Hockey Canada, one of the country’s richest sporting organizations, received $14 million in federal government support in 2020 and 2021, including $3.4 million in emergency COVID-19 subsidies, according to financial statements obtained by CBC News.
The COVID-19 funds helped hockey’s not-for-profit national governing body book a $13.2-million budget surplus for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021 — further padding a collection of stocks, bonds, cash and other assets then worth in excess of $153 million. The organization reported a $3.2-million loss in 2020, due to declining market values for its investments, versus an $18.1-million surplus in 2019.
Hockey Canada’s finances will be front and centre on Monday, when three current and former executives — including Tom Renney, the organization’s outgoing chief operating officer, who is set to retire on July 1 — are scheduled to testify on Parliament Hill before the standing committee on Canadian heritage.
Politicians from all parties are seeking to establish whether public funds were used to settle a $3.55-million lawsuit brought by a woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by eight former Canadian Hockey League players following a Hockey Canada Foundation event in London, Ont., in June 2018.
Her statement of claim says some of the assailants — identified only as John Doe 1 through 8 — were members of Canada’s national junior team, which had captured IIHF World Championship gold six months before.
The woman has not been named, and her allegations have not been proven in court. But news of the lawsuit, first reported last month by TSN, has reverberated through the hockey world and beyond. Pascale St-Onge, the federal minister of sport, has ordered a forensic audit of Hockey Canada’s finances.
“What I want to know and what I think all Canadians want to know is, was there any public funds used to cover up that horrible story of collective rape?” St-Onge told reporters earlier this month after ordering the review. “The other thing that Canadians want to know is how could such an important organization make sure that their players are not accountable for these allegations.”
Federal Minister of Sport Pascale St-Onge, shown in the House of Commons in February, has ordered a forensic audit of Hockey Canada’s finances to examine whether public funds were used to settle a sexual assault lawsuit filed against eight former junior hockey players. (Blair Gable/Reuters)
The National Hockey League is conducting its own investigation to determine if any of its current players were among those who were accused. Twenty-two members of the 2017-18 junior squad were NHL draft picks.
Hockey Canada representatives did not respond to a CBC News interview request or to written questions about its finances. But a media statement about the committee appearance, released last week, said that “no government funds were used in the recent settlement of the lawsuit.”
Not-for-profit had $25M in cash last June
The organization is very public about some numbers — such as its 385,190 registered players — but is less forthcoming when it comes to attaching dollars figures to its business. Hockey Canada says that only a small portion of its funding — six per cent, according to its 2020-21 annual report — comes from “government assistance,” in contrast to 43 per cent from “business development and partnerships.”
However, financial statements filed with the Canada Revenue Agency’s Charities Directorate provide a more complete picture. (As a registered Canadian amateur athletic association, Hockey Canada is permitted to issue tax receipts for donations.)
Those filings show Hockey Canada received $5.65 million in Sports Canada operating grants in fiscal 2021, as well as $2.45 million under the Canada emergency wage subsidy (CEWS) and a further $197,000 in the Canada emergency rent subsidy, both pandemic relief programs. That total of $8.3 million represents 13.4 per cent of the organization’s $61.9 million in annual revenue.
Hockey Canada’s iconic logo has long been a feature of national team sweaters. The organization’s finances will be front and centre on Monday, when four current and former executives are scheduled to testify on Parliament Hill before the standing committee on Canadian heritage. (Albert Leung/CBC)
For the fiscal year ending June 2020, Hockey Canada received $4.95 million in federal operating grants and $760,000 in CEWS funding — 8.7 per cent of its $65 million in revenue.
As of the end of June 2021, Hockey Canada had almost $25 million in cash on hand, as well as $41.5 million in bonds and $77 million in equities, spread across three trust and endowment funds — with its total asset value growing $20 million from 2020 and $32 million more than in 2019.
The financial statements show that Hockey Canada paid no income tax in fiscal 2020 or 2021.
However, the organization did shell out $9.64 million in insurance premiums in fiscal 2021, for everything from accidental medical and dental coverage to third-party sexual misconduct liability — a potential source for the recent lawsuit settlement.
WATCH | Committee to look at Hockey Canada funding in wake of 2018 sexual assault allegation:
Hockey Canada faces questions about how it paid sexual assault allegations settlement
10 hours ago
Duration 2:20
Hockey Canada executives are set to answer questions at a committee hearing in Ottawa about how the organization used public funding in recent years, including millions in pandemic support. Critics also want to know if the funding was used for a settlement following allegations of sexual assault by players.
Calls for more accountability
Bruce Kidd, a professor emeritus of sport and public policy at the University of Toronto, said Canadians deserve more transparency from the people who run the country’s national sport.
“I think they owe a reporting of what happened … an account of how that settlement was paid out,” he said. “And I think more importantly for me, they need to provide a much better account of how they are trying to change the culture of their sport so that these assaults — which have a long history in hockey and some other sports — never happen again.”
Kidd said he believes that many sports in Canada are at a crisis point and that the appropriate government response might be to call a commission of inquiry, such as Charles Dubin’s probe of performance-enhancing drugs in the wake of the Ben Johnson doping scandal following the 1988 Summer Olympics.
“I think there are many more voices calling for change now than there were in the last moment when we had a national debate about sexual harassment, abuse and misconduct in sport in the early 1990s,” Kidd said. ” I mean, it’s wall to wall now. It’s not just a few sports, it’s almost every sport. And it’s going to be very hard for the decision-makers not to act.”
Jennifer Dunn, executive director of the London Abused Women’s Centre, says news of the alleged sexual assault in her city by hockey players has been difficult for her clients. She hopes there will be more focus on prevention. (Albert Leung/CBC)
Jennifer Dunn, executive director of the London Abused Women’s Centre, the city where the alleged gang sexual assault took place, said the controversy about Hockey Canada’s handling of the 2018 allegations has disturbed some of her clients.
“I say women who have experienced sexual assault, they’re basically serving a life sentence because, yes, they can get support from agencies like ours, but it doesn’t go away for a really long time,” she said.
However, she said that all of the attention on whether taxpayers’ money was used for the settlement seems misguided.
“It just keeps happening. There’s like a locker-room mentality where it’s almost as if these young guys are essentially brought up with no value for a woman’s life,” Dunn said. “The real focus should be on how to get this to stop.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
