Status of Women Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 48 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on October 31, 2022, the committee will resume its study of women and girls in sport.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

There is interpretation for those on Zoom. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either the floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

As a reminder, I point out that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can. We appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

In accordance with our routine motion, I'm informing the committee that all witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

I'm going to remind everyone with the following trigger warning that this is a very difficult study. Before we welcome the witnesses, I would like to advise everybody that we'll be discussing experiences related to abuse. This may be triggering to viewers, members or staff with similar experiences. If you feel distressed or you need help, please advise the clerk. Also, you have the team here: We always try to make sure that everybody is in good shape. If there are any issues, let us know.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses. As individuals, we have Lanni Marchant, Olympian, athlete advocate; and Andrea Neil, former women's national soccer team player and assistant coach. From the World Association of Icehockey Players Unions, we have Sandra Slater, president, North America division; and Randall Gumbley, consultant.

We'll be providing each of you with five minutes for your opening comments. I try to be flexible on this. When you see me start rolling my arms, try to bring it down to within 15 seconds.

I'm now going to pass the floor over to Lanni.

Lanni, you have your five minutes.

[Lanni Marchant, Olympian, Athlete Advocate, As an Individual]

Thank you for having me.

My name is Lanni Marchant. I'm an Olympian in the 10,000 metres and marathon, a former Canadian record-holder in the marathon and half marathon, graduate of the University of Ottawa and Michigan State's colleges of law, and a licensed and practising attorney admitted to the Tennessee bar and the federal eastern district bar of the United States.

I have spoken to you previously. In October 2016 I testified here about my experiences as a female national team athlete. In my testimony six years ago, I highlighted the maltreatment and abuses I suffered at the hands of my federation—the sexism, ageism and sexual harassment that I experienced from my own Olympic teammates.

To quote my own testimony, I said “There is...little understanding of the development of a female distance runner...and...that age does not necessarily dictate results. The funding of athletes like me, over 30 and female, often comes with performance requirements that are not set on younger athletes or equally on our male counterparts.”

I further went on to state that “We expect our teammates to have our backs, not to comment on our backsides. We do not need men in the sporting world to proclaim that they stand behind us as feminists because” it gives them the perfect view “to comment on our behinds. Instead, we want them to stand beside us.”

I did not realize during my previous testimony that we were on the brink of the #MeToo movement. Perhaps if I had been more timely with my discussion points, I would not have been trolled, harassed or further victimized online and by the sporting community.

Since my testimony, I did not sit back and wait for you—my government—to step up and help fix the very broken system I was expected to compete and thrive in. Instead, I took my experiences, my education and my desire to leave sport in Canada better than what I had experienced, and I joined forces with AthletesCan to be part of their safe sport work group. As part of that group, I and several other athletes—some of whom have appeared here before you—worked together on the maltreatment prevalence study that was circulated to current and recently retired national team athletes.

In 2019, I became a member of board of directors for the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada. I am now in my second term. As a board member, I sit on the complaints committee and the sport integrity committee. I'm not privy to the individual cases that come to the SDRCC, nor do I serve in any decision-making capacity on cases.

I also chair the newly created athlete advisory committee, which falls under the umbrella of the abuse-free sport program here in Canada. My role there is to ensure that the athlete voice is heard and considered in the decision-making processes of the OSIC activities. Again, I'm not dealing with any particular cases, but creating a system that is athlete centred.

It has been over these past six years of working with different sport and athlete agencies that I realized I was not alone in my experiences of maltreatment. It is where I realized just how normalized it is for athletes to be abused, demeaned and suffer—all in the name of sport.

I grew up a figure skater. I skated at the Champions Training Centre out of Cambridge, Ontario, which is also referred to as the Kerry Leitch figure skating school. I started there when I was in grade three and stayed through my first bit of high school. While there, I was weighed weekly, fat-tested monthly and had the results posted on the wall for all to see. I was a preteen female and was made to share the dressing room with skaters much older than me—male included. It was normalized to be yelled at to the point of tears and heaven forbid you get pulled into dressing room number six with Kerry Leitch.

If you were not perfect, you were made to run laps of the parking lot. I guess the silver lining is that running those that laps, for me, turned into running laps of the Olympic oval. Many of my teammates were not nearly as fortunate.

Nipple grabbing and discussing the development of my body were a daily occurrence, with older girls passing along tips on how to stay small, skip periods or avoid going through puberty altogether. Male coaches and fellow skaters would prop us up on their laps to have “chats”. Because it was a pairs training centre, it was normalized to have parts of your body touched by men and boys to demonstrate lifts or moves. Their hands would linger. The entire culture was toxic and overly sexed.

I left that environment when I discovered running. My body dysmorphia stayed with me. I was fortunate to find my coach, Dave Mills, at the London Western Track and Field Club. I do not know if I would have survived my high school running career, and professional career since, without him.

My university experience was not any different from my skating years. Yes, I was in the U.S. NCAA system, but I imagine it paralleled the experiences of my Canadian counterparts. There, eating disorders were part of what it took to be on team. Coach Gautier would openly discuss his favourite parts of our bodies. He would slut-shame the female runners and celebrate the guys for their dating activities.

Any systems we had back then did not provide any solutions and certainly did not provide any protection for us, the athletes.

In speaking up, we should not have to be afraid of losing our scholarships, our funding, our spot on the team or access to services.

How is it that my experiences in sport—dating all the way back to the 1990s—and the fear that those environments thrived off of are still those same experiences described by athletes half my age today?

I have done my best over the past six years to help be part of a fix for the Canadian sport system. I have to ask, where were you?

We have the abuse-free sport program up and operating in Canada, but why has it taken so much pressure for you to let it have any teeth? Why do we have to wait until this spring to see it be mandatory for every national sports organization to sign on to the program?

It's been proven over and over that NSOs cannot be trusted to self-regulate. Athletes are not protected. NSO investigators ignore pleas from witnesses to look at the entirety of the toxic environment of a club and skating centre. The goal always seems to be to protect the brand and the status quo. The concern falls more on protecting the career of an accused rather than the experiences and career of the athlete.

Athlete complaints are not a standard HR complaint. We often do not have any lateral moves or other places to go. It isn't like we can just go and pick another country to represent.

In 2016, the high performance director of Athletics Canada, Peter Eriksson, was fired for his abuses of power and maltreatment of national team athletes, only to then be hired by Own the Podium.

Sport in Canada is incestuous. Where and how are we meant to feel safe? Where was my protection when I was pegged as the athlete to get Peter Eriksson fired? Why did my testimony here six years ago fall on your deaf ears?

To pursue a sport and represent Canada should not mean a decision between risking our physical, mental and emotional health to achieve our goals, or the alternative, which is to walk away completely because the system is broken.

Athletes are screaming for a sporting system to provide a safe and protected space for us to speak up. We have been asking for one and are now demanding one. After the maltreatment prevalence study demonstrated a toxic sport environment when we demanded an independent mechanism for safe sport, why did the application process require and mandate that it be built and housed within an already existing entity?

I spoke up six years ago. I'll quote it again:

I meant it very much when I said that the athlete can't be the one who's constantly taking on these battles.

I don't know why.... The women before me weren't making teams, but they weren't standing up and arguing as loudly as I am. I don't know if it's because of the background I have or because, at the end of the day, I don't care. I want to represent Canada, and I would hope you want me out there representing you, but if you don't want me there, then fine, I'll find something else and excel at that. It might take more money and it might take more time, but the government and the different federations—Sport Canada and the COC—need to have our backs. If I'm willing to stand out there and be vocal and face the retribution or retaliation of my federation, I would hope that I'd be able to rely on you and on the bigger federations to come to my aid when I do need it.

We, as athletes, are now asking for more.

I understand that my perspective on the abuse-free sport program in Canada is unique. I've had a very unique view of its creation because of my roles. I understand the fear and disbelief in any system that is born out of programs and systems that were already in place.

I am not here to champion or tear down any program. I know the work that we put in. I know the goals that we have.

I'm here because I understand the importance of protecting athletes at any age and regardless of any ego—yours and mine included.

I'm here because despite everything I know about maltreatment and abuse in sport, I was still subjected to grooming and taken advantage of by a sports practitioner later in my career. My mindset and scope was so narrowly focused on stopping predators and abuses of those younger than me that I had a blind spot. We cannot afford any more blind spots.

It isn't my job to fix sport in Canada. It isn't any athlete's job. I have done everything that I knew to do to try, though. I suffered the retaliations. I had my Canadian teammates call me “low-performing Lanni”, because without an Olympic gold medal, how dare I ask to be respected as an athlete and treated as a human?

I ask again, what did you do in these past six years to better sport in Canada? What are you actually prepared to do now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks very much.

As you're noticing, I am letting athletes go on a little bit longer. I do recognize that this is very difficult testimony to give. I do want to provide that extra respect for them coming forward.

Thank you so much, Lanni.

I'm now going to pass the floor over to Andrea Neil.

Andrea, you have five minutes.

[Andrea Neil, Former Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team Player and Assistant Coach, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of this committee, for inviting me to speak today and for your work in investigating these critical issues.

My name is Andrea Neil. I'm a former player, captain and coach for the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Canadian women's national soccer team. I spent 18 years as a midfielder, participating in four FIFA Women's World Cups as a player, a fifth as a coach in 2011, and a sixth as media in 2015. When I retired, I had the most international appearances of any soccer player in Canadian history. I have my UEFA “A” coaching licence from Italy. I was the first woman and third soccer player to be inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.

I have played sports my whole life. I know that it can be an incredible platform for honourable accomplishment, human development and positive social change. Unfortunately, a pervasive, toxic and unhealthy leadership paradigm in our culture today harms many people who participate and work in sports. It is a paradigm that uses as its compass points the accumulation of power, prestige and money, not the development, support and safety of those they are meant to nurture and build.

I know that my speaking time is limited today. I will use it to share some examples from my soccer career that illuminate key areas to address if sports in this country are to be the flourishing developmental ground that we need to them to be.

I am involved now as my child learns to play, and I have long coached various age and playing levels. My deep connection with the women's national team program runs from its founding members to players still on the team today. For years, and as recently as a week ago, I have observed and listened to countless stories of mistreatment, abuse and corruption. A single instance should be unacceptable. The unrelenting pattern of repetition is alarming, and it must be learned from.

For 15 years I stood alongside a small group of women as they risked their financial, physical, mental and emotional health to bring former national team coach Bob Birarda to justice for his sexual and psychological abuse of players. When I saw that Canada Soccer had quietly dismissed Birarda as a coach, conveniently shrouding the firing as mutually agreed, and therefore enabling him to begin coaching girls again months later, these women took their experience to the police to prevent future harm.

Canada Soccer could not be counted upon. Our national federation had completely failed at safeguarding. They had irresponsibly shifted his predatory behaviour on.

These women have been dismissed, diminished and devalued as human beings by those who are responsible for keeping them safe. Even now, with Birarda's abusive behaviour across 20 years of coaching established in a court of law, culminating in his guilty verdict and jail sentence, these victims are still waiting for a statement from Canada Soccer and are still waiting for Canada Soccer to ban him from coaching.

The federation's response has been to insist that their first failed investigation was thorough and extensive to avert from rather than take responsibility. Only pressure by the Olympic champion women's team forced a further inquiry, which resulted in the revealing, however incomplete, McLaren report.

Players have had to join hands across generations to force the current management in our national federation to begin to do the right thing and to properly look into things. I wish I could say I was surprised by the obfuscations and lack of accountability, but I had seen this sort of dodge before, when my vantage point as an assistant coach in the national program made me aware of deeply concerning financial improprieties and organizational irregularities, which I helped raise to no avail.

Real leaders pay attention. They look and they listen. But when athletes or staff have flagged concerns about Canada Soccer, this has not happened. In fact, they've been dismissed. Those brave enough to call on them to do better have not been protected. Some have suffered retributions; others have been silenced and smothered by non-disclosure agreements and clauses in employment contracts.

We have seen, with Hockey Canada, that a lack of safety and a lack of transparency around funding are not two distinct problems. They reflect leadership that has lost its moorings. These issues combine and intersect to impede the development of people who deserve to be striving and thriving through their sport.

My purpose is to use these examples to highlight the need for a new leadership paradigm, one based on trust, service, community, equality, consideration and care. What kind of culture has Canada Soccer created in the past? What kind of culture will it set out to intentionally build now? Unfortunately, it has proven time and again that it cannot regulate itself.

I call on our government to take meaningful action in support of transforming sports across Canada. Here are three crucial calls to action.

One, we need a judicial inquiry into the culturally ingrained abuse within our national sporting organizations. I appreciate your convening this forum for feedback. Nothing can change until we turn the lights on and reckon with where we are.

Two, we need to rebuild our sports organizations with this self-scrutiny in mind. We need to clearly establish and communicate the portals for feedback and commit to looking into what they bring up. We need to make policies against retaliation for reporting. In a culture so awry, whistle-blowers are essential in raising awareness and getting us back on course.

Three, we need to commit to a comprehensive forensic audit into Canada Soccer's finances and to publicly disclose how funding is being used and why to ensure the mission of the organization is being carried out ethically and effectively.

Until we see things clearly and courageously create a new leadership culture in these organizations, the vulnerable members of our society will continue to be put at risk, and the harm that I have all too often witnessed in my career will continue to happen.

With awareness, effort and a heart-centred compass point, we can head in the correct direction, but not without also investigating within ourselves what blocks our ability to see, support, protect and care for other human beings when they're in need.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much, Andrea.

I'm now going to pass it over to the World Association of Icehockey Players Unions. We're going to have Sandra or Randall, whoever would like to take the floor. It's for a total of five minutes.

Thanks.

[Sandra Slater, President, North America Division, World Association of Icehockey Players Unions]

Thank you.

I'm Sandra Slater, president of WAIPU North America. We're here today to discuss athletes' rights in sports.

The year 2022 was the first year a female was drafted into the Canadian Hockey League, the CHL. We are also here to discuss female management entrance into a male-dominated sport.

As a female trying to break the glass ceiling, I have personally experienced disrespect bordering on abuse and discrimination by the CHL and previous executives of Hockey Canada—and I emphasize “previous”.

As we witnessed at the heritage committee, the hockey industry is dominated by an all-white male, 60-plus years of age, and a long history of not recognizing women's influence in sports. As part of our documentation, you will see a letter from the CHL showing lack of respect for female leadership. We are here today to create awareness in the hope of creating change for athletes and female recognition in management positions.

This experience is not limited to the hockey community. My personal feeling while addressing issues with the federal and provincial governments went unanswered as I am a woman and because Hockey Canada's executives challenged WAIPU's integrity after we notified the federal government of sexual abuses and hazing in correspondence dating back to 2018.

A prime example is that WAIPU contacted the Minister of Sport and requested an urgent meeting to discuss sexual and hazing abuses within the CHL. Nine months passed; we heard crickets.

Upon retaining a lobbyist, the CHL was able to meet with the minister within 30 days to discuss, of all things, additional funding for the CHL during COVID.

We also have submitted what we feel is a solution that would not only educate athletes about various forms of abuse but also be used as a reporting tool.

Now you'll hear from my co-worker.

[Randall Gumbley, Consultant, World Association of Icehockey Players Unions]

I'm Randy Gumbley. I'm a consultant with WAIPU.

You're about to hear a story about a deeply flawed business model between the CHL and Hockey Canada that exploits young children. We use some strong language such as “cartel”, “conspiracy” and “collusion”. These words that we express don't come lightly and are not used without merit.

In 1968, then prime minister Pierre Trudeau appointed a special task force to investigate amateur sport in Canada and the effects that professional sport had within the amateur system.

The task force found that amateur and professional sport should have no affiliation. They demanded that immediate and drastic actions be taken in the following areas: the supremacy of the hockey system, the binding of minors to contracts, contracts that denied players' rights and indentured players in a form of slavery, and how major junior hockey operated under the guise of the amateur system.

The Downey report of 1976 recommended the following changes: the creation of an ombudsman for hockey; the prohibition of teams from entering into contracts with minors; restriction of contracts and conspiracies that prohibited players from having the freedom to associate both in inter league and intra league; and the separation of pro and amateur sports. These recommendations helped form what is known as section 48 of the Competition Act.

Sadly, a half century later, these young children are still at the mercies of the NSOs in a cartel-like hockey group with the very same issues that are still alive and well today.

To Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and to this committee, your father had a vision to protect amateur sports and athletes in Canada. You passed laws to protect those athletes, but, sadly, history has shown that all levels of government have failed to enforce the existing laws. This government now has an extraordinary opportunity to follow in his footsteps by enforcing the existing laws and recognizing athletes' rights.

The Competition Bureau of Canada received a complaint from athletes in 2018 that involved the cartel hockey groups, and alleged criminal violation of section 48. The bureau took nearly four years to review the complaint. While athletes faced a real threat of feared reprisal from NSOs and the CHL for speaking out about abuses, the Canadian government still turned a blind eye to the blatant violations of the Competition Law, child labour laws, CRA regulations and human rights violations.

WAIPU believes that the government's primary responsibility is to protect the rights and freedom of all individuals, including children and athletes. We believe that the government must monitor, check, and, if need be, curtail the powers of NSOs that exist that exercise unreasonable restraints upon athletes' rights and freedoms.

The direct result of the government non-action is quite evident. It created a higher supremacy within the hockey community that hockey was untouchable and above the laws of Canada. This allowed a cartel to be formed, which runs right up to the very top echelon of hockey, the National Hockey League.

The system as it stands today has a power imbalance in favour of the NSOs. This has dramatically affected competition and has put athletes in a vulnerable position.

Canadians and this government need an inquiry to fully understand how we got to this point. Why did the Competition Bureau of Canada take four years to act on the complaint? Why are minors subject to a $500,000 release fee if they choose to leave the Canadian Hockey League and offer their services to another organization? Why did the NSO allow a professional sports league to benefit from insurance that was paid for by the amateur system? Finally, how is the CHL able to lobby across Canada, not only the provincial governments but also the federal government, to change laws in the middle on an ongoing litigation?

I thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much for the testimony we have heard.

We will be going to our questions. The first round of questions is for six minutes each. I will try to keep it tight to those six minutes so that more members will get the opportunity to ask questions, because, when I allow it to go on for too long, then we will get fewer questioners.

I'm going to pass it over for six minutes to Michelle Ferreri to start it off.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I really want to thank our witnesses today. There's a lot of bravery here today and a lot of honest testimony. You can't change facts if you don't face facts, so I really appreciate all of your being here today. There's some pretty damning testimony coming from all of you.

The first question I have is for Andrea.

Do you see an overlap between what Mr. Gumbley and Ms. Slater have said on soccer and hockey? Do you see an overlap there of what they're saying?

[Andrea Neil]

I think, for me, this goes to leadership principles that have gone completely awry for what the purpose of sport is all about. There are so many links to what I've just heard and retributions for speaking up. I think we're just so completely lost with what this is all about.

If you have more specific questions, I'd love to focus this more.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Yes, for sure.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm seeing a major problem with the process. You go up the chain, you make a complaint, you do everything you're told to do and nothing is happening. I'm getting a lot of nods.

Sandra, you said you went to the federal government and made the complaint. What happened then, and what is your next call to action to see this through?

[Sandra Slater]

Well, nothing happened.

Randy, you did have one meeting, right?

[Randall Gumbley]

Yes.

[Sandra Slater]

Randy was able to get one meeting with them, but nothing came out of it. That's why we're still here.

Understand, with the abuse that's been suffered, any elite athlete—any athlete in an elite position—is vulnerable to anyone in power. They truly control your life and your dreams.

We, as parents watching our kids in a sport like that, live vicariously through our kids. We want them to have our dreams. These kids don't say anything to anyone when these abuses happen. When you finally hear it after the fact—after they've finished what they're doing—it's heartbreaking. And time after time after time, you hear the same stories.

Let me give you an example: Daniel Carcillo. My goodness, the class action lawsuits.... Okay, this is going to be graphic for everyone here. That man had a hockey stick shoved up his butt during hazing by older players. What are 16-year-olds doing playing with 20-year-olds in a league? Sorry.

All of these issues need to be addressed. We need to be listened to, and we're not being listened to. What's been going on? We've been fighting this cause for 10 or 11 years now.

[Randall Gumbley]

I will say that we took steps. The first step we took was that we reported it to the CHL. That fell upon deaf ears. We went to the NSO, which was Hockey Canada. That fell upon deaf ears. We went to the provincial governments. What did the provincial governments do? They changed the laws to favour the NSOs by changing labour laws. Then we went to the federal government and we complained about the issues that Sandy is talking about and why we're here today. Nothing.

This is not just with this minister. This minister has actually taken some action, and we're hopeful for it. We've been reporting this since 2010, with Bal Gosal, and they're the same issues.

When you're talking about the steps we took, the player's last resort was to go to the courts. What happened? We ended up with four major class action lawsuits that have put Hockey Canada in an uninsurable position. For them to be able to access O and D insurance now, it's $2.1 million a year just for the premium. Who's paying for that? It's the amateur system and those players who are participating, and it's all because of the CHL's flawed business model.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

If we can get to the crux of this conflict of interest.... I think that's what we're seeing repeatedly in this: it's who knows who, and not doing what's right.

If I may, Andrea, you were talking about this coach. I'm wondering if you can expand on that. Are the people the same at Soccer Canada who allowed all of this to happen? That seems like a massive conflict of interest if the people you're making the complaint to are the people overseeing it.

[Andrea Neil]

Yes. It's a pattern of behaviour, and why I shared with you that I can talk to the founding members and to the players now who are on the team is that when you step back and look at the pattern of behaviour throughout, you can see it through a different lens. It becomes very clear.

When the reporting mechanism happens, the people investigating it decide the scope of that investigation. It depends on the perception they have and their decision-making process around it.

With this example, they were very much focused in on—it looks like—the reputation of their own organization. The players were never really considered and cared for in the decision-making process. Their entire lens was focused on more self-serving means and not on the actual role, that they are there to support the players.

You realize that over time, this pattern continues. There's dismissive language and denial of responsibility, and on and on it goes. The people involved can never get their healing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We're now going to pass it over for the next six minutes to Anita Vandenbeld.

Anita.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank you for being here. I know it's not easy to tell your stories. I really appreciate that, because you're not just looking at yourselves; you're looking at trying to stop the harm from happening to other athletes, and that is something that matters.

I'd like to start with you, Ms. Marchant.

First of all, what happened to you is unacceptable. Now you're a lawyer, so you understand processes and legalities. What do you wish you would have had as an athlete at that time that might have made things different? By extension, what would have made a difference for you in processes and support?

[Lanni Marchant]

It would be a safe place, somewhere where I could complain and talk about what was happening to me, and it not be investigated by the people I was complaining about. That's how it works. When I was growing up in the skating system, Skate Canada used to have this program called “monitoring”. I wasn't quite at the level, but my sister was. If you were a national team athlete back then, you had a monitor assigned to you who was supposed to be taking care of your interests. These monitors would come and see the abuses at our club. If my abuse was bad, I cannot even speak to what my sister went through being at a higher level than I was, and what it did to her. This person would see it and basically say, “Okay, well, that's sport”. It was the mindset of, ““ell, I had to live through it, so now it's your turn”.

With Athletics Canada and my experience there, I should not have been deemed the athlete responsible for Peter Eriksson's getting fired. I definitely played a role, I'll acknowledge that, but I ticked all my boxes. I did everything I was supposed to do, and I almost got left off a second Olympic team. I didn't get to go to the 2012 Olympics because of politics, so for 2016, because my name was more known, and because at that point I was the fastest woman in Canada, I had the community speak up for me. Even behind closed doors, right up until I toed the line at my first Olympic event, he was trying to get me removed from the team. In what world does an athlete get to thrive under those conditions, where your head coach does not even want you there?

I don't know if what happened out at the University of Guelph is on the record here. Dave Scott-Thomas was the coach there, and he was also the high-performance distance coordinator for Athletics Canada. It was known that he was carrying on inappropriately, raping an underage athlete for years. The first national team I was on was with her and Dave Scott-Thomas and his wife. I cannot imagine the terror and horror that she had to go through knowing that everybody called her crazy. She was so gaslit. It took over a decade for him to be pushed out of the sport and for someone to believe her story.

What I want, and what I think every athlete wants, is to be believed and to be heard. We don't want someone to push it under a rug or say, get to the next race, get to the next event, or do you know what? Even this allegation against this person could damage their reputation and their career.

I didn't even get my Olympic ring. When you compete at the Olympics you get a piece of jewellery; mine got lost in the mail. I did not even ask for them to send me another one for years afterwards, because I didn't want anything to do with my Olympic experience. It had nothing to do with the running—I'm proud of the running. It had to do with everything else that got me to that start line and through those races.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

The kinds of things you're talking about are unthinkable and completely unacceptable. I'm really grateful that you're telling us about this. What really alarms me is not just that you didn't have a safe space or that you weren't believed—and I've heard this from Ms. Neil as well—but about the retribution when you did try to speak out.

We're looking at processes. We're looking at how to solve the systemic problems that seem to exist. We're hearing about this normalization that you talked about across so many sports. I know we've put some processes in place, like OSIC and others. What is it that could create that safe space, not just for whistle-blowers who want to file a complaint, but also for the athlete and their psychosocial needs, the support? You don't always just get there from saying,“I want to file a complaint.” You need to have options, support, advocacy, understanding, and maybe go through processes before you get to that.

What would that process look like?

[Lanni Marchant]

I would say, and we were talking about it earlier, that.... My human brain is very smart; I've got a lot of letters after my name that say I'm a really intelligent person. My athlete brain is stupid; it is dumb.

I am really good at running reasonably quickly in mostly straight lines—I know that. We need a system that's almost paint by numbers, because not only are athletes so focused, and to get to the level that I got to, you have to dial in and rely on the people around you....

I ran on a torn labrum for four years. It wasn't until I lost my funding and got booted out of the system that I got it fixed.

We need a program, because when you're under that stress and being abused, it literally needs to be paint by numbers; it needs to be something we can just follow through with our very dumb athlete brains.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Lanni, thank you so much for having a sense of humour—and running in a straight line.

Thank you so much, because you know sometimes we just need to have a little bit of joy, so thanks for that funny remark.

I'm going to pass it on to Andréanne Larouche for the next six minutes.