Canadian Heritage committee  I'll start by saying that Ellen is not a researcher with me, and that Gymnastics Canada has a wonderful, new safe sport officer, who comes with a broad research base of knowledge. It's really important that we have researchers in these roles so that they are making evidence-based decisions.

Canadian Heritage committee  —is that it's like putting your thumb in the dike. It's such a small step forward, and they still have to work in a culture with all of these other tensions and barriers that they're not in a position to solve. We're putting them in a position where it's very difficult to succeed.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's not unlike researchers to disagree. That's how we get to the bottom of issues. Many athletes have already told us what they need to move forward. We don't need another inquiry for that. They need independent mechanisms. They need sport leaders who are trained. They need the values embedded in high performance sport.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you for the question. There are differing points of view on how to best move safe sport forward. As you may know, I'm not a supporter of a public inquiry. I think it will slow down the progress being made. It will be extremely costly. Those funds could be devoted to putting in proactive solutions, like those we heard on the panel today.

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. We will lose time and money and progress. We have the information we need to move forward. If you're asking why more progress has not been made, it is a cultural challenge. A multi-faceted and multipronged solution is needed. It's everything from governance to funding to training and education; getting the NSOs and PSOs to sign onto OSIC, or to an equivalent complaint mechanism; getting the UCCMS filtered throughout the sport system; and, very importantly, dealing with system alignment.

Canadian Heritage committee  One of the challenges around your question of charges being laid is that so many of the harmful behaviours fall below the criminal threshold. Yet, that's what's causing athletes so much harm. Sexual abuse, as part of the criminal system, can be dealt with there, but the other forms that are so harmful and prevalent fall below that threshold.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. We know the values that we see playing out in professional sport or at the Olympic level filter down to children's sport. One of the areas we need to tackle is how sport in this country is funded. When we have programs like Own the Podium funding athletes and teams based primarily on their medal performances or potential for medal finishes, without consideration for the process by which those medals are achieved, it risks the focus on athlete health and well-being becoming very marginal or non-existent.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, I've heard those concerns as well. As was mentioned by other panellists, OSIC needs time to establish itself and gain trust amongst the athletes. On the independence question, to me it's a little bit like saying that Supreme Court justices are not independent because they are funded by the government.

Canadian Heritage committee  On the issue of governance, first, there is the matter of athlete representation in governance and, secondly, there is the notion of accountability. To highlight this, Sport Canada previously mandated NSOs to have independent harassment officers to deal with cases concerning safe sport.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the wonderful progress that has been made to address that is the establishment of OSIC. As everyone has said, it's new; it's still in progress. Once it's up and running, we either need its extension or an equivalent model that will filter from the national level down to the provincial and community levels so that any sport participant across the country has access to an independent complaint mechanism, an independent person to whom they report their concerns.

Canadian Heritage committee  It was actually over 20 years that complaints were addressed by employees of the organization itself. It was most often the CEO of the sport organization, which, of course, presents all kinds of conflicts of interest. It's an explanation for why there's this culture of silence, as Professor Fowler mentioned, and why so few athletes ever bring their complaints forward.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much. I'm grateful for the opportunity to appear before you today. It's wonderful that the Canadian heritage parliamentary committee has taken such interest in the state of Canadian sport. Sport is clearly in the public interest, but only rarely do Parliament and its committees take such an active interest.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  The contract for the national research hub on gender equity has ended.