CHL continues drive to discredit abuse report it commissioned By: Jeff Hamilton Posted: 7:00 PM CST Friday, Mar. 11, 2022

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This article was published 10/03/2022 (923 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Canadian Hockey League continues to push hard to discredit a report it commissioned to investigate allegations of bullying, discrimination and harassment within its three member leagues.

A decision was made to allow for the cross-examination of three panelists responsible for authoring a report entitled, The Impact is Real…Action is Needed, according to recent documents filed in an Ontario court last month.

Manitoban Sheldon Kennedy, a former NHLer, abuse survivor and advocate, Camille Thériault, former premier of New Brunswick, and Danièle Sauvageau, a former police officer of 33 years and Olympic gold medallist, comprised the panel.

“The Defendants do not oppose this court granting an interprovincial summons to examine the authors of the Independent Review Panel (IRP) Report,” Superior Court Justice Paul Perell wrote as part of his decision submitted on Feb. 17. “The Defendants have agreed to co-operate so that the cross-examination of affiants and the cross-examination of witnesses summonsed to give evidence on the certification motion can be completed on schedule.”

The IRP report proved damning, noting the CHL has a systemic culture resulting in maltreatment becoming an “embedded norm” and that incidents of off-ice misconduct are rarely reported, owing, in part, to a “code of silence.”

“Maltreatment that, outside of hockey, would not be acceptable, has become an embedded behaviour in this hierarchical organization and the level of acceptance is too high,” the report read.

As part of its co-operative effort, the CHL — which includes three junior organizations (Western Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League) — also agreed to waive the confidentiality or non-disclosure provisions in the panelists’ contract. Until this point, the panelists were legally forbidden to speak about any specifics of the report or their investigative processes.

The panel was commissioned in July 2020 as a response to a class-action lawsuit against its leagues brought forward just days before, led by former players Dan Carcillo and Garrett Taylor. The CHL, along with its three member organizations and the 60 junior teams that make up those leagues, were the original defendants.

The plaintiffs claim the CHL and its teams, as well as their respective executives, “have perpetuated a toxic environment which condones violent, discriminatory, racist, sexualized, and homophobic conduct, including physical and sexual assault, on the underage players that they are obliged to protect.”

The IRP report and ensuing cross-examination of the panelists, which is expected to occur in the coming months, will be used as evidence in the certification motion to be heard sometime in June. A certification motion is used to determine whether a case can move to trial as a class-action lawsuit, requiring official certification by a judge after hearing arguments and reviewing evidence provided from both sides.

“The independent panel report speaks for itself,” James Sayce, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an email to the Free Press. “The plaintiffs’ focus is advancing their case efficiently and fairly.”

The CHL, which has declined comment on its litigation strategy, has been critical of the IRP report since it was made public on Jan. 21, 2022 – more than a year after it was completed and presented to the CHL’s board of directors, which includes all three commissioners of its member leagues.

The CHL’s main argument is the IRP report “was not entirely responsive to the terms of reference” and “as such, a second, more detailed review of the league-level policies was required.”

At the same time it released the IRP report, the CHL also submitted a second, separate report that appeared aimed at contradicting the original. The CHL has argued the second report, which was completed by Turnpenney Milne LLP, a law firm out of Toronto that practises exclusively in the area of workplace law, was more aligned with the CHL’s objectives in regards to investigating its leagues.

The CHL’s main argument is the IRP report “was not entirely responsive to the terms of reference” and “as such, a second, more detailed review of the league-level policies was required.” What’s more, the Turnpenney report was commissioned days after a motion was filed in late November to have the IRP report released to the public.

In a Free Press story published a week after the CHL downplayed the IRP report, Kennedy defended the panel’s work and findings.

“I personally believe that we, as a committee, met all of the requirements requested by the CHL for our study,” Kennedy wrote in an email, “which includes: the process we followed, the interviews we conducted and the recommendations and outcomes we produced.”

On Mar. 4, the CHL took their criticism of the IRP report a step further, filing an official affidavit from CHL president Dan MacKenzie. Echoing much of what was said in the Turnpenney report, MacKenzie claimed the IRP report “has several limitations that made it difficult to determine the appropriate next steps for the Member Leagues.”

MacKenzie went as far as stating the IRP report had limited information about the operation of the league’s policies and procedures, as well as a lack of consideration for the decentralized nature of the CHL and its member leagues.

The panel’s methodology included reviewing the league’s existing policies; complaints filed from the member organizations from 2017 to 2019 regarding maltreatment; interviews with some of the country’s top experts in abuse in sport; confidential interviews with agents, current and former players, coaches, owners, among others; as well as a Leger survey that was completed by 31 league GMs, 59 coaches, 98 staff members, 259 players and 212 families.

What followed were 13 findings and the same number of recommendations. The panelists who are responsible for the report will now be asked to defend their findings in a court of law sometime in June.

Jeff.Hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jeffkhamilton

Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer

After a slew of injuries playing hockey that included breaks to the wrist, arm, and collar bone; a tear of the medial collateral ligament in both knees; as well as a collapsed lung, Jeff figured it was a good idea to take his interest in sports off the ice and in to the classroom.

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