Status of Women Committee on Feb. 13th, 2023

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you. We want to put the well-being of victims first, Minister.

You spoke about Quebec and New Brunswick having models that are responsive to athletes' concerns at all levels. We need models like this in every province and territory so that our athletes can feel safe.

Can you expand on that? How can we effectively have models like this?

[Pascale St-Onge, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

There are two ways. All provinces and territories committed to doing it. They can deal directly with the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner, which is already up and coming. The federal government invested $16 million. It's already there. It's an easy fix. That's one way. The other way is that they can create their own independent mechanism, just like Quebec and New Brunswick did.

Either way, this needs to be done, because athletes need to know where to turn when they're facing situations of abuse or maltreatment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Awesome. Thank you so much.

I'm going to ask a couple more questions as we're finishing up, just some things as we're looking at closure.

Are the 12 members of the board of directors for the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre appointed by you, as the minister?

According to the—

[Pascale St-Onge, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Yes, they are appointed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Did you personally appoint those, or were they appointed before you took on the role as minister?

[Pascale St-Onge, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Some of them were appointed by me. Others had been appointed before.

As I said, I'm open to reviewing how the appointments are made.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I think one concern —and I think we've heard it from everybody—is that thread. It's that trust.

When I'm looking at the sports resolution and knowing that from there, they're choosing OSIC, is that correct?

What's the lineage? Who gets into OSIC? Who chooses the membership of OSIC or who hires OSIC? How are they affiliated with the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre?

[Isabelle Mondou]

I think what you're talking about is the integrity commissioner position. Is that what you're—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

No.

A segment of those at the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre becomes OSIC. Is that correct?

[Isabelle Mondou]

Yes, that's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I want to look at this line.

The minister appoints the people on that board. That board then chooses OSIC, because it's a wedge of that.

I think what I'm seeing—and I think it's the same for many on this committee—when I'm looking at the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada and at the membership that's been chosen—and Pascale, it's definitely not against you; please understand this—is that people in Gymnastics Canada are on this resolution centre board. Then we're also hearing from someone like Ian Moss, who is saying that it was an allegation, not a fact.

I think when we're looking at all of these things, part of the problem is those ties and those connections that seem to be in every single place.

How are the athletes supposed to support something when they know that the person in charge of sports resolution sits on the same board as a person who will not hear their allegations?

Pascale, maybe you can share your thoughts on that with me. Then I'll let you go.

[Pascale St-Onge, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Trust in the system is paramount. This is the only way that this new mechanism will be efficient and will work. If you or the committee have any recommendations on how we can improve the governance or the nomination process or anything, please give them to me. I'm really open to everything that is going to be recommended by the committee.

One thing we've noticed is that there's a lot of conflict of interest in the sport system in general, whether it's on boards of federations, with the provincial federations or with other affiliates. We need to make sure that conflicts of interest are taken out of the system.

This is also why the governance review and what we change in the governance structure and models that we're going to impose on organizations are so important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excellent.

On behalf of the committee, thank you so much for coming here. I know that we will continue our next hour with officials from Canadian Heritage.

We will suspend for about a minute. I know there are people coming on.

Thank you so much, Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Welcome back, everybody.

We're going to continue with this meeting. I recognize that it's a busy time because we're doing a bit of a switchover and all of us are exiting and entering the room.

We're going to go back to the six-minute round. We will start off with Anna Roberts for the CPC, and then we will continue.

We have six minutes for you, Anna.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you, Isabelle, for that response on Gymnastics Canada. Just to put it on the record, Karen, December 18 was when they joined.

How many national sports organizations are currently under investigation?

[Isabelle Mondou]

Do you mean by OSIC?

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

Yes.

[Isabelle Mondou]

OSIC is an independent organization, so it doesn't necessarily tell us who it investigates, but we know it is investigating some. I think the minister mentioned one on Volleyball Ontario. There may be others in the pipeline that it is not quite ready to talk about that are being investigated. We won't know, necessarily, until it is ready to go public with those, because, as I said, it is an independent organization.

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

When they are under investigation, does that mean the funding stops?

[Isabelle Mondou]

No, not during the investigation. However, if it comes with recommendations, Sport Canada and the minister will consider it. In some cases, she can consider cutting the funding if they are not complying with the recommendations.

Let's take an example. If it says that the organization should take these 10 measures—it has 10 recommendations—and the organization doesn't follow them, we can include that in our contribution agreement. If the organization doesn't comply, we can cut the funding.

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

I want to go back to something the minister said earlier about the universal code of conduct.

As we know, coaches come from other countries. The rules and regulations there are different from what they are in Canada, so the education part is very important. If we can't control that, then we are allowing these individuals to come and coach our children while not knowing our rules. I don't care what they do in their country—I'm sorry; I'm not trying to be rude—but in this country, we have rules and regulations to protect our children, and those must be adhered to.

How does the government ensure adherence to a code of conduct if we can't hold them accountable? Are we inspecting these facilities? Are we sending people in to see and research what these young athletes are going through? I have not heard that from any of the witnesses we had. There is no accountability. If we have no accountability, then there's no point in having a code of conduct or a universal code of conduct because we're not doing anything about it.

How can we change that system and how can we change that mentality?

[Isabelle Mondou]

That's a very good question. The code of conduct didn't exist until a few years ago. I have to thank former minister Duncan, because she really is the one who worked with the community to have this code adopted.

Before, if an athlete wanted to say this was wrong, they had no place to point it out, because there was no written rule for the sport. Now the code of conduct exists.

Your question is about how we enforce it, right? That's why, as a condition to be a member of OSIC, you have to have the code as one of your policies. You have no choice. You have to have the code as your policy.

What will happen now is that OSIC will be able to hear a complaint about that but also do proactive environmental studies, so it doesn't have to wait for a complaint. It has another line of business. Now it can also say, “I think something is wrong there. We will do an environmental assessment of this particular sport.” It can then look and make recommendations as to how the code is enforced.

If it found, for example, that nobody knows about the code, that nobody's checking about the code, then it can make recommendations. Then they will have to comply with it—

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

I'm sorry to interrupt, Isabelle.

Here's my concern. My concern is that these witnesses we have heard from are afraid to come forward. They are afraid for their families. They are afraid that their families are being harassed. If we don't hold the people at the top accountable—the top brass, even the CEO that we questioned—then how can we expect the witnesses to feel that they are in a safe spot? Right now, from what we have heard from all the witnesses, they do not feel safe.

[Isabelle Mondou]

For sure. I think that's an excellent question. I think that's why OSIC doesn't have to wait for a complaint. They can act and lead an investigation on their own volition. If they hear a rumour, if they think there is something wrong, they don't have to wait for somebody come to them; they can initiate the investigation and do basically the same thing they were able to do.

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

What Ian Moss, the CEO, said earlier was that they were just allegations and there were no facts, but when you have 600—