More details in ongoing investigation of Hockey Canada come to light in parliamentary hearing in Ottawa
Trigger warning: this article discusses a sexual assault case.
More and more details of the sexual abuse allegations facing Hockey Canada and members of the 2018 Canadian World Junior team continue to surface, as Hockey Canada officials appeared before Members of Parliament on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in Ottawa on Tuesday for the first of two days of hearings.
MPs who are members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage have arrived over the past 30 minutes and have started an in camera session to discuss Hockey Canada's response to sexual abuse allegations.
The committee is scheduled to begin hearing testimony in public at 11.
Standing before the MPs to take questions were Danielle Robitaille of Henein Hutchinson LLP, which was the law firm that Hockey Canada hired to be the third-party investigator for the alleged incident; Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge; and other officials from Sport Canada.
The incident in question pertains to the alleged sexual assault of a woman by eight members of the 2018 Canadian World Junior team at a Hockey Canada event in London, Ontario. The eight players are accused of taking the woman to a hotel room while she was under the influence of alcohol and assaulting her.
One important thing confirmed today was that the complainant in the case has agreed to participate in the reopened investigation. Another major revelation: a ban from future Hockey Canada activities will be given to any players who do not participate in the investigation.
The most jarring piece of testimony revealed Tuesday is that Robitaille advised Glen McCurdie, Hockey Canada’s senior vice-president of risk management and insurance, in 2018 that the London Police needed to be contacted immediately. McCurdie responded that he needed to contact senior advisors before acting on that advice.
Michel Ruest, a senior director for Sport Canada, said that the organization was told of the allegations, but it didn’t follow up on it with Hockey Canada or the then-Sport Minister.
We also may have finally got an exact number of participants in the initial investigation. We’ve had different responses on this matter so far, with Hockey Canada’s former CEO Tom Renney saying on June 20 that four to six players participated, and current CEO Scott Smith saying that Renney was incorrect and that it was 12 to 13 players. Robitaille gave a different answer as well, saying that 10 players co-operated with the investigation. The other nine players deferred their interviews until the investigation eventually concluded. Seven members of Hockey Canada were also interviewed, including coaches and staff.
Renney and Smith are among the company officials who will face questions in Wednesday’s hearing.