Hockey Canada resolves incidents reported to Sport Canada after committee disagreements | CBC News

Hockey Canada has clarified the number of incidents of alleged abuse, harassment or discrimination it has reported to Sport Canada since 2018 after testimony from the President of Hockey Canada to the Commons Heritage Committee in late July mentioned fewer reported incidents than the number given by officials from Sport Canada MPs the previous day.

Sport Canada has since told CBC News that Hockey Canada reported another incident the day after its officers appeared as witnesses, bringing the total number of incidents reported over the past four years to nine.

As a condition of their funding agreements with the federal government, since 2018 national sports organizations such as Hockey Canada have been required to promptly disclose any incident of harassment, abuse or discrimination “that could jeopardize the program’s project.”

Incidents must also be reported to the appropriate authorities, which may include the police where a criminal investigation is warranted. Sports organizations must have formal policies in place to prevent harassment and abuse and to address any cases that arise, including granting access to an independent third party to investigate and make recommendations.

Sport Canada cannot investigate cases

During testimony before the committee on July 26, Michel Ruest, a senior director in charge of programs at Sport Canada, was asked by Bloc MP Andréanne Larouche about the exact number of incidents recorded by Hockey Canada in each of the years since the required funding agreement this information was reported (2018-2022).

Ruest said eight cases were reported in its confidential database.

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Ruest said the confidential details of the allegations contained in those reports had been communicated internally on specific occasions, but only overall statistics had been shared with the minister’s office, not specific details. Sport Canada does not have the power to conduct investigations into these cases, he told MPs, and the disclosures to the government include “minimal information” – under data protection law, Ruest said, names will not be released unless they are already on file public domain.

In response to a follow-up email question from CBC News, Sport Canada broke down the reports in its database by year:

• Two reports in 2018.
• One in 2019.
• Three in 2020.
• One in 2021.
• Two in 2022.

The year of a report to Sport Canada does not necessarily correspond to the year in which a suspected incident occurred.

Based on testimonies from the Hockey Canada Committee, the first incident to be reported in 2022 was the alleged group sexual assault by members of the Canada junior ice hockey team in 2003, which occurred in Halifax, NS and is now the subject of a police investigation is. It was only becoming known to the public — and Hockey Canada itself, hockey officials said in their testimony, in a TSN report earlier this summer.

Officials said they only heard “rumours” about it a few weeks before TSN released the probe results, but told Sport Canada immediately after the media report was released.

Discrepancy in the number of cases

When he first appeared before the committee on June 20, Hockey Canada President Scott Smith told the committee he was unwilling to speak about specific incidents. During his July 27 testimony before the committee, Smith was asked by New Democrat MP Peter Julian if he was willing to discuss the details of the ongoing investigation.

This time, Smith was willing to confirm that one of the incidents reported to Hockey Canada in 2018 was the alleged sexual assault of a young woman in London, Ontario by members of the 2018 junior national team. This incident also only became public because TSN reported last spring about a cash settlement that Hockey Canada had paid to the young woman.

Smith told the committee that in addition to the two investigations into junior national team members from 2003 and 2018, there were two other reports unrelated to sexual misconduct, bringing the total number of reports from Hockey Canada to Sport Canada increased four, he told MPs.

The other two reports, Smith said, date from 2018 and 2021 and relate to a family alleging abusive behavior because their son and daughter were prevented from registering for youth hockey because of the father’s behavior in arenas.

CBC News asked Hockey Canada why Sport Canada’s statement mentioned that eight incident reports had been received from his organization, and yet the next day Smith told deputies that Sport Canada had received four reports.

Hockey Canada spokesman Jeremy Knight responded that Smith believed Julian’s question was about open investigations only, not the total number of reports.

“Mr Smith’s response relates to four open investigations that have been reported to Sport Canada as required. Not all reports to Sport Canada since 2018 have open investigations,” Knight said.

Knight’s response indicates that investigations into the four incidents reported in 2019 and 2020 are now closed or complete.

Neither Hockey Canada nor Sport Canada have released details of the findings of these investigations or even the nature of these incidents – including whether they involved alleged assault or abuse, harassment or discrimination.

New incident reported day after testimony

The incident, reported by Hockey Canada on July 28, the day after he testified before the committee, was “not a formal case,” a spokesman for the sports minister’s office told CBC News.

Ariane Joazard-Bélizaire said an individual contacted Hockey Canada “to request information on the process for reporting possible abuse of an athlete from the Northwest Territories.”

Hockey Canada advised that individual to contact the police and provided the individual with information about the independent third-party mechanism in place to handle such cases, the minister’s spokesman said.

The number of incidents reported to Sport Canada by hockey officials wasn’t the only confounding aspect of their July 27 testimony.

Deputies also asked Hockey Canada officials exactly how much money had been paid to sex abuse complainants. The figure provided during the committee meeting — a total of $8.9 million from the organization’s national equity fund plus insurance payments — actually did not include the cash compensation paid to the complainant in the 2018 group attack involving junior team members.

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Woman says she cooperated with World Junior hockey players in investigation into alleged sexual assault

The complainant, who was allegedly sexually assaulted by Canadian ice hockey players on the 2018 World Junior Team, said she fully cooperated with a police investigation into her case at all times – although Hockey Canada originally said she did not.

This omission was only revealed after the committee, when journalists questioned Smith about his testimony in the hallway. The President said an audited financial statement, which includes the settlement with the young woman in the London, Ontario incident, would not be finalized until Hockey Canada’s annual meeting, so the total given to lawmakers was this most recent Organization payout not included.

The exact amount paid to this young woman has not been confirmed, but her lawsuit sought $3.55 million, and Smith told the committee that Hockey Canada’s board of directors approved “up to the maximum settlement figure.”

“We didn’t know all the details of the night [in question]but we believed damage was being done,” Hockey Canada’s chief financial officer Brian Cairo told MPs.