The following statement is issued by Tom Renney, Chief Executive Officer of Hockey Canada:

Madam Chair, committee members, thank you for inviting Hockey Canada to testify today.

My name is Tom Renney and I am the CEO of Hockey Canada.

With me today are Scott Smith, President and Chief Operating Officer of Hockey Canada, and David Andrews, Executive Chairman of the Hockey Canada Foundation.

Glen McCurdie, our retired former colleague who stepped down as Senior Vice President of Insurance and Risk Management in December, is absent due to the recent death of his father. We thank the committee for not mandating their sympathy.

We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Committee’s questions regarding allegations affecting members of the 2017-18 junior national team and Hockey Canada’s recent settlement with the Claimant on the matter.

First I want to make one thing clear:

Hockey Canada works to transform hockey culture and make the sport safer and more inclusive.

We recognize that abuse issues such as bullying, harassment, racism, homophobia and sexual abuse exist in our sport, as in other sports and in our society.

Our work in this direction began long before the London incident, but we know that as leaders we need to do more and we have every intention of acting accordingly.

Before I answer your questions, I would like to provide a little background on our discussion. Given the speculative nature of some of the comments that have been made publicly on this extremely serious matter, I want to make sure we all have the same facts.

Hockey Canada is aware that there have been reports that the organization did not investigate this incident, attempted to cover it up, and generally attempted to cover it up. There is nothing wrong.

Hockey Canada became aware of the incident the day after the alleged incident.

We immediately initiated an investigation, the first step of which was to contact the police.

We have commissioned an independent investigation and established an independent arbitration panel to review the findings of that investigation.

In addition, we have notified Sport Canada in accordance with our commitment as a publicly funded national sports organization.

The organization, its management and employees fully cooperated with law enforcement and the investigator throughout the process and provided all requested information.

We cannot comment on the London Police Service’s investigation.

We were unable to complete the independent investigation we commissioned because the young woman in question chose not to contact the investigator. It was his right and we respected his will, just as we continue to respect it

Desire that she has clearly and repeatedly expressed not to identify herself and to do the same for the players concerned

. We understand the public’s frustration that the players involved have never been identified or sanctioned, but the young woman has a say in the matter and we invite all to take this seriously and her fundamental desire, most importantly his anonymity.

As for the lawsuit filed in April this year, due to our moral obligation to take actions that allegedly took place on the sidelines of one of our events, for example players we invited, we quickly settled.

We do not know the exact course of events that evening or the exact identities of those involved, but we recognize that people acted in ways that were unacceptable and contrary to Hockey Canada’s values ​​and expectations, and that those actions are clearly damaging have done.

In addition, we felt it appropriate to respond to the young woman’s legal request by sparing her from attending a lengthy court process. The settlement allows her to enlist any support she needs to put this incident behind her.

Although the investigation led to no conclusions as to the role either player may have played in this case, the investigator recommended improvements that we have since worked to implement, and our efforts in this direction continue as part of our culture change initiatives our sport for the better. This includes expanding our code of conduct and improving our educational programs. Today we are pleased to announce more details on this effort.

As I mentioned at the beginning, bringing about this culture change is a priority for the organization and our players, coaches and other stakeholders are being made more aware of the actions taken to that end.