Status of Women Committee on Dec. 5th, 2022

[Marie-Claude Asselin]

First, I agree with you that if the behaviour is criminal, yes, the criminal system should be able to help them. The criminal system has failed to help the children.

At the SDRCC, we've been working on this for many years now, trying to get a space to help with the abuse and harassment. Yes, we've been doing this for a number of years now. However, the focus was on team selection, funding of athletes and other issues. With the help of Allison, we pushed other people and Minister Duncan to give the centre a mandate to play in this realm. We did not have that until June 2022. We've only been in this area for six months. That is why you haven't seen us in action, yet.

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

For 16 years, we've been listening to complaints, our children have been abused, and we've continued with the same jargon, expecting a different result. I don't understand. I'm sorry. Perhaps I'm naive, but how can we protect our children if we're not acting? Words are just not enough. We should not allow individuals who had the opportunity to abuse our children to continue to do that. The only way we're going to stop it is if we charge them criminally. A registration is obviously not working, because they get a slap on the wrist and continue.

We need to educate our judges and lawyers to the fact that our children are our future. If this behaviour continues, we won't have any children to proceed.

[Marie-Claude Asselin]

I completely agree with you.

I believe we are limited in our jurisdiction right now. If the government wanted to expand that, we'd welcome it. What happens in school and community sport is something we do not currently have jurisdiction over. Our jurisdiction is contractual. We need the provinces and territories to step up and offer a service similar to what we're offering now in all the jurisdictions in Canada. If they want our help, we will help them. Otherwise, they'll have to be like Quebec, perhaps, and have their own system to deal with it.

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

How can we work together with our provinces and territories to avoid any future abuse?

What you're saying is that provinces are under different jurisdictions. Do you know what? We have children to take care of. That, to me, is an excuse. That's enough of this. We need to make sure we get the provinces and territories involved, and the lawyers, educators and judges. This must stop, at all levels. It has to stop.

What do you have in your plan to work with the provinces and territories in order to ensure these abuses stop?

[Marie-Claude Asselin]

We're currently speaking to all of them. We're hopeful that we're going to collaborate in the creation of their own systems within their jurisdictions, or that some of them are prepared to sign an agreement with us. Then we would have jurisdiction in their provincial sports and at the grassroots in their provinces.

There remains a little difficulty: A lot of sport is played in schools, and schools are not under the sport ministry; they fall under the education ministry. There are a lot of jurisdictions to involve in that if we want to be efficient.

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

Are you telling me that the process currently is not working, but you're working on a process? I'm sorry, but I'm confused.

[Marie-Claude Asselin]

Our process right now is working at the national level.

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

So we're not involving the provinces or territories.

[Marie-Claude Asselin]

We are talking to them and we're moving forward on this.

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

Do you agree that maybe we should mandate that?

[Marie-Claude Asselin]

It would be wonderful.

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

If we don't mandate that and the perpetrator has an issue in one province, they can move to the next province and you will not even be aware of it.

Do you see where I'm going with this? It's a serious thing. It's like having someone abuse your child today in Ontario and go to B.C. and do the same thing in B.C., but nobody knows about it.

[Marie-Claude Asselin]

This is why the registry would be a part of the solution.

Right now, with the legislative framework of privacy laws in Canada, we're very limited in what we can do with a public registry. We have so many examples of coaches who move from one province or level or move from being on a national team to going to a sports school. There are so many examples. That should be a sign that we need a public registry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That's wonderful. Thank you so much.

We're now going to pass it over to Sonia Sidhu.

Sonia, you have six minutes.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being with us.

My first question is for Ms. Asselin.

We have heard there is a need for greater focus on collecting data around participation, leadership, officials and coaches, for example. You talked about a registry. Can you expand on that? What kind of model could we use? If any other countries are adopting that model, we can educate our coaches.

Any of the witnesses can comment on that. We can start with Ms. Asselin.

[Marie-Claude Asselin]

I'll say a little bit about the registry and then about education.

For the registry, the only one we know that is national is the one in the United States. It is consultable online. This is something we're looking at as a model. In other countries they are also struggling with their privacy laws, especially in Europe right now. There are a lot of people. We talk to a lot of jurisdictions, such as Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Everybody is facing similar issues with their public registry, so they're looking for help for that.

In terms of education, some people have mentioned the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. They have amazing training. They have amazing resources. They're all age-appropriate. From kindergarten and even day care to adult age, they have resources. I think we need to use the good things that are being done out there. We need to integrate them into the sports system. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection also has resources for parents and for coaches, and I would look to them for that.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Forsyth, do you want to add to that?

[Allison Forsyth]

Yes. I'll just share that—and I say this with all the respect in the world, as someone who has created online training for our country—it is baseline and generalized. I just want to stress that if we think we're going to prevent abuse through clicking like this and doing online training—and I am guilty of that as well, being a mother and having to go through a lot of volunteer training—we need to respect that it is going to take much, much more.

Then, just to speak on age-appropriate education, I have an 11-year-old, an eight-year-old and a five-year-old, and no one has ever trained them on what grooming looks like and on why their coach can't be alone with them in a dressing room. We need to empower our children. At least—trust me—I know that my own children are seeing it on TikTok anyway. We need to trust that age can handle it. We have to have the real education brought to our children, and it's not going to happen only online.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

I think we heard clearly that prevention needs to be prioritized; the victim must be supported and listened to, and perpetrators must be held accountable. There should be zero tolerance.

I know it's a big question, but what are your recommendations with respect to how we can make this a reality?

I want to ask you, Ms. Guylaine Demers, if you can expand on that.

[Dr. Guylaine Demers]

Thank you.

I think Marie-Claude and Allison pointed out the fact that it is a multifactor problem and we have to make sure that we....

I think we need to coordinate all of our efforts around that issue, because as Marie-Claude said, one of our biggest challenges in Canada is the jurisdiction aspect. Education is provincial; something can be done at a national level, but then each province has to deal with what they want to do. For example, in Quebec we have an organization, Sport'Aide, and Marie-Claude is working closely with them, but again, who's doing what? In Quebec we still have coaches within our own province and within the same sport who switch schools and keep coaching, even if.... Again, the organization, the college or the school doesn't want to say or cannot say why it released that coach, because of that privacy policy, which makes me sick. I agree with Marie-Claude that we need a way to put those coaches on a blacklist somewhere—that registry—so that they won't go on and keep coaching.

I guess that the challenge is how and who. Maybe Marie-Claude is the answer with her organization, but we need strong leadership. I think one organization that should be involved in that is our FPTSC—the federal-provincial/territorial sport committee—which at least tries to make sure that we have some sort of collaboration among the federal, provincial and territorial levels and that we coordinate our efforts. Maybe that committee should be more involved in that issue.

Again, for me, one of the biggest priorities would definitely be to have that registry, because right now, we see coaches and we know those coaches and we keep seeing them coach. What can we do? That would be my first priority.

I guess Marie-Claude and her team are probably the best ones to make that happen sooner, rather than later.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

I also want to ask you what recommendation you want to give to the committee to ensure that OSIC is an effective organization before moving forward.

Anybody can....

Yes, go ahead.

[Dr. Guylaine Demers]

I'm sorry. I thought the question....

Can you repeat the question? I'm sorry.

[Allison Forsyth]

I can add in. I'll share one thing, Guylaine.

Around OSIC and the reality of OSIC, I think we need to look at the Center for SafeSport out of the U.S. as an example. What I will share and what I know from people who work there and who have tried to file complaints there, is that it is going to be critical for OSIC—and I believe this is 100% possible—to have the funding to hold the capacity.

I say this from an athlete level, because what I am extremely fearful of is that if we ever get to a place where athletes are trying to file complaints of abuse and they are told, as some athletes have been told across the border, “Well, we'll get back to you in about two years”, that is a massive problem. I believe it's human nature that as soon as you don't think that something's going to work or it's not going to be done in a timely way, you're going to be right back where you started, which is “I don't trust the system and I don't trust that I need to file a complaint”.

I believe that OSIC is the place for this. I believe that it is going to be strong enough for us. I believe that we need to fund it and provide it more resources to be able to hold what I can only tell you is going to be an unfortunate onslaught of complaints that come through that organization.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Awesome. Thank you.

I have a quick question before I send it off. Do you work with OSIC? Do you...? No, so—

[Allison Forsyth]

We're aligned with OSIC.