Canada

LILLEY: Hockey Canada, federal bureaucracy looks like a cover-up

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Scott Smith, the president of Hockey Canada, discovered that he had no associates on Parliament Hill on Wednesday. Smith, summoned to look earlier than Commons Heritage committee for the second time on allegations of sexual assault by members of the 2018 junior nationwide hockey workforce, confronted powerful questions from all sides.

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To say he took a beating, a rightfully deserved one, can be an understatement.

One of many headline numbers that’s out there’s the $7.6 million paid out in 9 completely different settlements courting again to 1989. That settlement cash got here from one thing dubiously referred to as the Nationwide Fairness Fund bankrolled largely by a portion of the hockey registration price from youngsters in leagues throughout the nation.

Most of that $7.6 million was paid out to victims of the monster generally known as Graham James. It’s not what was paid out to the younger girl who alleged {that a} group of gamers assaulted her in June 2018 whereas she was intoxicated after attending a gala occasion in London, Ont.

That such a fund, paid for by minor hockey charges, exists and has been used for what quantities to hush cash for victims has revolted many Canadians.

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What’s bothering me extra proper now’s what seems to be the whole lack of grownup supervision on an extremely severe difficulty.

This alleged incident occurred, a confidential report is completed for Hockey Canada, the incident is reported by Hockey Canada to Sport Canada — the federal funding physique — however nothing occurs and nobody from the federal government follows up. Then in April of this 12 months a lawsuit is filed towards Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League and eight unnamed gamers.

Hockey Canada settled the lawsuit in a matter of weeks. They apparently didn’t attain out to the gamers mentioned to be concerned within the incident, they simply settled every thing. They paid the settlement out of that fairness fund as an alternative of utilizing the insurance coverage that they pay for to cowl sexual misconduct allegations.

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The entire thing smells of cover-up from Hockey Canada but additionally from the federal government division that funds and is accountable for nationwide sports activities teams. The place was the oversight from both facet?

On June 19, 2018, Kirsty Duncan, then the minster of sport, introduced new measures to fight harassment in federally funded sports activities our bodies.

“Harassment of any sort is totally unacceptable, and the protection and safety of athletes, coaches and officers is at all times our prime precedence,” Duncan said at the time.

One of many new measures acknowledged plainly that federally funded teams, “should instantly disclose any incident of harassment, abuse or discrimination that might compromise the mission or programming to the Minister of Sport,” one thing that apparently didn’t occur right here. Per week later, the London incident was reported to the federal authorities however not the minister.

  1. Lawyer Danielle Robitaille, partner to Henein Hutchison LLP, appears as a witness at the standing committee on Canadian Heritage in Ottawa on Tuesday, July 26, 2022., looking into Hockey Canada's involvement in addressing alleged sexual assaults committed in 2018.

    Sport Canada knew of Crew Canada sexual assault allegations in 2018

  2. Hockey Canada logo is seen at an event in Toronto on Wednesday Nov. 1, 2017.

    Hockey Canada has paid $7.6M in intercourse abuse settlements since 1989

  3. Hockey Canada jerseys. 

    SIMMONS: Time to break down Hockey Canada – and begin yet again

Michel Ruest, Senior Director of Packages at Sport Canada, mentioned he and others had been made conscious of the allegation on June 26, 2018 however that nobody instructed the minister who had simply made a significant new coverage announcement about reporting such incidents.

“The knowledge that goes up the ladder includes statistics about instances in order that we will have a common thought of what’s occurring,” Ruest instructed the committee on Tuesday.

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I can consider that Duncan wasn’t instructed however I discover it onerous to consider that this difficulty was not raised along with her chief of employees or somebody coping with points administration. In any case, this is able to have gone larger up the chain of command on the bureaucrat facet contained in the Heritage division which Sport Canada is only a small a part of.

It appears somebody larger up would have identified of this allegation and determined to not do something past cutting cheques worth millions to Hockey Canada.

The paperwork is complicit in what appears to be like like a canopy up as effectively, they and Hockey Canada nonetheless have lots of inquiries to reply.

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