Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Thank you, gentlemen.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  What we have as a policy in the national coaching certification program is what is called the maintenance of certification policy. It means that coaches who are certified in the NCCP must maintain their certification on a five-year cycle. Every five years they must renew it through professional development.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  If a coach does not maintain that certification, basically their status becomes certified not renewed. However, it's up to the sports to look at how they implement that not renewed status. Hockey is working on how this works with respect to being on the bench, and sports are working through what this certified status and certified not renewed status mean, which means that through their legislation concerning what the rules are from the code of safety perspective on the bench they make sure their coaches are maintaining their certification.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  I'm not aware of the data that really links those two. Again, as Paul said, we're struggling with just keeping data from sports on the actual incidence of concussion. As Paul said, we do need a database around who are suffering from that, because when we think about all these interventions, we need to see how concussions are impacting mental health.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Yes, we're partners with Rugby Canada. That's correct.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Thank you. I did read some of the evidence of the last hearings, around the athletes, and I think a couple of things. It goes back to one of my first points. With the coaches, it's through education. Coaches face ethical decisions all the time, which can impact these things. Through education on the prevention of concussions, it's important to outline that the right thing from an ethical perspective is that when you suspect a concussion, it's time for that athlete to be pulled from the field of play.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Would you like to start?

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  I would like to add, as Paul just said and as I mentioned in my opening statement, that our goal as a coaching association in Canada is alignment across the country. We work very closely with Parachute Canada. We serve on the FPT working group on concussions as well. There are many different representatives in the group.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Again, aside from the conference, I mentioned that many other doctors were involved in that. The other people who were involved in the creation of it were practitioners on the field of play, so sport technical experts and coaches at all levels of play. That's important to understand.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Absolutely. Again, it's part of the protocol. It's guiding coaches, the athletes and the parents of the participants to seek medical attention. Part of that is managing the concussion. When they suspect there's a concussion, the next step is to seek medical attention. We do guide them that way.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  We're providing education. We try to guide them. We keep a lot of statistics on what coaches report, after taking the education, to work with our sports to say that the content in the education shows that our coaches, from a self-efficacy point of view, feel more confident in managing concussions.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  I mentioned the number of coaches who have gone through it. We have a database of over a million coaches. Those numbers that I pulled—I have more data we can chat about—come from, basically, the contents of our national database. We have 66 sports, and all of the coaches linked to those sports are in the database along with a full record or transcript of everything they've taken.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  It's funny that you ask that. Right now we're in the midst of what I guess you could call a revamp. We're in the midst of approving our chartered professional coach profession. We are looking, from the chartered professional coach aspect, at certain different pathways to lead to it.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Thank you. I want to thank the Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada of the Standing Committee of Health for the invitation for us to be here to present. It's an honour to have the Coaching Association of Canada here. I also want to start by thanking the Public Health Agency of Canada for its initial support to help us develop our current national coaching certification program's concussion management e-learning module, Making Head Way in Sport, and Sport Canada for its continued support in making sure that we're able to keep our content in the Making Head Way module current.