The parliamentary committee probing Hockey Canada’s handling of an alleged sexual assault involving members of the 2018 national junior team must now decide whether to force the organization to hand over its internal report on the incident.
MPs issued an order to obtain the report in March, but later put that demand on hold after concerns were raised by Hockey Canada’s lawyers that turning it over could potentially harm a police investigation in London, Ont., if any details were made public.
But with criminal charges now filed against five players, some MPs want to examine the report as part of their own investigation into Hockey Canada.
“I would like to see it,” said Conservative MP Kevin Waugh, vice-chair of the committee. “We’ve got to have closure on this. There is still a cloud of mistrust around Hockey Canada. There’s a lot of unanswered questions.”
Even though the committee was unanimous in demanding the report in March, there are some reservations.
“I’m not sure,” Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner said about whether she would support the move. “I don’t want to interfere at all with the process that’s going on in London. So if that would in any way compromise the court proceedings, then I would be opposed. But if it could help our work, then absolutely.”
The Globe and Mail reported last week that five players from the 2018 national junior hockey team had been given until later this week to present themselves to police in London, Ont., to face charges in connection with an alleged sexual assault in June, 2018.
Five members of that year’s team have now been charged: Former Ottawa Senators player Alex Formenton, Michael McLeod and Cal Foote of the New Jersey Devils, Carter Hart of the Philadelphia Flyers and Dillon Dubé of the Calgary Flames. Lawyers for all five players have issued separate statements saying their clients will plead not guilty and will vigorously defend themselves against the charges. London police are planning a news conference on Monday.
Andrew Winton, a lawyer for Hockey Canada, said the charges do not change the organization’s position. In a letter to the committee last spring, Mr. Winton said Hockey Canada would turn over the report, which was completed by the law firm Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP, if ordered by the committee. But he said there were serious concerns about the information being intentionally or mistakenly made public through leaks.
“It could lead to a failure to hold any players who have committed criminal acts, or breached Hockey Canada’s code of conduct, accountable for their actions,” said the letter, which was obtained by The Globe.
In a statement to The Globe this week, Mr. Winton said those concerns still exist as far as Hockey Canada is concerned.
“The letter applies with equal force whether the report is produced to the committee before or after the police complete their investigation, as there will remain the risk that a leak of the report to the media or others may compromise the Crown’s ability to prosecute any charges resulting from the police investigation,” he said.
Parliamentary committees have procedures for handling confidential documents, such as matters of national security, to ensure sensitive records aren’t disclosed.
The internal Hockey Canada report was submitted in November to an independent adjudication panel, set up to determine if members of the 2018 team had breached the organization’s code of conduct, and if sanctions should be imposed. The report is not public, and Hockey Canada has said the document’s conclusions are under appeal. The organization said it wouldn’t comment further on the panel’s findings.
NDP MP Peter Julian said he is in favour of MPs seeing the report, but that he would like the committee first to complete its own report into safe sport in Canada. This includes its investigation into Hockey Canada’s handling of sexual-assault cases, which it began in 2022.
“Would we want to look into the Hockey Canada report? I would agree that that would be very relevant,” Mr. Julian said. “But the concern right now is that we have a report to issue.”
Mr. Julian said the committee owes it to athletes, who came forward to testify about problems of abuse in a number of different sports, to submit its recommendations to the government on both safe sport and on Hockey Canada.
“We started this well over a year and a half ago. It’s profoundly overdue now,” Mr. Julian said.
Anthony Housefather, a Liberal MP who previously served on the committee, said MPs consulted parliamentary lawyers and decided not to force Hockey Canada to turn over the report, wary of the risks of negatively affecting the police process or of compromising the privacy of the young woman who is the complainant in the case.
“I think everybody was, in theory, worried that there would be an allegation made against them if the London police came out and said, ‘Well, we could have charged but these people ruined it.’ Or, alternatively, that attorneys for the defendants, if they did charge, would say, well, there was political pressure,” Mr. Housefather said. “But my recollection was that once the police decided to charge people, then there would be no reason that that report didn’t come to the committee.”
MPs have said they want more clarity on what the organization has done to address the cultural and management problems the scandal has exposed. During testimony before the committee in 2022, MPs criticized Hockey Canada officials for allegedly giving misleading answers about how the allegations were handled. Among the topics at issue was the existence of multimillion-dollar funds built by registration fees that the organization could use to settle sexual-assault allegations, without parents and players knowing how their money had been spent. Hockey Canada’s chief executive officer and board of directors later departed.
“In terms of understanding what Hockey Canada needs to fix, one of the things that we would need to understand is what the report directed them to fix – and did they do it, or did they mislead the committee when they had said they had done so?” Mr. Housefather said.
The Hockey Canada report may not be the only one the committee wants to examine. Also on the table at forthcoming committee meetings will be whether MPs want to see the findings of a separate investigation by the NHL into the 2018 allegations.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has said for more than a year that the league is close to completing its investigation. With charges being filed, the league could be asked to turn over a report, should MPs want to see what evidence the NHL has pertaining to Hockey Canada.
Mr. Housefather said the NHL report could be useful, particularly if evidence gathered by the NHL differs from what Hockey Canada officials told parliamentarians during past testimony. Because the NHL has offices in Canada, the document would fall under the committee’s purview, he said.
“I could see grounds where you would say you want to see the NHL report,” Mr. Housefather said.
John Dellapina, a spokesperson for the NHL, said the league would not comment on the status of its investigation, nor on whether it would object to being ordered to turn over its report to the government.
A blanket decision by Hockey Canada last year to suspend all players from the 2018 national junior team from playing for Canada at international tournaments should also be amended now that charges are laid, Mr. Waugh said. The current suspension punishes those with no involvement in the incident, he said.
“Everybody had to wait for the London police,” Mr. Waugh said, adding that the committee will need to discuss next steps for itself.
“Now that there are charges,” he said, “does that mean Parliament’s hands are washed? I think there needs to be accountability here for Hockey Canada and Sport Canada.”