Evidence of meeting #4 for Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was education.
A video is available from Parliament.
Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.
First, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.
Today is special because it's Bell Let's Talk Day. Mental health is being widely discussed in the hallways and the House. I think that the issue is often discussed in the sport community, since concussions affect the mental health of people, athletes and youth who participate in sports.
You talked earlier about statistics and data. When it comes to sports-related concussions, our committee wants to know what statistics you may have on the number of people affected, either at Rugby Canada or your association, Mr. Niedre. You said earlier that the number is going down, and the committee wants some evidence in this area.
We quickly discussed a change in culture earlier, and I want your opinion on the matter. I know that there are prevention exercises and certain technical applications. However, how can we change the sports culture when it comes to concussions? I want to add that young people and athletes came to tell us what happened to them. Their difficult stories showed us that they didn't know how much these concussions would change their lives. We recognize that there needs to be a change in culture, and I want to hear your point of view on the issue.
Mr. Niedre, we could start with you.
Director of Education Partnerships, Coaching Association of Canada
Thank you.
I did read some of the evidence of the last hearings, around the athletes, and I think a couple of things. It goes back to one of my first points. With the coaches, it's through education. Coaches face ethical decisions all the time, which can impact these things.
Through education on the prevention of concussions, it's important to outline that the right thing from an ethical perspective is that when you suspect a concussion, it's time for that athlete to be pulled from the field of play. We have to continue to do that as a system, at all levels. That comes from a governmental perspective and also from the sport organizations—national, provincial, local and community-based. To me, that's the first point.
The second is that we don't really get involved with the tracking of concussions, but I know we do sit on the federal, provincial and territorial working group on this, and there has been a lot of chat and recommendations that this is an important thing to start tracking more often, especially when you see interventions like education, and how that's actually impacting, hopefully, a reduction in concussions.
I can't really talk.... My sports are low risk from a concussion perspective, but again, we do face it as coaches all the time, in that players can come to practice with that. Personally, as a coach, I don't take any risks with that. I was a hockey trainer as well, and I never once took a risk around that.
That's my big message. It's around continuing to make coaches comfortable in those ethical decisions, and making sure that they think ethically in how they are working with their athletes, and what they do as soon as they suspect a concussion.
Director of National Rugby Development, Rugby Canada
Sure. These are great questions.
From a national sport organization perspective, the only time we hear about an injury is if there's a claim. That's the real approach. We don't hear about a lot of injury recording.
January 30th, 2019 / 6:20 p.m.
Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.
So you're not really trying to collect this data, you're just receiving it. Is that correct?
Director of National Rugby Development, Rugby Canada
We only hear about injuries when there's a claim. Our provincial sporting organizations do hold data locally, but that generally is not shared with the national sporting organization. That would be a gap, because what you'd be able to find, if we did have accurate data, is trends that happen across the country.
In the rugby context, a lot of data is from other countries, looking at high school, and the age of kids compared to other countries; however, they are not Canadians. That's the best data that we have now.
In rugby, we have identified that as an issue. One of the things we've just done in the past couple of weeks is partner with the University of Calgary to look at some high school data collection and injury recording. This is something we have looked at. Why are injuries not recorded? How do we get injuries recorded? What is an injury? Is putting a Band-Aid on somebody something that needs to be recorded?
We're looking into having standardized recording. What one province may record may be completely different from what another province records. What one athletic therapist records might be completely different from what another athletic therapist records.
We do have injury recording on our player welfare website that they can access. It's not accessed. Most clubs, schools and organizations will hire third party medical coverage for their tournaments and festivals. It's not clear how to get that data, or evidence.
Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.
I gather that Rugby Canada doesn't have an internal component dedicated to research or national data collection. Is that correct? If so, shouldn't you be carrying out these activities?
Director of National Rugby Development, Rugby Canada
Yes. Absolutely. If we want to be evidence-based, we have to understand what's happening in our country.
There are some pockets of good data collection. For example, we know that there was an eight-week program in Calgary, observed by the University of Calgary. In that eight weeks, 50% of female high school players in rugby had an injury, and 25% of those injuries were concussion-related.
Nationally, we don't have the trends. We don't have the data. We are most certainly reaching out, but something that would massively help sports is data collection.
There is no close collaboration between a school and a national sport organization.
Mr. Peter Fonseca (Mississauga East—Cooksville, Lib.)
Thank you.
Now we're moving back over to the Conservatives and Mr. Alex Nuttall.
Alexander Nuttall Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, CPC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Hunter and Mr. Niedre, for your testimony today.
I want to follow up exactly where Ms. Fortier was going on data.
Are you from British Columbia? Where are you from?
Director of National Rugby Development, Rugby Canada
I'm from just east of Toronto.
Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, CPC
Oh, you're from just east of Toronto.
Director of National Rugby Development, Rugby Canada
That's pretty much home. Peterborough.
Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, CPC
Then you're not from British Columbia.
I had the opportunity to go out to B.C. and I actually went to the Rugby Canada headquarters. One of the things they talked about was concussions.
It was interesting. I went out there about seven or eight weeks ago, and one of the places I went to was a gymnastics facility. In terms of what they have done, a young man had created an app to track the health of young people and the Chinese government has asked them to take that app and implement it across all of its schools in all of its programs, its Olympic programs, which are a lot different from the way we structure ours.
Has there been any look at that type of approach, where we get all the organizations—Hockey Canada, Rugby Canada, and everybody—to say, “Okay, if you're going to be in one of our specifically elite programs, you need to sign this privacy form that allows us to share information”?
Oftentimes, a great athlete is a great athlete, and yes, they excel in one or two things, but they'll be involved in many different areas.
Director of National Rugby Development, Rugby Canada
That would be a deal breaker, if I can use that term.
With boundaries that we have, high schools will record and clubs will record. Our kids play multiple sports, so a concussion that's recorded in one sport that's going through the stream of a provincial body to the national level doesn't get transferred across to the other sport. Therefore, there is the likelihood of kids going from one sport to the other.
Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, CPC
Yes, 100%.
When they sign up for your sport, are they and their parents not filling out forms that tell you what their medical history is?
Director of National Rugby Development, Rugby Canada
There is a medical history. There's also literature and documentation that says if you have a concussion or an injury from somewhere else, then report that. It's like many documents, but in regard to the point you made, if there was an app that every sport and school was able to record on, which then took us through the return-to-play and the return-to-learn protocols that identified who are the appropriate medical doctors or medical practitioners, that would be a deal breaker for us. That would give us very hard evidence to then make changes to our sport.
Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, CPC
Are you saying deal breaker in a good way?
Director of National Rugby Development, Rugby Canada
Sorry, okay. I mean a deal maker.
Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, CPC
That's great.
Today is Bell Let's Talk day. We had some testimony at this committee which had me almost in tears. Cheryl knew one of the families very well. On the mental health issues, the mental illness related to concussions, what is the data you're getting out when you see this happening within your sport in individual cases? Is it an automatic link? Is it one in three or one in five where you see depression, real depression to the extent that they can't go to school or can't go to work, or can't go out of the house because of depression? That's what we heard from two incredibly awesome young people not too long ago.