Hockey Canada’s interim board chair said Tuesday during a parliamentary committee appearance that it’s “in the best interest” of the federation and the players that “the direction of the organization remains stable.” .
“Our Board of Directors does not share the view that Hockey Canada should make more leadership changes at this time. As a board of directors, we support the CEO and the leaders,” said Andrea Skinner to the elected officials who are unanimously calling for resignations.
Ms. Skinner, who testified by videoconference, explained that the nine positions on the board of directors will all be up for election by the end of the year and that there is, according to her, a “significant risk” if the organization wipes the slate clean of its board of directors and senior management.
But does Hockey Canada, asked Conservative MP Rachel Thomas, want “stability or change”? It is possible to “do both”, replied the President of the Board, during a particularly tense exchange.
“An A” for the work of the CEO
To MP Thomas, who then accused her of “protecting” rather than “holding accountable” the CEO, Scott Smith, who refuses to resign, she replied that “the big boss is not protected; the management is independent of the board of directors”. She later acknowledged that the Board may decide to show her the door.
Either way, according to Ms. Skinner, Mr. Smith deserves an “A” for his current job at Hockey Canada given “the circumstances […] extraordinary and difficult”.
The rating demonstrates “a clear gap” between how Hockey Canada’s leadership is perceived by its leaders and by Canadians, summed up Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, to whom the witness replied that she doesn’t know if it’s a point of view shared by the population.
The Canadian Heritage Committee simultaneously received Michael Brind’Amour, who was Chairman of the Board until the beginning of August, and who resigned, explaining that it is “no need to wait before starting a new era”.
Mr. Brind’Amour has repeatedly avoided answering very simple questions, in particular whether he was dissenting during a conversation on the future of the CEO, declaring for example that “it will be up to the board of directors to determine its fate”.
His attitude made Liberal Chris Bittle jump, who said he was “shocked” to find that “a lawyer, as a witness who received a subpoena, does not believe that he should answer a question directly from an elected member of Parliament when that he took the oath”.
Mr. Brind’Amour replied that he “answered the question” and that “this forum does not at all resemble a court of law”, which made Mr. Bittle say that it “says a lot about how Hockey Canada and its leaders see this procedure” and indicating that the committee has “the same powers as a court”.
After Mr. Brind’Amour avoided a second time saying whether he has confidence in Scott Smith to lead the organization, the committee’s Conservative vice-chairman, John Nater, demanded and obtained that the president force him to answer directly. “Yes”, he trusts.
Blame the media
Hockey Canada once again found itself in hot water Monday after The Globe and Mail revealed that the organization held a second fund to deal with sexual abuse issues.
When Ms. Skinner was asked why Hockey Canada did not raise this fund during her two previous parliamentary committee appearances in June and July, she argued that it is not “an asset” of Hockey Canada. and that he was “fundamentally mischaracterized by the media”.
This type of assertion caused a strong reaction from the Minister of Sports, Pascale St-Onge, who, at the start of the afternoon, appeared before the press to tell Hockey Canada that what is happening to them at the moment “this It’s not a political game and it’s not the media’s fault. She added that the main parties in the House of Commons all believe that the handling of repeated gang rapes has been “totally inadequate”.
“At this point, I think it’s time to turn to the 13 members of Hockey Canada, that is to say the hockey associations of the provinces and territories, to do the cleaning up that Canadians have been waiting for. of Hockey Canada,” she also said.
“Completely disconnected”
During question period, the Bloc’s sports critic, Sébastien Lemire, returned to the charge to demand, in vain, an independent investigation into the way Hockey Canada handles complaints of sexual assault, which also demanded the House of Commons unanimously more than three months ago.
“That Hockey Canada has a dedicated fund to cover the sexual assault cases of its players is unacceptable, but that it needs a second fund, as we learned yesterday, it’s disgusting, he said. Since the beginning of the summer, it’s been scandal after scandal. There’s one every week. There, enough is enough. We must shed light once and for all. »
NDP MP Peter Julian for his part apologized for the “lack of transparency” on the part of Hockey Canada. In the foyer of the House of Commons, he indicated that Ms. Skinner’s attitude in the parliamentary committee shows that she is “completely disconnected” from what parents and the public think.
The Hockey Canada saga began in June when TSN revealed that a woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by eight Canadian Hockey League players after a Hockey Canada gala in June 2018 dropped a lawsuit after settling a amicable agreement.
The leaders of the organization paraded in parliamentary committee at the end of June and the elected officials discovered that no player involved had been identified. Minister St-Onge then announced that the organization’s funding would be frozen and ordered an audit.
A few weeks later, The Canadian Press revealed that Hockey Canada held a fund to pay sexual abuse claims, which earned its leaders another stint in parliamentary committee, where they said they had concluded nine other settlements since 1989 in sexual misconduct cases.
With information from Émilie Bergeron