Former Hockey Canada CEO Bob Nicholson and Pat McLaughlin, current Hockey Canada senior vice president of strategy, operations and brand, appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage Tuesday. They provided testimony related to Hockey Canada’s handling of alleged sexual assaults over the last two decades.
“We have heard you,” McLaughlin said in his opening statement. “Hockey Canada must change and it must do so urgently. Canadians expect and deserve meaningful action, and our organization quite honestly has been too slow to act.”
Nicholson was the president and CEO of Hockey Canada from 1998 until 2014. Before that position, Nicholson was a vice president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association beginning in 1989. He held that role until the organization merged with Hockey Canada in 1994 and he became a senior vice president.
When asked about alleged sexual assaults, including alleged gang sexual violence perpetrated during his tenure and in the years that followed, Nicholson said, “That kind of conduct has no place in our game or our society. I hope both cases are investigated fully and justice is done.”
Nicholson, who is currently the CEO of the Oilers Entertainment Group, was questioned by members of parliament as a potential figure in the development and implementation of Hockey Canada’s policy, or lack thereof, as it relates to reporting and investigating sexual violence, as well as in educating players on consent.
As Bloc Quebecois MP Sebastien Lemire said to Nicholson in French, “You contributed to creating the toxic culture in my view for different reasons and perhaps for some bad reasons. What we are noticing in hindsight is that you were in a sense the architect of this culture…the culture of silence and the cover-up culture.”
Financially, two pieces of new information were disclosed in Tuesday’s hearing. First, it was the cost of contracting crisis management firm Navigator in the wake of allegations facing Hockey Canada. McLaughlin said this year, Hockey Canada paid Navigator roughly $1.6 million for their services. It was a figure NDP MP Peter Julian found shocking.
“I find it outrageous that $1.6 million was spent for Navigator with such a disastrous public relations strategy,” he said.
In McLaughlin’s words, Navigator was hired to serve many purposes and roles for Hockey Canada.
“It’s not a communications exercise that they’ve been involved with,” McLaughlin said. “This has been about…transparency. They’ve given the board significant advice in terms of governance. They’ve helped us in terms of trying to find prominent Canadians to be part of our action plan and the oversight committee. They’ve also helped us on a day-to-day basis to work with the media.”
Conservative MP Rachel Thomas said she did not see Hockey Canada working to make a change.
“What I don’t see however is any desire to actually rebuild the culture…which makes it look like then simply a PR stunt, a finessing of language, a desire to regain the trust of the public without actually making meaningful change within the inner culture of Hockey Canada,” Thomas said.
Aside from the communications and crisis management services of Navigator, and the associated costs, it was also said that Hockey Canada predicts the financial impact of sponsorship losses to amount to nearly $24 million.
While many sponsors stated they will be reallocating funds to grassroots, women’s, and para ice hockey programming, McLaughlin said only a portion of the funds originally promised will remain.
“Well that’s great, and we’re very appreciative of the repositioning of the dollars,” McLaughlin said. “The reality is, that’s not a dollar for dollar. It’s cents on the dollar, so it comes at a significant cost to us, without question.”
Concerning the National Equity Fund, which was used to pay settlements related to sexual assault claims, Liberal MP Anthony Housefather pointed at inconsistencies between the communications from Hockey Canada to the public and members, to what was reported by Justice Thomas Cromwell in his governance review of the organization.
Housefather said Hockey Canada sent a memo to members stating the National Equity Fund was used not only for paying out sexual assault settlements but also used for safety, well-being and wellness initiatives, including counselling and treatment for players.
“My understanding is that it is true,” said Pat McLaughlin of those purposes. “I know that a number of our members shared that on their website and with their members.”
MP Housefather said these statements are false based on what he read from the Cromwell report.
In Cromwell’s governance review of Hockey Canada, he said the review of the National Equity Fund’s general ledger from 2014 to the present “does not clearly indicate that the NEF funded counselling services or treatments for participants.
“So basically, you advised your members that the fund had all kinds of altruistic components in addition to paying out these claims, but it turns out that it wasn’t true at all,” Housefather said.
Cromwell’s report also said that if the National Equity Fund was used for counselling services or treatments, “it is concerning that they were not recorded in a consistent manner.”
Housefather also criticized the use of the National Equity Fund, which was designed originally to pay for non-insurable accidents and injuries during sanctioned hockey activities, to pay for sexual assaults allegedly committed by members of Canadian national teams.
“Would you agree with me that whatever happened in that hotel room in London in 2018 was not a sanctioned hockey activity?” Housefather asked.
McLaughlin replied in agreement that these were not sanctioned hockey activities.
“It was an activity that was not part of our hockey teams,” he said. “It was a celebration for a number of teams that achieved great accomplishments and other individuals.”
Finally, the issue of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) continued to be a talking point for members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.
As NDP MP Peter Julian stated, no individuals bound to NDAs with Hockey Canada have been released from said agreements, despite Hockey Canada’s promise in early hearings months ago that this would happen.
Julian called it “profoundly disappointing” that “nearly four months after Hockey Canada pledged to release people if they chose to be released from their NDA, that not a single person bound by nondisclosure agreements has been released.”
Investigations are still ongoing related to alleged sexual assaults committed by members of Canada’s national men’s junior hockey teams in 2003 and 2018, so none of these allegations have been proven in court. Hockey Canada will be releasing more information soon regarding its next steps to address governance and policy issues within the organization.
