Status of Women Committee on Jan. 30th, 2023

[Ian Moss]

No. I didn't say that.

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

—but these allegations are serious.

[Ian Moss]

I did not say that, actually.

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

Correct me, please. I apologize.

[Ian Moss]

I said that we dealt with the matter when a formal complaint came forward with regard to the code of conduct. We also dealt with the other matters that were concerns about behaviour in trying to ensure that there were behavioural adjustments.

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

Obviously, this one was lost.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks so much.

We're now going to pass it over to Marc Serré for the final questions.

You have three minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

My first question is for Dr. Kerr. You didn't get a chance to answer earlier, because you were interrupted several times, but the federal funding you received for athletes' mistreatment and gender equity research.... Can you explain a bit of that research and why that ties into your comment about not needing a national inquiry?

I wanted to give you the chance to answer that question, please.

[Dr. Gretchen Kerr]

The funding for the national gender equity hub was not to fund research on gender-based violence. It was to bring together a collective of researchers from various disciplines across the country who study gender equity, so we could have a consolidated database that we could share broadly. It was separate and distinct from what we're talking about here today.

The issue of the judicial inquiry is more about its purpose. If it's to understand the nature of the issues and problems, we have that information. In fact, we have repeated history, because we're having the same discussions we had in 1996 when we had a crisis with the Graham James case.

If the purpose is to provide athletes with a voice to tell their stories and seek justice, I propose that there are far more effective, trauma-informed ways to do that. That's the rationale for.... Yes, we need to move ahead, but I believe there are better and more effective ways than going backwards to do a judicial inquiry.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

My second question is for Ms. Pelletier.

Earlier, when you spoke of a national inquiry, you said that approximately two‑thirds of the complaints that you received were deemed inadmissible. Can you tell us how many of those complaints originated in the Province of Quebec?

If there is indeed a national inquiry, what role will the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner have, given Quebec's jurisdiction? I'm trying to understand the Office's role in the context of provincial responsibilities, especially those of Quebec. What is the number of cases that you weren't able to look at?

[Sarah-Ève Pelletier]

As I said earlier, to date, only one third of the complaints deemed inadmissible could be forwarded to an independent complaints system, whether that be Quebec's or a mechanism set up by a national sport organization other than the Office of the Sports Integrity Commissioner.

It is therefore a small number and again, one that is based on our first six months of activity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

Before we end this panel, there are a few documents I would like to request. I know there have been some requests.

To the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner—looking at those 24 cases—it was noted what's admissible and not admissible. Could we get some information and a breakdown of those 24 cases? Send it to our clerk. She'll be able to review it, and we can discuss that. We would like to have that list.

I would ask to have, from Gymnastics Canada, all the emails, letters and minutes of board meetings regarding Mr. McFarlane and Mr. Bard. We would like to see all the confidential documents. Please send them directly to us, so we can ensure we are getting both sides of the story. We would really like to see those documents.

To Gretchen Kerr, thank you so much for coming. You noted there are other ways of moving forward. Perhaps you could provide those other ways of moving forward in a brief. That would be great. Thanks so much.

On behalf of the group, I would like to thank you all for coming today.

We are going to take a brief pause to switch up, probably for about a minute.

We'll suspend for one minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We are reconvening.

Go ahead, Andréanne.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Chair, I rise on a point of order.

I want to take a few seconds to inform you that we had just finished questioning Mr. Moss on the goings-on at Gymnastics Canada when he proceeded to verbally assault Ms. Kim Shore upon leaving the room.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much for bringing that forward.

What is normal protocol? One moment, please.

Sonia, can you take the chair for the first few minutes, during the opening comments? I will look into this.

What we're going to do is this: I'll manipulate while good old Sonia works the chair.

I would like to welcome our three guests: Donna Gall, Sophie Gagnon and McLaren Global Sport Solutions.

You each have five minutes.

Donna, you may start with your opening five minutes.

[Dr. Donna Gall, Professor and Filmmaker, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

I appear today as a storyteller, a filmmaker, a scholar and an educator with a commitment to and track record of exploring issues and telling stories about women and girls in sport in Canada.

My core recommendation today is that we need more stories to be told about women and girls in sport to make sport better, more equitable and safer for women and girls.

These include the stories of abuse and hardship that have been told with such grace and generosity by some of the witnesses before this committee. Sharing stories is shining a light into dark places where rot has grown. Light and attention are what is needed to get rid of the rot. I believe these stories have the power to change sport, but we also need stories to show us what sport can be for women and girls in Canada.

In my doctoral research examining the audience for professional women's hockey, I heard again and again how often the stories about women in sport are the stories of the problems of women in sport. If this is the only narrative we hear, the performative risk is that the repeated association among “women”, “sport” and “problem” becomes normalized and naturalized.

We need stories showing sport as a site of empowerment for female athletes at every skill level—stories about the now and the future, fully inclusive stories, as well as stories about the long history of women and girls in sport in Canada. Consider the ubiquitous Heritage Minutes. Of the 97 videos produced telling stories about Canadian history, 12 of them tell stories of sport. Of those 12, only one is about female athletes—the Edmonton Grads basketball team. Heritage Minutes exist because of significant public funding, but why then are they not fully representative of the Canadian public?

I have three recommendations to make to the committee to support more opportunities for storytelling on multiple media platforms.

The first is about funding for media coverage of women's sports. The systemic and persistent lack of media coverage contributes to the perception that women and girls in sport are less worthy of an audience's attention, literally less valuable in terms of ratings. It perpetuates the idea that women and girls have no legitimate role in sport and puts the safety of female athletes at risk. I recommend special funding from Canadian Heritage dedicated to media coverage of women's sports. To be clear, this does not mean broadcasting the occasional midday game, but instead investing in women's sport broadcasts in prime time, with high production values and significant audience development. We saw this strategy work with women's soccer in 2015 and 2019. It is worth noting that the CBC spent decades investing in men's sport, constructing the audience for sport to be the audience for men's sport. The public broadcaster should be compelled to make equal investment in the broadcast of women's sport.

The second recommendation I have is about funding for scripted and factual media content. Meaningful media coverage demands more than covering games, races and matches of occasional elite competitions. I recommend specialized funding from Heritage Canada to support the creation of factual and scripted stories of women and girls in sport for broadcast television, streaming platforms and other digital media platforms. I note the impact of the Netflix documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive and how it increased public knowledge, appreciation and viewership for that sport. At the very least, I would like to see more Heritage Minutes dedicated to historical Canadian female athletes, such as Bobbie Rosenfeld and the indigenous women's softball team from Six Nations, Ontario.

The third recommendation is about athletes telling their own stories. Athletes are too often silenced. I recommend the creation of digital storytelling funding for sporting organizations to provide the tools and platforms to teams of all levels that will allow girls and women to share first-hand stories of their experiences in sport. Imagine a YouTube channel dedicated to showing Canadian female athletes from all over the country sharing their experiences, their training, their competitions, their triumphs, their hardships and their camaraderie.

To conclude, the stories we tell help to shape the world we live in. Stories about sport in particular work to construct our mythologies and our ideas about culture, value and gender. We need to tell stories that shine a light on the abuse suffered by many women and girls in sport, and we need stories that celebrate sport as a space that can empower, strengthen and support women and girls to make not only sport but all of society better and safer.

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We will now move over for the next five minutes to Sophie Gagnon, from Juripop, who is online.

Sophie, you have five minutes.

[Sophie Gagnon, Executive Director, Juripop]

Thank you so much.

Hello, everyone.

I will be doing my presentation in French.

I'm happy to answer questions in English.

I am appearing before your committee as the spokesperson and Executive Director of Juripop.

Juripop is a nonprofit organization founded in 2009. Our mission is to improve access to justice throughout Quebec. Our services are available through a team of 35 people based in Montréal.

We were asked to appear before you today because of our expertise in providing legal support to people who have experienced gender-based violence.

For more than five years, Juripop has supported thousands of victims of sexual violence, domestic violence and harassment in the workplace in Quebec. We help victims and survivors understand their rights in all areas of the law and to assert them, whether it be through an internal administrative investigation, after a complaint to the police, or a civil suit.

Our expertise truly lies in the factors underpinning victims’ understanding or not of their rights; their trust or lack of it in a truth-seeking process; and obtaining justice after sexual violence.

In my remarks today, I will share observations drawn from our experiences with victimized individuals and survivors.

We are not experts in sports. We are active in several areas where we can draw significant parallels, such as power imbalances, be they due to positions of power or age, and where sexual violence is prevalent, as seems to be the case in the sports community.

I’d like to present what we consider ideal parameters for internal justice. By “internal justice,” I mean a process for seeking the truth, sanctions and remediation implemented by the organization where sexual violence has occurred. I will therefore emphasize the factors we consider essential to the success of a process with victims. It ensures that people feel heard and maintains or reestablishes their trust in the organization.

I will go quickly to stay within my time. Don’t hesitate to ask questions if needed.

First of all, for people who are victims, it is essential to ensure confidentiality of the complaint. I cannot stress this enough. People want their complaints to be confidential. We realize this is not always possible. We’ve seen situations where organizations committed to ensuring complaint confidentiality, but in the end, they were unable to meet that commitment.

Therefore, we recommend that if a complaint cannot remain confidential, it’s essential to be transparent with the victimized individual and inform them in advance, as well as on an ongoing basis.

Quality internal justice, in our view, is led by an independent and impartial entity. The organization’s investigative mechanisms are very unlikely to gain the support or trust of victimized individuals, be it due to a real conflict of interest, or the appearance of a conflict of interest. It is therefore essential for an independent entity to lead the process.

The process must be fast as well. All too often, we see internal processes that take months. If an entity wishes to proceed with an internal investigation, it must grant priority to the investigation and dedicate the human and material resources required to lead it quickly. Otherwise, it could lead to work stoppages and mental health issues, or the individual who initially decided to participate in the process may quit.

It’s also essential to support the person who was victimized or the complainant on two levels.

First, it’s important to offer them psychosocial resources to put them in a good frame of mind and, second, to offer legal support resources.

That’s what we do at Juripop: we support people who file a complaint with an employer. Our role is not to replace an investigator. It is to be present for the victim in order to explain the investigation, as well as make sure that the person is able to understand their rights and assert them throughout the process.

There’s another important aspect, but it’s controversial. It’s communication of the investigation’s findings. Obviously, the detailed report usually remains confidential, specifically to protect witness confidentiality. However, the conclusions must be communicated and explained to the complainant; otherwise there’s a sense of misunderstanding or breach of trust…

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Sophie, I'm going to have to interrupt you. You're a bit over your time here. It's hard to get your attention online.

During the questions, you can add additional comments, if that's okay.

Thank you so much.

[Sophie Gagnon]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We're now going to pass it over to Richard McLaren.

Richard, you have five minutes.

[Richard McLaren, Chief Executive Officer and Professor of Law, McLaren Global Sport Solutions Inc.]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

At the outset, I want to say that I'm not receiving any translation.

Is there translation? I cannot understand French.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Let's just check.

Is there a translation button at the very bottom of your screen? Sometimes there is something that says “interpretation”. Make sure that's on “English” rather than “floor”.

Do you see that there?

[Richard McLaren]

Yes, I do. I've put it on “English”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Marc, could we try some French?