanted to play too—whatever the reason, it was decided that players could come off and others go on. People said they couldn't do that; it would be impossible. They said sports are a test of fitness and resolve, of character. They asked what kind of test allows players to come off when they're tired. But that's what they did.
Then, 54 years after that first game at McGill, it was also decided that you could now pass the puck forward, not just backward. That's right: For the first 54 years of hockey history, you could not pass the puck forward. Everybody said they couldn't play hockey that way, passing the puck ahead; that would be impossible. They said you have to earn your way up the ice with the puck, not by passing it. They asked what kind of test that is. But that's what they did.
Every one of these changes was impossible. The game is the game. You can't change the game. Well, imagine today a hockey game with a lacrosse ball, no substitution and no forward passing. You'd have to imagine it, because nobody would want to play it or watch it.
All sports change, and they keep changing. Hockey is far better than it ever was, played by far more skilful players, just as our other sports are. But now hockey is also more dangerous, just as some of our other sports are. That's why we're here. How can we help our sports to change again, to matter as much as they always have, to make them better still and less dangerous?
All of us at times, as parliamentarians or as everyday citizens, have looked back at injustices in the past—slavery, the absence of women's rights—and wondered how things could have been that way. How could we have gotten it so wrong? How could they have been so stupid? All of us know, too, that 50 or 100 years from now people will look back at us about something and wonder how we could have been so stupid. But, about what?
We will always get lots of things wrong, but what are the big ones, the ones we can't get wrong? I think, in sports, it's brain injuries. I think people will look back on us and say, “What were they thinking? Did they think that with all these crashing collisions nothing would happen, that there would be no consequences?”
We have a problem. Later in these hearings I'm sure someone will tell you exactly the dimensions of this problem: how many athletes are injured each year, in which sports, and with what measurable effect. I suspect that all of us here, and virtually every Canadian, know somebody who has been affected by head injuries. Maybe you have a daughter, or a son, or a grandson, or a granddaughter, or a friend, or a neighbour, or the child of a friend or a neighbour, someone close enough to you that when you hear about their injury, you cringe a little because you know how a hit to the head makes you feel and how it affects you. It's not nice, even when it lasts only a day or two. And when it lasts a few weeks—or months sometimes—it affects a life, changes a life, changes them, and changes you. A knee that limps is one thing. A brain that limps is another.
To get at this problem, to really get at it, first it's crucial for you and for all Canadians to hear about these life effects from the athletes themselves—not about how their performance has been affected, but their lives. It's not easy to listen to simple, everyday human accounts like this. They are tough. It's a lot easier to make the tough decisions without knowing the tough consequences—to make the tough decisions easy and wrong.
For you as parliamentarians and for other decision-makers, for all of us to do our jobs, we have to hear them, because it's only when we hear them that we know why we're here, that we know why these hearings matter, and that we know the stakes.
After hearing the athletes, we need to hear from the scientists, researchers and medical people about all the remarkable work they do: what they have learned, what we know, and also what we don't know, what we're working on, and what someday soon we will know or someday soon we won't.
We need to hear them talk about some of the other neurological conditions they also study that might be connected to head injuries—CTE, Parkinson's, ALS and others, and also some other conditions that are not life-ending but are life-diminishing and life-transforming, like memory loss, depression, anxiety, emotional disorders, and the loss of the ability to piece together even simple information to solve even basic problems—so we understand far better the true, full cost of these brain injuries.
We need to understand the possibilities of science, but we also need to understand its limits. We need to understand the role it plays and the role it doesn't and can't play.
First, we need to understand that science is not about knowing once and forever. Science is about knowing the best we can know at any particular moment. The world is flat until it isn't. Smoking is no big deal until it is.
Second, we need to understand that science comes after the fact—after an injury. Science isn't primarily about prevention. If, as scientists tell us, better diagnoses and better treatments rarely return an athlete to where they were before an injury, what does this mean, not for knee injuries, but for brain injuries?
Third, we need to understand that science takes time. That's how science works. However, games are played tomorrow.
Fourth, and this is crucial, we need to understand that in terms of brain injuries in sports, scientists don't make the decisions about what we do or don't do; sports decision-makers do that. Scientists are only able to make these decision-makers more aware, to inform them and guide them. Then it's up to these sports decision-makers to implement the information they provide, or not.
You, as parliamentarians, all the time have to make decisions based on the best of what you know at any moment, and then make better ones five years from now when you know better. That's all you can do, but you know that's what you must do. Why not sports decision-makers too?
We also need to hear from equipment manufacturers, from those who make helmets and mouthguards and those who test them, to see what effect they have and don't have. We need to understand their possibilities but also their limits. We need to examine every hope and every pet theory we have—there are a lot of them and they are everywhere—to know what is real and promising, and to know what is only a distraction, a waste of time, energy, attention, money and lives.
After we have heard from the athletes, the scientists, the equipment people, and everyone else who has a stake and a role to play in brain injuries in sports, after we know the best we can know, we need to hear from the sports decision-makers themselves. As Russian president Viktor Petrov said in an episode of this season's House of Cards, “Whoever decides is who you should to speak to.”
As I said at the beginning, these games are our own creation. They change all the time. They are played better all the time. We change them all the time.
We need to ask a question of these sports decision-makers. You've heard these athletes' stories. You've heard how their lives have been changed. You've heard these scientists and researchers, what they know and don't know, what they can do and can't do. You've heard from the equipment people. You, as decision-makers in your sport, have the authority over your game. You have the rules and regulations of your game, and the way it is played, in your hands. What are you doing about your game to make it just as exciting to play and to watch and to make it safer?
This is your job, your responsibility. “The game is the game, and you can't change the game.” Garbage. Impossibility isn't an answer; impossible was the decision taken decades ago that allowed substitutions or the forward pass, but they did it. Impossible is the status quo. Park impossibility at the door, and let's get at it. You, as sports decision-makers, are not only the custodians of your game, but, first and foremost, you are the custodians of the welfare of those who play your game.
You are incredibly creative and adaptable, because as former players and coaches—and most of you are—you've had to be. That's your life. It's your pride. You are great problem-solvers. Brain injuries in sports are another problem to solve. For our sports, we need a new game plan from you. That's why we're here.
The problem is no longer one of awareness; there's plenty of awareness. The problem is sports decision-makers who don't take this awareness and act. Brain injuries in sports, or any part of our lives, will never disappear, but they can be reduced significantly. There are answers. The answers are doable.
As parliamentarians, when you hear from the scientists, the equipment people, the sports decision-makers, think back to the athletes. Think back to what they've told you about their lives and how they have changed. What happened to them is not right. It's not fair, but it's also not necessary. Lots of things aren't fair or right and we can't do anything about them. This, we can. This is not necessary, and when something is not necessary and we don't do what needs to be done, that is inexcusable.
For you as parliamentarians, this is a great opportunity to listen hard, to question hard, to think hard, and then to act hard and to ensure that others act hard.
I wish you and all Canadians a great, challenging and life-affecting journey.
Thank you.
