Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada Committee on Feb. 6th, 2019

[The Chair, Mr. Peter Fonseca (Mississauga East—Cooksville, Lib.)]

We'll call the meeting to order.

We have some very special guests here with us today—Eric Lindros and Chris Nowinski—to make the most of this opportunity as we look at sports-related concussions here across Canada.

We have votes in this place, and we have one coming up at 6:15. We would ask for a consensus from the members that we break right at 6:10 to give Eric and Chris the most amount of time. We're going to go into votes, which may take half an hour or so, and then we'll be back. We'll extend the time if we have consensus—I've heard from some of the members that that's all right—so that we can hear from these great witnesses.

On that note, I don't want to take up any more time. We are going to get started with Mr. Eric Lindros. He's a Canadian icon, and we have watched his storied career through the NHL.

Mr. Lindros, you have the floor.

[Eric Lindros, As an Individual]

First of all, thank you very much for inviting us here today. It's an honour to be here. Hopefully, we can talk about some ideas and talk a little bit about the past, but I think it's far more important to have a game plan going forward than to be looking at the past and being negative about it. I think we learn from the past, but let's really focus on the positives. I'm glad you guys have put this together, and I'm happy to be here.

I'm more of an answer type of person, so if you want to get started in that fashion, I'm certainly open to that. I have some different ideas as we go through.

[The Chair]

I think the members are itching to ask you many questions. We really want to hear about your story and what kind of change you would like to see when it comes to addressing the issue of concussions.

We're going to start with the Liberals, then over to the Conservatives and the NDP, and we'll keep going in that rotation.

[Eric Lindros]

Sure.

[The Chair]

We'll start with Mr. Fisher.

[Darren Fisher, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, Lib.]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Eric, for being here.

We've talked over the past weeks about concussions, whether it be prevention, diagnosis or treatment. I know that you talk a lot about prevention. I was reading about Arthur Brown's research at Western, and I think you said, “It is the first time I have seen work that could result in a quicker recovery from concussion symptoms.”

That fascinated me because I've read as much as I could in the last couple of months, since this committee was formed, and, until I read this work, I had not heard that you could recover more quickly. I thought maybe you could tell us just a little bit about this.

[Eric Lindros]

I'd love to tell you more about it. I wish that Arthur Brown had finished his research and was further along...and this might be part of it. He has worked hard, and we're hopeful of positive results—or negative results, for that matter.

When you think about research, you want to get things happening as quickly as possible, and overall, I think we can do better. When I look at the system of research, I wonder if are we collaborating enough. It's hard to raise money. I've asked about 30 different researchers for their opinion as we're restructuring Rowan's Concussion Legacy Foundation.

It's a three-part situation where we are looking at research and how we can do research better. How we can make it more efficient and more effective? How can we get to our results and tell the world about our results more quickly? Then, when we have our results, how can we get through them, and how can we translate them into something that's clean, well vetted and ready for the street? The third part is how we handle the street, how we market this, and how we present the findings as quickly as possible, so you're coming out of the research arm right into the street.

We have a bunch of different ideas on that, and I could just touch on one. A lot of people have questions about their kids going through certain situations, and I'm just so confused as to why we can't have one protocol across our nation. I just don't get it.

Certainly, if you're in different sports, there are going to be a couple of different things that you're going to look at in getting back to play, but for 90% or so, whether you're in horseback riding or playing soccer, it's the same thing. We're talking about sport concussion here. A lot of concussion is not occurring in sports; it's occurring in playgrounds or with kids at school, and things like that. I don't think we want to forget about that. I think if we did this properly, it would blanket much more than just sport.

I think doing it once would be cost-effective. We have great doctors. If you look at what goes on and who's representing Canada, we have the names. We have great research facilities: McGill, UBC, Calgary, Western, U of T. It goes on and on. It's everywhere. We have the people. How can we get this working as a group? That's where I see frustration.

[Darren Fisher]

If we're talking about treatment, diagnosis and prevention, Arthur Brown's work touches on treatment. I know you also have lots of ideas about prevention, and we can get to that in a second.

I'm just thinking about diagnosis. Going back to something you said, just because you have not received a knockout hit, that doesn't mean you haven't had impact on your brain. We had a moment to speak before the committee started, and I was telling you about my son, who plays hockey and has never had a concussion. As a hockey parent, I started thinking about your statement.

I also totally agree with the statements you've made in the past about getting away from the sport of hockey and doing something totally different after May, or whenever your season is finished. I thought you could talk a little about that accumulation of small hits, and maybe very minor injuries that never get looked at, that may never be a concussion, but could damage the brain.

[Eric Lindros]

I look back to when I played. It's like school. Hockey would start in the fall, and we'd play until before exams, or the end of May. Then we'd have June, July, August and most of September when we weren't doing much. The science has taught us that this allows the brain to grow. The brain wants to grow and replenish itself and heal. By playing 12 months a year, we're not giving the brain that chance to get back to where it was at the start of the previous year.

Think about a pickup truck running down a dirt road, or a farm road, or a cottage road, or whatever the case may be. If you don't pull it in for servicing every once in a while, something is going to fall apart. Sooner or later, it's inevitable that you're not going to be right there. Maybe that truck will last a long time, and hopefully it does, but I think we should look at taking better care of ourselves. Plus, you'd become a better athlete, in my mind, when you're able to work your feet in soccer, or improve your hand-eye in baseball. Everything correlates and works together, so when you start the next season you're not skipping a beat and you're actually healthier.

[Darren Fisher]

You've veered a little bit from diagnosis into prevention. We have only a minute left, so tell me a little bit about some of the ideas you have for prevention, notwithstanding taking a break in May.

[Eric Lindros]

We have a great doctor and researcher in Canada, Dr. Carolyn Emery, out of Calgary. She did research on hitting. You will not find this shocking at all, but if you take out hitting, then injuries and concussions go down accordingly. I guess you have to go through that, do that type of research and get it done, and I'm happy she did it.

I look at hockey and what a beautiful game it is. Why are we starting to hit when not everyone has gone through puberty? You know what it's like when you're 12. Why can't we wait until we're 15, focus on our skills, focus on skating, focus on other aspects of hockey? Trust me, you can learn to hit and receive a hit from 15 on and you'll be just fine. You're not going to be behind the eight ball by any stretch. If everyone else is doing it, then everyone is on an equal playing field anyway.

Let's get through that danger zone, where there can be a big discrepancy between size and strength. I think it clears it out. What Carolyn did was fantastic and it allows us to look at it. That's been out there for years, but what have we done to take her great information and put it into practice?

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Lindros.

We're moving over to the Conservatives, with Mr. Nuttall.

[Alexander Nuttall, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, CPC]

Thanks again for coming today.

I represent a region in the Barrie area which I think you're pretty familiar with. Your Uncle Paul there was—

[Eric Lindros]

Principal.

[Alexander Nuttall]

Yes, sir.

You come from the hockey world, obviously. Some of the greats have come out of Barrie, and there has been some hard-hitting hockey. Interestingly enough, we now have Concussion North, which is a one-of-a-kind clinic, open up there. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Gary Goodridge, but he's on a speaking tour specifically on concussions. He's a UFC fighter, and he is at the Concussion North clinic.

[Eric Lindros]

He must be busy.

[Alexander Nuttall]

Absolutely.

One of the things we heard from testimony in the previous meetings was in regard to the tracking of individuals. You were talking specifically about the juniors, prepubescent individuals, and being able to track what's going on with our young people.

If you're a hockey player, or maybe you play soccer in the summertime and hockey in the winter, there's no single tracking system in place. You were talking here about a single protocol, a single process, that we can put in place to manage that individual, that client, if you will, going into the world. What recommendations do you have for us to actually implement that?

You said this is a thing we need to do, and you can't understand why it hasn't happened. Because you've been on the inside of this world, tell us how to do it, and then we can actually look at that as well.

[Eric Lindros]

That's one, the communication part between school and your coaches, whether it be your high school coach or your travel coaches, or whatever coach you have. It's completely different from the regular protocols. They're a bit separate here. There are companies out there. There's a really strong company based in Canada that deals with communication between teachers and parents. You can make it as widespread as you want or as narrow as you want, and it's extremely effective.

The other part was a broader protocol.

[Alexander Nuttall]

Excuse me, Mr. Lindros, what company does that?

[Eric Lindros]

The company name is PRIVIT.

[Alexander Nuttall]

Thank you. We can look at that as well.

[Eric Lindros]

It is very good at what it does. For full clarity, I help it out.

[Alexander Nuttall]

When you started doing work on this—and I know that concussion is something that affected you, as well as your brother—you started working with the university hospital in London, I believe, where you put your own resources behind this, as well as being a face and raising the issue.

Have you found that government as a whole has been open to some of the suggestions you've made, or have we been...? I say “we”, because this is non-partisan. It's not about the current government. I'm saying, over the years, have we been open?

[Eric Lindros]

Rowan's law was just passed in Ontario. There was a group of 12 or 14 of us, led by Dr. Dan Cass, and we were told to come up with solutions. We did so over the course of that year. We had in mind that what we'd submitted was something that didn't just look at the highly populated areas of Ontario. We thought it could be spread throughout Canada—I don't want to say "at a floor level”, but something that's attainable.

We did that. We worked hard at it, and we submitted it. I'm a bit confused now about where Rowan's law stands in Ontario. It was really something fantastic, so hopefully the provincial government there has a plan up its sleeve and it can start to be rolled out.

There are a number of things in there that we thought we addressed. One of them was making sure that in the schooling system, the medical schooling system in particular, everyone was getting hours based on learning about concussion. What we saw in the past was that people were sustaining concussions, and because they needed to have clearance, they were not being honest and open about their situation.

The lineup to get in to the doctor was two weeks. Once you get in, it's another.... It was just too much. How can we make this more widespread, so that people can come in and get out, and see the professionals they need?

Our research is so far behind that it does not take weeks to be quite up to date on concussion. Unfortunately, we're pretty much up to date in a four- or five-hour video on the topic. I would like to see that changed as well, but anyway, we have what we have. I'd just like to see it more widespread.

[Alexander Nuttall]

I have one more question.