Status of Women Committee on Dec. 5th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to pass it over to Jenna Sudds. You have four minutes.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, all three of you, for being here today and for supporting us as we move forward with the work we have in front of us on this study.

The first question that I'll pose is for you, Ms. Jeanson. It's probably an easy one, but I think it's important to get it on the record.

You mentioned in your testimony your belief that athletes at any age, as soon as they become involved with a national organization, should get some training and education about their rights and what to expect. That's a great start, I think.

My question is this: Do you believe that this should extend beyond just the athletes to the coaches who are involved, the trainers, the nutritionists and everyone who's in the system?

[Geneviève Jeanson]

Thank you for the question.

Yes, definitely; it has to reach everybody who's around sport and is in the environment of sport. However, why is it so important for the athletes? It's because as an athlete you are extremely vulnerable. Your self-worth most of the time is based on your performance. The relationship you have with your coach is not a normal relationship. It's not a parent. It's not a teacher. It's not a friend. It's really something that's super-special. We rely on that coach a lot.

In my case, I had no idea; when my coach told me that he was going to make me the toughest athlete, that when I got to the world championships I was going to win because I was so tough. I believed him. It's important to educate athletes, yes, but definitely we have to go to the high levels and include federation officials and everybody else.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Other testimony that was quite striking to me was your recommendation to “rethink” the funding so that it's tied not just to performance but also to the well-being of the athlete. I would love for you to tell me what would that look like to you. I think it's a really insightful recommendation. I would love to dig a bit deeper on what we could do to support that idea.

[Geneviève Jeanson]

The way I personally see it is that performance, as I've said, is way more than having a medal or finishing in the top five or the top three. If funding stays at the national level only with performance, veut, veut pas, people will choose a coach who's a winning coach. It doesn't mean they're a good coach, because we still have.... The mentality was different 30 and 40 years ago. We still have these coaches around. Yes, they're going to produce little machines or little warriors, and they're going to win medals. However, the destruction that sometimes happens with that will follow the athlete, or the whole team of athletes, for a very long time.

If it's only based on funding, some decisions will be made that are not necessarily the right ones for the well-being of athletes. I don't know how to get it going, but it would be great if we could have funding based on the best performances possible. That could be 20th place. When you go to school and get 80% or 83% on an exam, it's really good. It's the same in sport. It would be great if we could spend a bit more time developing the human being as well.

So, yes, the athlete, but what about the human?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks so much.

Andréanne, you have one minute.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. Glover, in your testimony, you asked that there be an independent judicial inquiry.

Ms. Fraser, you discussed the importance of establishing corrective measures in the world of sport, and you offered some proposals to that end.

Ms. Jeanson, you told us about your experience and you're proposing that there be an entirely independent complaint system.

In short, ladies, given your backgrounds and everything you've proposed to us today, I'd like to know if you were consulted by Sport Canada, which is currently reviewing the Canadian policy on sport, which is to be renewed in February 2023.

[Geneviève Jeanson]

No.

[Dr. Jennifer Fraser]

No.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Ms. Glover, I saw you raise your hand. If you want to add something, I'll leave you the last few seconds of my time.

[Wendy Glover]

In terms of what we were discussing earlier about teaching athletes, we already have a Coaching Association of Canada national coach certification program.You have to register and take courses. You have a locker number. All 500 kids who go through our program do that. They just completed this week “support through sport: understanding teen dating violence”. There are a number of education programs within that.

That is just a starting point. The certifications are there and the structure is in place, but some of those courses cost money. We try to do as much as possible for free and limit how much we're asking parents to pay out of pocket.

In regard to finding out what's wrong in all of the systems, that's why you need a committee to review it. You don't know what's wrong in all of the systems until you go in there and you investigate the hockey, the soccer, the cycling, the swimming, the gymnastics, etc. There's more to it than the terrible abuse cases we're hearing about. For example, it's not even following the structure that has been set out with, say, 45 games a year and 45 practices. They'll do 80 games and 120 practices and take over a child's life.

It's way deeper than what we're discussing here. As you said, this is the tip of the iceberg. I have never understood how they're even insured when they constantly break the guidelines that were set for them. It's the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more work to do. I can't have school on Saturdays just because I care extra.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Awesome. Thank you so much.

For the final round, we have Leah Gazan for one minute.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You spoke, Geneviève, about the importance of independence in reporting. In Manitoba, we have the children's advocate office that oversees the overall care of children, whether it be in the justice system or the child welfare system. It's just an independent advocate for children that's funded through the government.

Do you think that kind of oversight—completely independent, funded, away from the sports organizations—would be helpful?

[Geneviève Jeanson]

Yes, I think so.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

Are there any other comments? That was succinct.

[Dr. Jennifer Fraser]

I would just add that Manitoba, in its throne speech, said that it's going to change the way that education complaints come through for children because the system is so dismal and children are so unprotected in school, and there's a certain parallel.

What I found today in listening to “How can we fix the problem?” is that we have to remember that the vast majority of coaches, teachers and people in governing bodies are really trustworthy and fabulous.

We're dealing, though, with extremely dangerous people, extremely destructive people. They're a minority, and we do everything in our power to cover up for them, protect them and never hold them accountable. That's where the breakdown is happening, I think, on a significant level. They will present as Dr. Jekyll in front of all of us, and as soon as they close the door, they're Mr. Hyde, and that's a big problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

I'd really like to thank Geneviève, Jennifer and Wendy for being here today. Thank you so much for bringing your testimonies and providing your stories.

I will just remind you that if there's anything that you need, there are resources available through the House of Commons. Please reach out to the clerk or to me for whatever we can do.

We're going to suspend for a couple of seconds to switch over to our next panel.

We'll suspend for about a minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Welcome to our second panel and our second hour for today.

I am going to welcome our next panellists. From ITP Sport & Recreation Inc., we have Allison Forsyth, chief operating officer. As an individual, we have Guylaine Demers, professor, department of physical education, Université Laval. Guylaine, you are online there.

Finally, from the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada, we have Marie-Claude Asselin, chief executive officer. Marie-Claude, thank you very much for being here.

We are going to provide you each with five minutes for opening statements. When you see me start twirling my pen.... I try to be flexible, especially if it's on things that are quite sensitive, but if you see me, try to start wrapping it up.

We'll start with our first five minutes.

Allison, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Allison Forsyth, Chief Operating Officer, ITP Sport and Recreation Inc.]

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for having me.

I am a two-time Olympian, a mother of three young hockey players and a victim of egregious sexual abuse within our Canadian sport system.

I also work in this space. I made that choice to work on the front line of this crisis, and have for over four years. I have worked alongside sport organizations, athletes and government agencies helping them seek out solutions and providing education at all levels, of all ages and all roles within these organizations.

The impacts of my sexual abuse experience cannot be summed up in a few minutes. Extreme grooming, horrific sexual assaults, mental coercion and psychological abuse are some of the immense physical and mental burdens I still live with each day.

I know always what trauma feels like when it's associated with being the whistle-blower and the effects of being silenced for 17 years before my perpetrator was caught. For years I lived with anger, depression, shame, self-blame and chronic PTSD.

Yes, I made the Olympics, and yes, I became an eight-time Canadian champion. Success does not automatically translate to happiness or health. I can tell you that first-hand. In fact, in many ways our focus on success above all else is a shield for victims. I would give back every medal I ever won to have prevented what happened to me from happening to me.

I know why it is critical to remove an abuser immediately from the environment. After I was taken into the woods for six hours and coerced through threats of suicide, I only had him reappear the next day, standing in the woods in camouflage, to watch me during the biggest race of my life.

I know what it's like to retell my story hundreds of times and be traumatized each and every time I tell it, including today and throughout a two-and-half-year criminal trial and investigation that resulted in a 12-year prison sentence. I know what it feels like to have to testify in court 36 hours after giving birth to my baby and bringing her in the room with me so I could take breaks to breastfeed during cross-examination. I will never get back my daughter's first week of life. That is why I have an unparalleled commitment to create a different sport future for her and her two older brothers.

I also know what it takes to have a publication ban lifted on my own name so that I could put my name behind this movement over four years ago and share openly many times a month my abuse all in an effort to educate and shift the system. Each time I do this, I relive those memories, those experiences and those traumas. I do all this because change happens in the real conversation. If people don't know clearly what happened to me, how are we going to know how to help others?

I've been committed to this work and have worked with your previous sports minister, Kirsty Duncan, dating right back to 2018.

I'd like to introduce you to another term: victim shaming. To have people actually insinuate or even directly allege that since that I choose to lean into this crisis and go into organizations to help them find solutions, identify systemic risks and environmental challenges, that in some way, shape or form I could ever be accused of helping them cover up abuse. To those who say that, I say you're not worth my energy or my defence. I live in this space every day. It is my life purpose, and I choose to believe that at the end of the day we all want the same outcome, which is real progress. That is where I put my focus. I ignore the noise and let the work be the priority. My company and I do this better than anyone else in this industry.

I'm all cried out for today, apparently, for myself, but I am not cried out for my children. First, foremost and forever, I am an athlete advocate and one of the first who ever came forward in this country. I know many of you have spoken from that perspective. Let me give you a little bit of an enlightened perspective of safe sport in our country.

The crisis is much more than coach-athlete abuse. With fewer than 5% of cases we see being sexual in nature, it is much more than sexual abuse. I speak to more athletes on this issue on the front lines than anyone else in our country. I say that to contextualize my experience and perspective. There is intentional harm. That is certain. What we also know to be true is that we have deep, cultural conditioning and normalization of behaviours in sport, and we need to end this systemic acceptance of maltreatment.

Here are some examples. I educate hockey coaches on the perils of bag skating and football coaches on the trauma of running suicides. Both these ingrained practices are now considered exercises as forms of punishment, and many coaches still believe in their validity.

This isn't about judgment. It is about education. Much like concussions, once we know better, we do better.

These coaches will almost always respond to me with, “Well, I was bag-skated, so it can't be that bad”, to which I respond, “Well, yes, 25 years ago after an athlete was knocked unconscious we, also gave him, her or them sniffing salts and sent them back on the ice.”

We need to change. I provide education to young athletes being sanctioned for hazing. When I ask them how they don't think what they did is harmful, they say, “Because, Allison, this happened to me four years ago.”

I talk to referees who are quitting alongside 70% of their peers in this province alone because, in addition to the 900 complaints they filed for discrimination in hockey alone last year, they are tired of being chased home by angry parents. I am even on the bench of my own son's hockey game watching parents in a fist fight in the stands and parents yelling profanities at the refs. Just last week, as a parent was ejected from a game for ref abuse, this parent left and, in front of dozens of 11-year-old athletes, called out, “Hey, ref, why don't you just go kill yourself?”

Yes, I talk to athletes who are actively in the grooming process. I work with them to help them understand what that is and why being their coach's favourite and best friend is not healthy, why feeling that if they aren't their coach's favourite they won't make the team is a clear sign of grooming and why, if they feel they are playing out of fear, they may also be playing under psychological abuse.

We are overly focused on the problem or, at best, polishing the problem, when we need to lean into the solutions that are already evident. We need to deprogram the cult—yes, the cult—out of the culture of sport. This requires patience and grace as people wake up to the system that they have been normalized to over so many years. This has led us to think that everything is okay because it's something we've seen or experienced since early childhood: kids in bathrooms and on buses naked; coaches berating athletes; racial slurs being thrown around like common language; and administrators failing to focus on the victim and instead protecting the institution's reputation.

All of this needs to change through concerted proactive prevention and educational tactics. We need to train on grooming. There are only four stages: favouritism, personal bond, isolation and complicity. I learned these stages of grooming when I was 30 years old when I was speaking on a stage. How much do you think I would have wanted to know about those stages of grooming when I was a young athlete?

Last but not least, I will just share that I challenge all of us to move forward, not backward. We are a system, and sport is in crisis. We need to invest more in our organizations that are supportive of and working to fund the shift in sport. We need to swiftly and severely sanction individual offenders, but every time we look in the rear-view mirror we take away from the gas pedal that we must push down on.

In the last four years, I have seen progress and I have seen mistakes, including a very poor implementation of the mandatory changes at the NSO level. Most of all, I have seen us put more focus on what to do once we catch someone instead of what to do collectively so that abuse doesn't happen in the first place. When we place success on sanctioning an offender and ignore the system around them, we have allowed another person to be villainized and victimized.

I challenge all of us with this because I truly believe that sport can still be a beautiful place to raise my children. I will not give up on that reality, and I ask that you don't either.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much, Allison.

I'm now going to go online to Guylaine.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Dr. Guylaine Demers, Professor, Department of Physical Education, Université Laval, As an Individual]

Thank you for the invitation to take part in your study.

I apologize for not being in tiptop shape. I have the flu and have been in bed for two days, but, since the cause is greater than me, I've forced myself to be with you.

Thank you for your testimony, Ms. Forsyth. It's overwhelming every time.

Your committee invited me to testify on the same subject in 2016, when it was conducting a study on women and girls in sport. I've reread the 16 recommendations in the report that resulted from the study, and I frankly think that many of them can be included word for word in the report that will be prepared this year.

I agree with Ms. Forsyth and the previous speakers that progress has been made, and Ms. Asselin's presence here is proof of that. I acknowledge all the work she has done. However, I think many problems remain unsolved. In 2016, I pointed out two major levers, to which I would now like to return. Ms. Forsyth discussed the change of culture, among other things. This type of change takes time, but six years have already elapsed since the first report was submitted. Action has been taken as a result of it, and I thank former MinisterDuncan for what she has done. However, the following two problems still persist in sport in Canada.

First, there's a lack of accountability. Funding isn't always associated with accountability. If public money is invested in national sport organizations, they should be accountable. That's a necessary condition in ensuring that athletes are protected and women can advance. Some studies show that less violence is observed in those organizations when more women are in leadership positions. So accountability is a major lever. It is public money after all.

The other important problem is that funding is often, if not always, provided on an ad hoc basis. The former minister announced $30 million in 2018, and the present minister,Ms. St-Onge, has just granted an additional $26 million, but that funding is often associated with ad hoc measures. In recent years, national federations could request funding for projects related to gender equality and equity, but they were ad hoc projects. Once the projects got under way, no further funding was released and no more projects could not be proposed. Consequently, it's hard to establish a long-term vision and planning.

Here's an example that breaks my heart. Thanks to a $1.65 million investment announced by Minister Duncan, a research hub for gender equity in sport, called E-Alliance, was established in 2020, a first in Canada. It was a three-year project, but—you know how it works—we received the money two weeks before the end of the first year. Consequently, in reality, we had two years in which to operate. I was co-director of the hub, together with Gretchen Kerr and Ann Pegoraro. I'm no longer the director there because I now have the good fortune to direct a Quebec research laboratory for gender equity in sport. Funding for the Canadian hub terminated in March of this year, and we've received no new funding since then. So we essentially threw $1.65 million out the window, and all our efforts over two years to establish that important research hub to collect longitudinal data, ensure follow-up and expand knowledge were in vain. We don't even know what will become of the research hub, whereas it was the subject of a critical recommendation in the 2018 report of the Work Group on Women and Girls in Sport.

I have 30 seconds left. I had my stopwatch in front of me. I'm a sports girl, so I'm used to keeping track of time.

Simply put, there are two points to bear in mind. First, accountability is mandatory. Second, long-term funding is essential to better planning and to ensuring that initiatives don't fall by the wayside after a year or two without being followed up. Otherwise, we're just treading water and wasting time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We'll turn it over for the next five minutes to Marie-Claude Asselin. Marie-Claude, you have the floor.

[Marie-Claude Asselin, Chief Executive Officer, Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada]

Madame Chair, members of the committee, thank you sincerely for inviting me to speak on such an important topic.

My name is Marie-Claude Asselin. I am, for close to 16 years now, the Chief Executive Officer of the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada, the SDRCC, home of the new Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner, the OSIC.

Many witnesses before me spoke eloquently about the issues of concern to all of us. Victims and survivors especially, with stories profoundly disturbing, but necessary to hear.

At this time, please allow me to shift the conversation to solutions.

In 2000 a working group of the secretary of state for amateur sport concluded that due to a lack of fair and consistent policies or to the improper administration of those policies, athletes and other participants in sport are being disciplined, harassed and denied opportunities without a proper recourse to a hearing or appeal. The SDRCC was created to remedy this.

You heard witnesses refer to the Dubin inquiry as having brought to light the fact that sport organizations could not be trusted with applying anti-doping rules against their own members. They testified that Canada now has a strong and independent anti-doping program. I agree with them.

On November 21 in particular, one witness spoke highly of this truly independent anti-doping system. Something they failed to mention is that the SDRCC is, in fact, Canada's anti-doping tribunal, yet in the same breath they insisted that the SDRCC is not independent.

The SDRCC is neutral and independent by definition. Its arbitrators, not its board members, are tasked with making sure that national sport organizations' policies, and their decisions rendered pursuant to those policies, are not arbitrary, discriminatory or illegal. Since its creation in 2004, the SDRCC has handled more than 600 disputes pertaining to team selection, funding of athletes, eligibility matters and discipline, all in order to remedy discrimination, unfairness, corruption and maltreatment.

In providing access to justice that is adapted to the reality of sport, the SDRCC serves as an alternative to long and expensive court proceedings offered in civil courts and human rights tribunals. Delays encountered in these fora will not serve athletes, whose careers cannot be put on hold for two to four years while they await their day in court. SDRCC cases are resolved, on average, within 54 days for doping cases and 44 days for other sports-related disputes.

All witnesses who spoke before you on their negative experience in reporting abuse came forward prior to June 2022, before the date of creation of the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner. Consequently, they had to follow their own organization's processes, which, admittedly, were grossly inadequate, but at the SDRCC, victims and survivors have access to mental health and legal aid services even prior to filing a complaint. The specialized safeguarding tribunal rules strike a very careful balance between the right to due process and the need to offer protection to vulnerable parties and witnesses, like no other statutory tribunal in Canada and possibly around the world.

The SDRCC's safeguarding mediators and arbitrators and the OSIC investigators are experts trained in trauma-informed practices, with experience in human rights, in child protection and in residential school adjudication. Their biographies are published on the websites of the SDRCC and the OSIC. I can assure you also that we do have the voice of victims and survivors at the SDRCC, both in advisory and decision-making capacities. The fact that a victim or survivor does not post their private life on social media does not make them less of a victim. We are respectful of their choice, which is 100% theirs to make.

At the SDRCC we also agree with victims and survivors who claim that the program has its limitations. With less than six months since its opening, it is indeed in its infancy, yet it is unfair not to give it a chance. It is built on solid ground, and it would be certainly beneficial for it to have greater powers, such as the power of subpoena, the right to maintain a public registry of sanctions and immunity for its professionals. No one is denying that horrific abuses took place, and still do.

Given the right powers and proper resources, Madam Chair, I assure you that the SDRCC and the OSIC can absolutely achieve their safe sport mandate.

Thank you for listening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much for that.

We are now going into our rounds of questioning. Our first rounds will be for six minutes.

We'll start off with Anna Roberts for six minutes.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My questions are going to be for Marie-Claude.

You stated that you've been involved with the SDRCC for 16 years. Excuse me for being blunt, but I don't believe the SDRCC is working for our children. They have failed at all levels.

This dispute organization has been involved for 16 years. You mentioned human rights in your comments. Where are the children's human rights? Why are these perpetrators allowed to coach and abuse our children, then move on to other clubs, provinces or countries and continue their same practices?

Would you agree with me that we need to educate? Previously, Dr. Fraser stated that she doesn't trust the lawyers. She thought she trusted the lawyers and judges. Obviously, we need to educate them on the importance of protecting our children. I'll be quite blunt: I don't think we're doing a good job. For improvement, words are not enough. We have to take action.

Would you agree with me that we need to make sure these perpetrators are charged with a criminal offence so they do not continue to abuse our children?