SINS Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE STUDY OF SPORT IN CANADA OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON CANADIAN HERITAGE

SOUS-COMITÉ SUR L'ÉTUDE DU SPORT AU CANADA DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DU PATRIMOINE CANADIEN

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, May 7, 1998

• 0915

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Dennis J. Mills (Broadview—Greenwood, Lib.)): I think we can begin. Please proceed.

Mr. Kerry Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

I'm the chief executive officer of the CIAU, located at our corporate office in Toronto. With me today is Jennifer Brenning. Jennifer is the director of operations and development with our office here in Ottawa, and she's the staff person who's worked a lot on this awards issue.

Our primary focus this morning will be on the awards issue. At the end of our presentation we'll also update you on our economic impact study. I know that's one of the areas you're interested in, and we can give you a brief overview on it.

I thought I'd start by talking a little about our role in sport in Canada, just so you can frame it in terms of the overall context of sport.

Our mandate is that we are the national sport organization responsible for governing interuniversity sport in and for Canada. Our mission is to enrich the educational experience of student athletes—and “student athletes” is an important term—through sports programs that foster excellence.

We're made up of 47 member universities, set up in five conferences. We have the Canada West Universities Athletic Association, the Great Plains Athletic Conference, Ontario University Athletics, Quebec Student Sports Federation, and the Atlantic Universities Athletic Association.

There are some interesting statistics for you. There are about 10,000 student athletes across Canada, and we provide over 3,000 competitive opportunities in sporting events over a five-month period.

I mentioned we have two offices. We have a corporate office in Toronto, and that's a new initiative. We've done it that way to position ourselves to be close to corporate Canada. We also did it from a media perspective. We also have our office here in Ottawa, because we have a significant partner here: Sport Canada. We like to have our operations here as well. We're one of the few sport governing bodies that have offices in both Toronto and Ottawa.

Our programs and services are numerous.

Our main focus is national championships. We offer about 15 national championships. I think that's important from the standpoint of unity through sport. We do a lot of work at our national championships. We have championships for men and women in basketball, cross-country running, football—the Vanier Cup—field hockey for women, ice hockey for both men and women—and this is the first year we've added women's ice hockey—soccer for both men and women, swimming for both men and women, track and field for both men and women, volleyball for both men and women, and wrestling. In 1999 we'll add women's wrestling, and in 1998 we're going to add women's rugby. We've made a conscious effort to address the equity issue and increase the number of participation opportunities for women. That's being done in women's ice hockey, rugby, and wrestling.

We're also significantly involved in doping control and education. We are one of the main partners with CCES, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. We've done almost 2,250 tests since 1990. I should mention that less than 1% were positive tests. We've had 20 positive tests in eight years. It's still 1% too many.

We're one of the few sport governing bodies that have a mandatory drug education program, and we pride ourselves on that. All student athletes, all 10,000 of them, will get a booklet like this one that talks about the dangers of drugs. It gives them all the banned substances. They go through a video program at their schools. We hope it sends a strong message that we won't tolerate drugs in sports and that if they take drugs, they're going to get caught.

We had three positive tests earlier this year in football, so we still have a long way to go. I think, though, we're doing a good job and continue to do it.

The Chairman: Excellent.

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: I just wanted to mention a little about that.

• 0920

Awards: In recognition of our student athletes, each year we have two major functions. We just finished the Howard Mackie Awards, which were held in Calgary this week, at which we honoured our top male and female athletes. That's an interesting concept, because law firms have put it on in Calgary in partnership with us. It's a huge gala. It'll be on TSN, I think, on May 9. In October we also have the Royal Bank gala, at which we recognize the top five female and top five male student athletes who maintain an 80% average or better. I should mention almost 1,000 of the 10,000 athletes do maintain that grade average, so it just shows you how many great student athletes we have in our system.

Marketing: As I mentioned, we have a fairly good marketing program. TSN is our host broadcaster. We are one of the few sportgoverning bodies that have 10 to 14 live events in the nationals each year. We're very pleased with our partnership with TSN. We raise each year about $1 million in sponsorship, and we have significant gold plan partners, those who contribute $300,000 or more in cash or contributions. They are General Motors of Canada, the Royal Bank, and TSN.

We have a number of rules, as does any national sport governing body. We have to enforce the rules on eligibility and awards. Jennifer does a lot of work in that area. We're constantly doing investigations, and we've had three cases this year.

We're also involved at the international level with the FISU Games, which are held every two years. Five thousand athletes and 160 countries take part in them. There are about 2,000 officials. It was held in Edmonton, if you remember, in 1983. We recently got into a partnership with the University of Alberta, which is now managing that program for us as opposed to our doing it here in Ottawa. The next games will be in Palma de Mallora, Spain, in July 1999.

We also are getting involved with various groups in other special events. For example, there were the North American university hockey championships, which we just held in Detroit. We are involved in a number of these one-off games and events.

As for our role in sport in Canada, certainly we provide significant access for health and fitness activities through the provision of active living or intramural competition at our member universities.

An interesting part about coaching is that we provide more professional coaching opportunities than any other national sport organization, and a high percentage of these are certified at level four. There are about 1,500 coaches in 33 sports.

In some sports, such as basketball, football, field hockey, and wrestling, our championships and programs are considered the primary participation opportunity for Canadians competing at the high performance level. Many of our athletic personnel are in a leadership capacity in national sport organizations. We have many applied sport scientists employed by Canadian universities.

Again, we're a leader in anti-doping seminars. Many of our universities are sites for high-performance centres, such as volleyball in Winnipeg and speed skating in Calgary.

Interestingly enough, 380 of the 900 federally carded athletes attend Canadian universities in an Olympic year. This number would be 50% in a non-Olympic year. A lot of carded athletes are going to school in Canadian universities.

Financially, our total operating budget is close to $2.27 million. Of that, $455,000, or 20% of our operations, comes from Sport Canada. That's down from about $1 million four or five years ago, so we've seen a considerable drop. We've been able to hold our own. We've had significant cutbacks in our operations in terms of the things we can deliver. One of the reasons we've located one of our offices in Toronto is to try to make up some of the shortfall. We generate the balance from fees, guarantees, and corporate sponsorships.

That's a little background on our operation.

I'd like to talk a little about the position paper dated May 1997, which I think is in your handout. It basically talks a little about the issue on awards and gives you a lot of good information. I'll spend a little bit of time on it.

The paper was written a year ago in preparation for our AGM last year. The last revisions for awards were done in 1985-86. At this point we do not allow athletic awards for students entering university from high school. The only exception is for an entering athlete who has an average of 80% or greater and may receive an academic scholarship with an athletic component. So it's heavy on the academic side and not so much on the sport side. This new policy begins to address that issue on the athletic side.

• 0925

There are about 10 reasons listed for not supporting athletic awards for entering students, and I'll talk to you about those. I'm not taking one side or the other, but this is from our members. These are the reasons we would not get into awards for entrance-level students.

We find today, all across our great nation, that universities are having financial problems in funding sports. They are saying it's not a priority for them, that it's more important to build programs, to do research, and to hire professors than to raise money for athletes. This is what we're hearing from universities.

Even if we were to offer awards for entrance-level students at the level we're talking about, $3,000, it still would not deter those who want to go to the United States to the NCAA for the big television, for the big wow in terms of the marketing programs and the fact they are on national television every week. Even by offering $3,000, we're not going to totally deter it.

Third, if we get into this awards issue, we're going to have to wrap up our operations by having more regulations and we'll be constantly involved in investigations and complaints. There's a concern that way as well.

Fourth, universities with the most money could get the majority of the best athletes, so you would have a tiering system at the universities. We could have some very active recruiting, and there could also be another tiering in terms of the over-concentration in high-profile sports to the detriment of other activities or the principles of equity. There could be an imbalance of competition within associations or regions, so you could have tiering between universities and you could have tiering between sports because of awards for entrance-level students.

Those are just some of the arguments why we should not get involved.

Arguments in support of first party scholarships include our stopping the stem of athletes from Canada to the United States, and we'll talk about that. Over 1,700, according to our recent stats, have taken scholarships in the United States, so by offering awards for entrance-level students to a certain degree would stop that and give them an opportunity to attend Canadian universities and take part in any university sport.

Some of the top athletes are going to the United States, and from a marketing perspective, in terms of showcasing our great sports, it reduces our being able to attach to some of our student athletes and being able to market them, promote them, attract people to our games. And there's also the television perspective. If we were to do it, it would help that.

Offering athletic awards would allow university systems to become a development base for international athlete identification, preparation, and training. Certainly the national sport governing bodies are one of our partners. For example, the Canadian Hockey Association has written to us saying they want us to seriously address this issue of athletic awards, because we have 500 hockey players going down to the NCAA. They find that a concern and would rather have those players in Canada.

From a student athlete perspective, tuition costs are going up. We call ourselves student athlete centred. By not providing awards for entrance-level students, it's certainly a financial hardship for students. Tuition is anywhere from $3,000 and up, and going up. You can see in this morning's Globe and Mail that tuition for certain graduate programs is going up. That's one of our concerns in the sense of being able to do what we can to at least provide some assistance to them to ensure they get a good education and can participate in sport.

I mentioned the number of Canadians on U.S. scholarships. It's a total of 1,787. I won't go through all the figures. I can leave them with you at the end of our presentation.

In men's ice hockey alone there are 535; men's football, 119; men's track, 97; men's soccer, 95; men's tennis, 86; women's track, 82; men's golf, 81; women's volleyball, 79; men's baseball, 65; and it goes down, down, down.

• 0930

Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough, Lib.): Did you say 81 in golf?

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: Yes, 81 in golf; women's volleyball, 79; men's baseball, 65; women's soccer, 56, women's basketball, 49; men's swimming, 47; women's tennis, 46; men's basketball, 44; and it goes all the way down to women's squash, 1; men's gymnastics, 1; synchronized swimming, 2. So it crosses all the sports, but certainly the major sports—the top ones—are men's ice hockey, men's football, men's track, men's soccer, men's tennis, women's track, women's golf, volleyball, basketball, and swimming.

So a significant number of top student athletes are now going to the United States, and there's every indication that this trend will continue.

The Chairman: That's almost 20%, correct?

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: It's a high number, yes.

The Chairman: Okay. Carry on.

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: I'd now like to talk a little bit about the CIAU in terms of how we've structured ourselves to address this issue of entry awards for student athletes. Last year at our AGM a policy was adopted and approved by the membership that we form an awards review committee with a mandate to develop recommendations on awards for entering and continuing student athletes. That was done in December.

First of all, we called for position papers from each of the universities. By December 31 we received approximately 35 papers on awards, and essentially the key issue in these papers revolved around entry awards. The Canada West conference are strongly in favour of introducing athletic awards, and there are about 10 or 11 schools there. Ontario is strongly against athletic awards for entry-level students, and there are 18 schools there. At the AUAA, in terms of the Atlantic provinces, there are 11 schools there and they're split. In our Quebec conference, there are eight schools and they're split.

So you see we have a classic Canada West-Ontario scenario: one strongly in favour, one strongly against.

Mr. George Proud: Nothing new.

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: In February this year, we formulated an awards committee with presidents of each of the conferences. They got together in two or three days. We had a facilitator work with us and we took the position papers, extracted all the points, and came up with a draft policy that would address awards for entry-level students. Jennifer's going to take you through that in a second. That's what we were asked to do by membership and that's what we've done. On March 24 that was released publicly, and now it's in our conferences being discussed.

The next key decision point will be at our annual general meeting in June, where we will require a two-thirds majority of the members to approve the policy. You can see we're headed to that June window, when the policy will be debated, so we're in for an interesting few weeks in the month ahead here.

I'd now like to turn it over to Jennifer. She's done a wonderful job in working with our committees and has a lot of experience in this awards issue, so I'll ask her to take you through the policy so you'll understand where we're going.

Jennifer.

Ms. Jennifer Brenning (Director of Operations, Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union): I just want to clarify one point. In the NCAA, the terminology that's used is “scholarships”; in Canada we use the terminology “awards”. The reason is that scholarships in Canada are deemed academic, so there are academic scholarships. Athletic awards are for the merit, for the performance, or what that student will bring to the campus. So that's why the terminology we use is “athletic awards”.

The draft policy has been provided to you, and as Kerry has indicated, this policy has been distributed to our membership, the AUCC, the OCIA, and the COU, and those are presidential associations, university presidents' associations. This initial draft was an attempt to address all of the issues outlined by our membership in their position papers.

Specifically the policy addresses residency and recruiting, gender and sport equity, a balance between academic and athletic excellence, and the reality of student athletes' financial needs. The policy doesn't directly address, however, the issues of out-of-country recruiting, competitive parity, or the financial challenges facing universities.

• 0935

There is a recognition that CIAU institutions cannot compete with the full-ride athletic scholarships offered by the division one NCAA institutions. However, many member institutions believe that some support to student athletes will demonstrate a commitment to support Canadians to stay in Canada.

Competitive parity is a different issue. There is currently disparity due to the varying costs to run athletic programs across this vast country. For example, Canada West must have competitive programs, and not broad-based programs, because of the financial commitment to operate, while in Ontario they have the pressure to expand the number of programs and offer a broad scale of athletic programs, because of the proximity of competitive opportunities in Ontario.

The financial challenges facing Canadian universities are at all levels, athletics as well, and not only in sustaining athletic programs, because of the significant cutbacks to universities, and also to the student athlete. Kerry indicated the increase in tuition and the financial debt that many of our graduates are coming out with. HRDC did a study, and they anticipate that by 1998-99 an average student debt will be about $25,000. That's pretty significant.

The highlights I want to point out in the draft policy that address those issues are as follows. An institutional administrative process is recommended to ensure there are checks and balances, such as an individual institutional awards review committee. That is to address some of the issues around recruiting and coaches actually using awards or scholarships to recruit student athletes. There would be internal checks and balances within an awards review committee, made up of a director of athletics and an academic component as well.

Equal opportunity for all sports is a must. There's an increase in the amount to $3,000, which is at least the average cost of tuition across the country. I think what we were told by an awards officer is that the average cost of tuition today is about $2,900, and that is anticipated certainly to increase.

There's a limit on the number and amount of awards allowed per sport and per student athlete. In the policy we give the example of basketball, where you have a complement of 12 players: the maximum allowed per player is $3,000, so 12 times $3,000 is $36,000 that the program would be allowed to generate and offer to their student athletes. That's an example of what we've tried to do.

The retroactive payment is based on academic success. As opposed to giving the award at the beginning of the academic year, it would be provided at the end of the academic year, with proven academic success. For entering student athletes, the recommendation is a 65% average over two semesters. So they complete their term, and if they have achieved a 65% average, they will be given the $3,000 athletic award.

As well, there's a recommended monitoring process, where institutions must submit on an annual basis the names of each athlete who has received an award. That's again a check and balance. Also there's an approval process for all new awards.

It is recommended that the new policy be implemented by 1999-2000 to allow institutions time to develop their athletic awards programs. It is also recommended that after two years of the policy a full assessment be undertaken that would review such issues as gender equity, recruiting, and residency.

In the preliminary feedback to date, we understand that the OCIA, which is a subcommittee of the COU, the Council of Ontario Universities, at a recent meeting has restated their position as philosophically opposed to athletic awards to entering student athletes. As well, there is a recommendation to strengthen the gender equity position in the policy, and there appears to be little to no agreement on out-of-province recruiting. Canada West will be announcing today their position to allow athletic awards to entering student athletes.

• 0940

The CIAU is facing a dilemma with this issue. Our goal is to work together on this issue in order to find some compromise that all institutions can live with and still compete with one another. As Kerry has indicated, this decision will be debated and determined at our June annual general meeting. It is a divisive issue in the organization and one that, if it doesn't get resolved, will hinder us from moving forward.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: Before questions, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to add a little bit about the economic impact.

The Chairman: Okay.

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: We're certainly not at a position to give you the results of our survey. We're now in the process. This is a draft of the economic impact study we're working on right now. The pilot is out to about eight of our schools to see how they like the questions or how hard it is to complete. There will be a special interactive forum on the home page on the Internet, so they actually will be able to complete this on the Internet and send it back to us.

We expect the results in June. Certainly we'll give you that information, because it will be an important part of your report. It will outline the economic impact, which is huge, of any university sport in Canada.

I'll give you one statistic alone. The men's national basketball championships were recently held in Halifax, and a three-year term was recently awarded again to Halifax. They estimated that this event alone generated $3 million in economic impact, and that's just one event.

This study will certainly give us some good information and give your committee some good information, and we'll certainly share that with you. I just wish we would have been able to have that done earlier than now.

I think that forms the basis of our presentation. We're certainly prepared to answer any questions.

Again, I'd like to congratulate you and the committee for hearing us. I think it's important for sport that there is such a committee, and we appreciate being here.

The Chairman: Thanks, Mr. Moynihan and Ms. Brenning.

[Translation]

Ms. Tremblay, are you ready?

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski—Mitis, BQ): I'm sorry to be late, but I have to attend two meetings at the same time. So I try my best.

[English]

The Chairman: You spent all last evening with all those bankers.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: No, Iwent to Greece, and I went to La communauté européenne.

[Translation]

This morning, I had two meetings.

I have a few questions. Since I missed part of your presentation, some of them might be pointless. Just tell me and I'll read the minutes.

For the record, I want to clarify one thing regarding the students' debt. In Quebec, the average debt is $13,000 instead of $25,000 because the grants and loans system is managed differently and the tuition fees are very often lower. So the average debt of our post-secondary students is lower than in the rest of Canada.

That being said, can you tell me approximately what percentage of university athletes end up participating in the Olympic Games?

[English]

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: We haven't tracked those figures, but in certain sports it would be higher—basketball, for example, volleyball—

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Handball.

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: —field hockey, or the sports played at universities, and also where our system is the primary feeder system for the high-performance system. Those are the the athletes who will go on to the Olympic Games.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Are results in such competitions as the Universiades taken into account to evaluate a student's performance? Is it included, as for the World Championships or the Pan American Games? Does it count to establish an athlete's classification or do the students participate in those competitions for their own pleasure?

[English]

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: First of all, athletes would compete for their own university and compete against other universities and go on to national championships.

At the same time, they may be involved in a junior national program or a national team program where they may be a member of a national team. That means they would compete for Canada internationally at the Commonwealth Games, the Olympic Games, or the Pan American Games. So it really depends on the athlete.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Okay.

[Translation]

You briefly touched upon the problems universities are facing following budget cuts which force them to make a choice between keeping a sport or an academic program. For instance, Laval University has dropped such high level sports as fencing and handball.

• 0945

Also, almost half of the athletes on the national handball team were students at Laval University. They now have to train in high school gymnasiums and they have to pay for that, instead of being coached at the university and so on.

Could you tell the Committee what has been the impact of budget cuts on university athletics? Maybe you don't have that information today, but we would like to have your comments on the impact of these cuts. Why was such a decision taken? Would you have any information for us on the subject? Could you tell us which sports have been dropped, which programs don't exist any more and which coaches have been replaced because they were costing too much?

[English]

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: We can comment on it a little bit. Certainly there are reductions in funding at all levels at the CIAU with the conferences and schools. There's pressure everywhere to cut back, so choices must be made and priorities must be set. Even in the last year there have been further reductions in sports to include volleyball. Mount Allison recently reduced its support of ice hockey and dropped its ice program, so now we're seeing a trend from handball to ice hockey. So it is a concern and a problem and money is a very significant variable.

Also, because of the need to appeal to a greater percentage of the university in terms of providing broad-based programs, there's pressure to spread that money around. We're seeing that in the more significant sports as well as the ones such as Madame Tremblay mentioned, with handball at the University of Laval. So it is a concern.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: In many ways, universities have the reputation of being in an ivory tower. In terms of sports, did you manage to establish a close relationships with, for example, Sport Canada, sports' federations or the Olympic Committee? Do you in fact maintain such relationships or do you stay in your own little corner and organize only competitions between campuses?

[English]

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: Absolutely not. The whole issue of partnerships is very important to us. We have an associate membership category in our organization, and that's one of the reasons we've created an office in Toronto. We have a good working relationship with the Canadian Olympic Association. We have a good relationship with NBA Canada, which we'd like to work with more closely. We have a good relationship with a lot of the national sport governing bodies. These days it's all about partnerships, about being able to do more with less, and that's something we're concentrating on. Certainly we'd like to strengthen that relationship with as many national sport governing bodies, multi-sport organizations or other groups as possible to try to address some of these issues.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Can you tell me whether universities are involved in research on the best training techniques and whether they do enough of it? There are two ways to improve the performance of athletes, either you give them the benefit of improved training techniques and competent coaches or you let them use drugs. Since we disapprove of the latter, do we do enough to prevent our athletes to resort to drugs, because they can't benefit from better training techniques?

[English]

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: As I mentioned earlier in our presentation, Madame Tremblay, we're strongly opposed to drugs in sport and we're one of the leaders in Canada in terms of eradicating the use of drugs in sport. We have a mandatory drug education program that all 10,000 athletes must go through every year of their four or five years of eligibility. They get a book that we go through with them for a half-hour or an hour seminar. There's a video that we use to go through that with them.

The University of Toronto football program has come up with a program that addresses the issue of doping education and doping control in football, because we seem to have more positive tests in the sport of football. We're looking at developing a special program that's really targeted at football players, because we see the use there to be more prevalent than in other sports. Now we have to address that at a younger age, at high school and maybe even below that. We need to send a message that if you take drugs, it's going to hurt your body, and you're going to get caught, for which there are serious consequences.

• 0950

In terms of research, the CIAU itself is not positioned to do a lot of research. We're sort of the umbrella organization. I would expect there is considerable research done through faculties of kinesiology. Many of our universities are structured under a faculty of kinesiology, and therefore research in terms of sport will be done at our various member universities in the different faculties.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: What has been the impact, do you think? In a document prepared by the Library of Parliament, I saw that you are now using TSN and RDS television networks. As such, it's a very good solution because they specialize in sports, but since they are both specialty channels, it sort of limits access to university sports for television audiences. What do you think has been the impact of the CBC—which is still a coast-to-coast public Corporation, I understand—dropping l'Univers des sports and other programs which could have improved your visibility and encourage young athletes to try harder? Would you, for instance, be in favour or the Committee recommending that the CBC consider broadcasting more programs on amateur sports, as it did in the past?

[English]

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: As I say, our host broadcaster is TSN, and RDS in Montreal. The feeds we provide are available to RDS to pick up and broadcast in French. We certainly encourage them to do that, and we want to continue to do that. It's very important that we showcase our student athletes coast to coast, in both official languages.

I agree with you that we need to do a better job in terms of ensuring that's done, and we're committed to doing that with our host broadcaster, TSN, and RDS.

In terms of radio coverage, certainly we'd like to see as much coverage as possible coast to coast, on CBC and SRC. There have been cutbacks in terms of the coverage of amateur sport by the CBC and SRC. Their staff is reduced down to one or two people, with freelancers across the country. That concerns us, because television is one avenue but certainly radio is another. If your committee could recommend that, I think that would be a positive step.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Merci.

The Chairman: Mr. Proud.

Mr. George Proud: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Ms. Brenning and Mr. Moynihan.

To go back for a moment to the CBC, they appeared before us, as did others, including TSN. I think one of the things that I see they could do and don't do is that for whatever reason, in each area they have their own people. I don't know why they couldn't use them to broadcast the games instead of having to send somebody in where they already have stations set up in the local areas. I can't seem to get an answer from them on that.

I want to talk for a minute on the scholarship awards issue. I think this is something that is a must. I really believe this. I come from the east coast of Canada, where we have a very small population, but in the area I live in, we've had a number of young athletes go to the United States—Notre Dame, Indiana, Michigan State, Northeastern and those places—mostly in hockey but in other sports as well, including football.

Of those people, some have gone on to professional sports and some have come back and gone into business. I don't see that because of the fact they went to university on a scholarship they're any less academically than they would have been had they stayed in Canada. My own feeling is that we should have a scholarship system. The Canadian Hockey Association and others are concerned—and rightfully so, I think—because those are the big areas that go.

Another one that is becoming fairly active is the golf one. Tiger Woods has done that for it, I think. You'll see a lot more young people golfing, both men and women. We have a young woman in the LPGA right now who's doing very well and is going to set that trend.

• 0955

I assume I know why the opposition to this—it's as you said—but I can't believe this is justified. I am sure there are lots of young men and women who would go to university on a scholarship who probably wouldn't otherwise get there without a lot of other means.

So I think this is something that has to be looked at very seriously, and I hope it will. I just can't understand why there's opposition to it.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Monsieur Coderre.

[Translation]

Mr. Denis Coderre (Bourassa, Lib.): Sorry, I had to go out for a while. Maybe I'm going to ask a question you already answered. We have looked into professional sports and now, we focus on amateur sports. Are you happy with the Canadian government's policy regarding sports in general? I am asking this question because there are still two philosophies: on one side , there are those who favour sports in general, broad-based sports, as opposed to elite sports.

Deep cuts have been made and this had a huge impact on you. Don't you think that instead of giving a little here and there, it would be better to go back to the books and develop a policy regarding sports in general, focusing on a partnership between governments—because it involves federal, provincial and even municipal governments—the universities, the private sector, amateur sports in general and professional sports? It's a big existential question.

[English]

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: It's a big question. Over the years, I think, Sport Canada has done a very good job in terms of trying to do more with less—the various reports that have been done, the core sport concept that had to be gone through, where the line in the sand was drawn, and certain sports were in and certain sports were out. That was based on the fact that there was less money and the decision was to concentrate on those 37 or 40 sports, based on a set criteria.

It's important that we continue to keep our eye on that to see if the sands are changing, to see what's changing. We have a strong partnership with Sport Canada. We work very closely with them. I guess we're not happy that we've had reductions. We've managed the best we can, but certainly it's impacted on us.

The red book initiative of the Liberal Party in terms of the government certainly was a significant contribution to sport in Canada, some $50 million. As an organization, however, we did not receive any of that money. We were told that money was dedicated toward high-performance athletes and coaches. That's a very good reason, because that's the centre of our sports system.

We had hoped that we'd maybe be able to access some of that money to be able to do some things in our organization, but it's something we have to continue to work on. Partnerships is a big word. We're certainly open to doing that and revisiting the whole sport model periodically to see how we tie in with other organizations and with member universities.

[Translation]

Mr. Denis Coderre: Currently, what kind of links are there between university sports, your association and professional sports teams? You mentioned the NBA, which we heard and which has some affiliations, as we noted. But what are the links between the National Hockey League or professional baseball and the universities?

[English]

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: With regard to some of the links on the NBA front, certainly NBA Canada has opened up an office in Toronto. Their mandate is to help grow basketball in Canada. Certainly that's one of our mandates, to try to promote sports, basketball being one of our sports. Together, if we can do certain things through cooperation, through sponsorship, through programs, I think we'll be better and NBA in Canada will be better. That's an example of a new partnership between us and a professional league.

We also have a good working relationship with the CFL. In the recent draft this year, of some 45 athletes drafted into the CFL a vast majority of them were from CIAU-member schools. The very high percentage of them this year is something we feel very proud of, and our schools feel very proud of. We have a good working relationship with the CFL on the draft. They are involved in the Vanier Cup, our premier event in football in Toronto.

• 1000

So those are just two examples of us working with professional sports.

[Translation]

Mr. Denis Coderre: Can the relationship or partnership between professional teams and universities lead to financing? Is it a program to which universities contribute financially or is it your organization which provides the funds and the name? How does it work?

[English]

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: I wouldn't say the link is between the professional and the member university. It's more between the professional leagues and the CIAU in terms of us being an umbrella organization and they're the umbrella organization for their particular sport. There isn't that particular relationship targeted directly down at the member university.

Mr. Denis Coderre: Should there be one?

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: No, I think the way it is now is fine. We again work very closely. On occasion, when we're getting ready for the draft, the CFL office will have to contact the various football-playing schools to get videotapes and statistics in order to get ready for the draft. That's where that kind of thing takes place.

[Translation]

Mr. Denis Coderre: I know that in any sport, there are scouts which are in contact with the National League and the universities. A good example is the Vanier Cup. The scouts go to the games and then meet with the players, and offer them contracts later on.

Do you proceed the same way in university sports? Do you try to attract as many people as possible to offer training camps later on? Or do you absolutely have to contact students at the high school or college level and ask them to participate in a football program? This is the way they proceed in the United States. However, I don't know if it's done here.

[English]

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: Is this summer camps in general?

Mr. Denis Coderre: Yes.

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: There is a vast number of summer camps offered across the country in terms of soccer, football, and basketball. It's usually driven by the individual programs themselves. So a coach from a basketball team may offer a summer camp. Not only does it provide a public relations initiative and a development of that sport in that city, it's also a revenue generator for their program. Some are more extensive than others, but it does happen across the country.

[Translation]

Mr. Denis Coderre: Mr. Chairman, what I am going to say is probably not politically correct, but I don't think that anybody can excel in everything and in every sports. Certainly, university students belong to an elite. Do you think that, first, we should focus on some sports, which Canadians are particularly good at, and forget the others? Do you think we should invest in those sports, pick the best performers and increase their awards accordingly? At the end of the day, what we are looking for is to grow a particular sport in Canada. The only way to do that is to invest in the best performers.

You can have broad-based sports at the municipal level and in minor leagues, etc., but at the university level, isn't the objective to attract an elite and to nurture it so that it becomes a model for the prestigious role Canada can play?

[English]

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: There's a different philosophy across the country on this issue.

Mr. Denis Coderre: I've noticed.

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: Specifically, Ontario is very broad-based. Their philosophy is to offer a broad-based program that many students can access in terms of varsity sport.

In western Canada they've narrowed their focus. They concentrate on fewer sports. It's eight, maybe six, or sometimes four. They want to excel in those sports because they're investing a lot of money in that in terms of scholarships and travel budgets.

So there's a very different philosophy across the country in terms of what varsity sports bring to their campus. I can't say it's standard across the country.

Mr. Denis Coderre: What's your point of view?

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: Maybe I can jump in. I would like to reference the Ken Dryden report that was done for the School of Physical and Health Education at Queen's University. There's a lot of good material here, and I would encourage your committee to get this. I'm certain we can do that.

It talks about some of the issues you've brought up at the committee. There's an example of a school in Ontario where a greater percentage of dollars to support the university is coming from athletic fees from the students. That's at Queen's University. They're paying about $75 a student.

So they want more broad-based programs. Thus, they're saying to varsity athletes that they have to pay a greater percentage. So they would like more broad-based programs to appeal to a greater number of sports. I think they have 38 sports at Queen's University.

[Translation]

Mr. Denis Coderre: Do you think it's realistic? I'd like to have your perspective. You are a good politician.

• 1005

[English]

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: Again, it's not for us to say what's right or wrong for every school. There are different circumstances and mandates, and I don't think we're prepared—

Mr. Denis Coderre: What's the tendency, though?

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: Again, it's different in each of the segments, as Jennifer mentioned. In certain areas of the country, they're going to concentrate on 8 to 10 sports. In Ontario, particularly at Queen's University, they're looking at much more broad-based programs of 38 sports.

We have a great variety, so it's a constant struggle in terms of how we spread our dollars and which area we concentrate on. We try to do the best job we can with the available resources, and I think we're doing that.

The Chairman: Mrs. Tremblay wants to pick up on that.

[Translation]

An hon. member: Pass the puck.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: I'll get the puck.

[English]

The Chairman: Pass the puck.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: This is a most interesting question. We just saw what Laval University decided. There were sports programs where we reached a high performance level: fencing, a sport which requires specific abilities, and handball, where half of the national team was training at Laval University. However, for efficiency reasons, because the games did not attract enough people, Laval University decided to keep only more popular sports. The university has kept the sports that fill the stands with people who come to encourage their teams. They can identify with these teams by wearing a Laval University tee-shirt and in the end, they are convinced that we are indeed good. Many more people come to the competitions.

If our universities drop sports programs which are more elite-oriented, where are we going to find the athletes who are going to represent us in international competitions?

I think the idea of having facilities... First of all, what facilities are there? Certainly, at the University of Quebec in Rimouski, people cannot be trained in rowing. The required facilities are not there. However, because there are lots of waves in the river, maybe they could be trained in ocean-going canoeing, but I am not sure you could train people in rowing.

So while keeping broad-based sports programs or what is offered by Ontario universities and what Quebec universities are trying to offer, maybe we should also consider giving to some universities the specific mandate to train the elite. It could be given to universities where the necessary facilities and competent coaches can be found and which have some experience.

Fencing does not only require physical abilities. There is a whole culture attached to this sport as well as a mental attitude. So if some universities have competent coaches and follow not only their own philosophy, but also the policy of their province, maybe we should give them the particular mandate to continue to provide training in elite sports.

[English]

The Chairman: That's a good point.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Some universities do it. When young graduates from a cegep in Montreal are recruited by a Vermont hockey team, it's because someone has decided to come here and get the best. We should not let our best athletes go. They are going to participate in Olympic Games under another banner than ours. This is an interesting point to consider.

[English]

The Chairman: That's a good point.

Could I just ask a question? First of all, how many universities are in the CIAU?

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: There are 47 universities.

The Chairman: Is that all the universities? Is everybody in the loop?

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: Almost. Trinity Western University is applying for membership, and Simon Fraser University is a member of the NAIA.

The Chairman: Okay. So it's virtually 99% of the universities in Canada.

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: Yes, I would say it's 90%.

The Chairman: So it's 47.

You mentioned that Ontario was opposed to this awards system. It would seem to me that Ontario has probably greatest percentage of those 1,800 people who are heading south. Would you have a number? Let's put it this way: roughly, of those 1,800 people we're exporting to the U.S.A., how many are coming from Ontario?

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: We haven't broken down the figures, but I would extrapolate there that they would be the greater percentage.

The Chairman: It's the greater percentage.

• 1010

So I'm trying to understand the reasoning, and I'll give a specific example of the University of Toronto. If you want to generate support from radio, television and sponsorship, your event has to have the best athletes. Just linking it to our national sport and the varsity Blues of the University of Toronto, to think that arena only attracts 300 or 400 people is unbelievable.

Why wouldn't the Ontario system want to reverse that drain of our high performance athletes? It essentially works against the whole competitive fabric of the nation.

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: I'll respond to that. There's a number of issues involved in Ontario. Specifically because there are 18 institutions, there's the fear or anticipation of a tiering system within Ontario. For example, when you can travel across the street to Ryerson to compete, there's a fear that if there were an extensive awards program some institutions would do far better than others due to profile alumni support and those kinds of things. So there's the fund-raising capability of one institution over another. The recruiting of the athletes would come into play, and competitive disparity within Ontario would be far greater. That's one issue.

Another issue is the whole broad-based philosophy we talked about earlier. There's the demand of the student athletes at U of T, for example, to offer as many program participation opportunities on a broad scale. For example, instead of narrowing a focus to four or eight sports, it offers 36.

The Chairman: Could I respond to that? That seems to me to be a pretty weak argument—I'd like to stick to our winter sport—because if I'm the University of Toronto, which presumably would be one of the higher profile operations in that market, I can only use 25 players. After that they have to go to other universities.

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: I should be clear that it's a conference view that's coming out. Individual institutions in Ontario may be supportive of—

The Chairman: But let's imagine it's a community that doesn't have the same resources as Toronto. Let's take Sudbury and Laurentian University. Does it not have the confidence that it could attract, through all the other courses and its reputation, people to its institution to be competitive?

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: Interestingly, you've selected an institution that's in favour of the program in Ontario. When looked at from a conference perspective, the issue of out-of-province recruiting is a significant one to Ontario. For example, with Mount Allison's football program, 68% of its football team came from Ontario. So there's a significant amount of recruiting not only to the U.S. but also to other provinces, and that's a concern to the Ontario universities.

The Chairman: George.

Mr. George Proud: I just wonder what's wrong with that. Wouldn't it be better to have the competition within Canada than have it go over the border? That's where they're going to go. As the chairman said, I think it's a very weak argument.

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: It's not mine.

Mr. George Proud: I know it's not your argument.

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: It's the argument of that conference.

The Chairman: None of us here is in a position at this time to speak from a committee perspective, because we are listening, learning and discussing. We are advancing the debate.

But I can say quite confidently that this committee is very sensitive about making sure the Canadian content is certainly.... We don't mind if it's exported if it gets a professional sort of ticket attached to it—in other words, where they're getting paid at the professional level.

• 1015

But in terms of our amateur level, we want to make sure our amateur content in this country is solid. It seems to me our American neighbours are out-marketing us. They bring in our best, and then they use our best to attract the key sponsorship, whether it is Adidas, Nike, or whatever. That's how they get their television, their fans in the stands, and their concessions. That's why these athletic programs in the United U.S. are never short of money.

We all know the example of Notre Dame eight months ago where, because the football team wore Adidas outerwear off the field, it got a $25 million cheque that funded the information technology wing of the school. In other words, athletics was used for the whole institution. I just hope your organization can be sensitive to this.

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: The point you've made in terms of marketability is the problem we're facing as an organization, because from a media perspective it's not seen to be the same value as the NCAA because of that element. That is a good analysis of that, in terms of the drain to the U.S. and the number of high-performance top-level athletes in the U.S. from Canada.

The Chairman: Madame Tremblay talked about using our national television network to promote the university realm of sport. If I were a sponsor on that network, I would want to make sure there were some kind of audience. You're only going to get that when you have the absolute best.

Are there other questions?

Madame Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: More and more, we tend to link sports and the economy. Do you have any information on the facilities that can be found in our universities? I know of some of them, because I went to those universities, but I don't know what the situation is across the country. Do all universities, for instance, offer physical education programs, have arenas, training facilities?

Could we have this information and could you first let us know whether the infrastructure is there? It would be helpful to have statistics in this area and also on the level we are at in international competitions. Are we among the best or the worst? Right now, some games are being held in Greece. Is it not University Games? I have heard that among the participants, there is a basketball team representing Canada which is from Joliette. Did you hear about that?

[English]

You didn't hear about that?

The Chairman: I'm not sure.

Ms. Jennifer Brenning: I'm not sure about the latter, but certainly across the country there are various programs and faculties, and physical education is not offered at every university across the country. Athletics fits within the structures of universities in different ways. Some are under the academic umbrella and some are ancillary. So there are different reporting structures of athletics across the country.

In our economic impact study we will be doing an analysis and trying to get the value of our facilities across the country to you. All the facility information will be coming as part of that study.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: When is this study going to be completed?

[English]

When will it be over?

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: June.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Are you going to forward it to us? Good.

Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Before we adjourn, unless there are any other questions, I just want to ask a couple of questions in terms of the image of sport within the university realm in Canada.

My sense is that sport is tolerated more than welcomed, celebrated and cherished. In other words, it's the image of the athlete as an inferior academic. University leadership tends to say “Well, we have to have it, but really that's where the large, dumb athlete can go who's getting Cs and Bs”.

• 1020

I realize you said 1,000 students out of your 10,000 have an 80% average, but do you think sport in this country suffers from an image problem in terms of its linkage to the academic excellence of that person? Can a person be a great athlete and also be a high-performance academic?

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: Certainly we use the words “student athlete” all the time, and we talked about the tremendous results of the student athletes, academically and athletically. You're seeing a higher and higher percentage each year of those who do fantastic jobs academically as well as athletically.

We don't have any figures here to talk about it historically and show whether that's gone up. Certainly there's a greater emphasis on student athletes to do better in school. The challenges to get into schools are higher. The marks required are higher. There's greater pressure to do better academically, so you have a job after you finish school.

It's a tough sort of thing to answer. I think the image of the athlete not doing well academically is not that strong. It's going the other way in terms of an athlete being a more rounded person. We're very committed to the whole concept of the student athlete.

Even at championships, for example, when they're close to exam time we insist on trying to ensure there are quiet areas for the athletes to study. We're getting increasing pressure from university presidents to ensure that academics is a very high priority, and we do things around sports to allow them to achieve and excel academically at the same time as competing in sports.

The Chairman: Are there any other questions?

Thank you very much. Your witness here today was fabulous and most useful.

Mr. Kerry Moynihan: Thank you.

The Chairman: Before we adjourn, could I have a meeting with the members just for a couple of minutes?

Thank you very much, Jennifer and Kerry.

I wanted to bring to the members—

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: We suggested a few names. Did you get our letter? Would it be possible to have them?

We have suggested that the Committee hear Mr. François Trudeau, a professor in human kinetics at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières, who wrote to us and told us that he could make a presentation on the following subjects concerning athletes: personal motivation, problems due to isolation when they have to go away to train, the development of more efficient training methods, resources centralization, sport, physical condition and the high cost of practising a sport. He works on some of these issues and he would be interested to come and make a presentation about that to the Committee.

[English]

The Chairman: If you recommend it, we'll—

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Yes, we wrote to you about that. What I am interested in, is the athletes' psychology.

The Clerk of the Committee: Committee members just have to decide when they want this gentleman to come .

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: All right.

The Clerk: I put his name down on the list.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: OK. Also, CTV, TQS, TVA and Global would like to appear, because we have already heard the CBC and the SRC.

[English]

The Chairman: We will find time for that.

Yes, go ahead.

[Translation]

Mr. Denis Coderre: I was at CPAC the day before yesterday, and somebody phoned and asked a very interesting question about First Nations. They are very active in hockey and many other sports, including lacrosse. Maybe we could invite some aboriginal organizations.

[English]

The Chairman: They're on our list.

Mr. Denis Coderre: Okay, parfait. Good.

The Chairman: The head of the whole system is coming.

• 1025

Next Tuesday we have a very exciting but complex witness, and I would like to make sure that by tomorrow we have in the hands of all the members the position of the NAFTA lawyer who believes there is a definite challenge here because of the U.S. subsidies. I flagged this because I had a discussion with this person last Sunday and I found it very difficult to follow. I asked him to prepare a proper brief. It should be translated by Monday afternoon, hopefully.

So we're pushing that. I would like to have a fax, if possible, so that if we don't get it finished until late Friday, we can fax it to you at your place.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Yes, but can you give me first the English version and, as soon as you have the French version, you can fax it to me at my place.

[English]

The Chairman: The departmental lawyer, who claims there is no challenge here, apparently does not have a brief.

The Clerk: They said he may or he may not, but he normally does not.

The Chairman: Would you please tell him that we would encourage him to give us a brief.

The Clerk: I did.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: If we may, we would like to have it.

The Chairman: I think you should phone him, and I will speak to the minister as well. I want to flag this, because there are a couple of things that I think are very important for the credibility of our committee.

This experience next week is not the end of the court case; it's the beginning of the court case. It's very important that it should not look as if we are trying to bash the NHL.

In other words, it's a study. If anything, it should look as if we are trying to enhance the whole package. But it looks as if there's a good chance that the trade negotiators made a mistake and that the Government of the United States is liable to send the Canadian teams a cheque equal to all those subsidies for the U.S. teams.

So I really encourage you to read this slowly and understand it, because I can tell you that those sports journalists—

Mr. Denis Coderre: Will jump.

The Chairman: No, but initially they won't get it, because it's complex. A few of them will, but all most of them want to do is write about personalities and scores; they don't want to write about the complexity.

Mr. Denis Coderre: That's the reason, Mr. Chairman, we should have both sides of the coin, to make sure we're not fixing something.

The Chairman: They're both there.

Mr. Denis Coderre: We open a can of worms there.

The Chairman: No, both sides are there. It's a debate.

Are there any other questions?

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: You are going to give us another list with the names of all the witnesses. Ah, yes, I now see François' name. There is also the issue of women and sports, aboriginal people and sports, and we should see people from the Canadian Federation of Municipalities and the Commonwealth Games Association of Canada.

Mr. Denis Coderre: I'm trying to contact Gilles Courteau because we have to hear a representative of the Ligue de hockey junior majeur du Québec. Last time , he couldn't come, but we need Courteau.

[English]

The Chairman: Madame Tremblay, we must also go back to the committee to restart our engine and to put members at ease. I have working with our clerk a man who has worked for several ministers in the past, all parties, and is working with the Canada Games. He is helping to put together, with Claude, some of the basic thoughts in each one of these themes we're working up.

We're going to have to get the Heritage Committee to approve that. It's under $10,000.

Mr. George Proud: Was there ever anyone here from the boxing association?

[Translation]

Mr. Denis Coderre: Boxing.

[English]

The Chairman: No.

[Translation]

Mr. Denis Coderre: We are forgetting soccer.

[English]

The Chairman: No, we're not. They're on another sheet.

Mr. Denis Coderre: Okay.

The Chairman: Those are additional to what we're already—

Mr. Denis Coderre: I spoke to Joey Saputo from L'Impact, and he has things to say. We might have, I don't know, all the teams or representatives.

The Chairman: They're coming.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Their name is on the list.

Mr. Denis Coderre: They are on the list? All right.

• 1030

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: And also the players' association...

Mr. Denis Coderre: I went to bed late yesterday.

The clerk: It's only the Canadian association.

[English]

Mr. Denis Coderre: I'm talking about the professional league. Are they coming? Soccer.

The Chairman: We'll send you a list of those people who are coming from soccer.

Mr. Denis Coderre: But is that amateur or professional?

The Clerk: It's amateur.

Mr. Denis Coderre: That's what I'm saying. Professional is important because it's emerging.

Mr. George Proud: When are we winding up?

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: We should see the professionals because we have seen the professionals in all other sports.

The Chairman: We will.

Mr. Denis Coderre: There are the Blazers, the 76ers the—

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: And we add to the list L'Impact from Montreal.

[English]

The Chairman: One thing you should know is that obviously we are the most popular committee with the outside world. Everybody wants to come to be a witness at this committee. We cannot see all of them, so we've told some of them to send us their briefs. All members will get them, and we'll have a discussion on some of the most relevant things. They'll be part of the recommendations we'll go over individually at the end of August. Then we'll come together as a group and decide what's in and what's out.

Mr. Denis Coderre: When do we finish?

The Chairman: I think we will finish—

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: The end of July?

The Chairman: No, we'll hear witnesses until June. The officials will start putting together the draft document.

Mr. George Proud: June what?

The Chairman: Is it the second week in June that we're finished Parliament?

The Clerk: You'll be hearing as many witnesses as possible until June. Those we haven't heard from will still be on the list. We'll get their briefs in by the end of June so the researcher can start working on the report in the summer.

The Chairman: You'll get copies of their briefs, so if you want—

The Clerk: They can still see them in the fall.

The Chairman: Yes. Then we'll come back and have a draft report. If you say there are three or four more witnesses, we'll bring them in front of us, refine it and go over the recommendations. Hopefully by November we'll table our document, which will be the most popular document since the Bible.

Mr. Denis Coderre: There's a rumour we're supposed to finish on June 19, but there's also a rumour that it will finish on June 12.

The Chairman: At the rate we're going, it might even be tomorrow.

Mr. Denis Coderre: May I make a suggestion? If we adjourn on June 12, maybe we could have a full session about a week after for two or three days.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: We could sit for a few more days. Right now, we have all the other Committees plus question period, which means that we are very busy. Last week, I had to attend nine Committee meetings. It's terrible, awful.

[English]

Mr. Denis Coderre: Be my guest.

Mr. George Proud: The problem is, there are so many committees you can't be everywhere.

The Chairman: I think we've broken the back on our witnesses. We have a few more, so we'll hear the briefs and pull together the key points. Then in September when we come back, if there are a few more witnesses to just round it out, we'll do it and then put it to bed.

Mr. George Proud: The problem is, you can't get anyone to take your place.

The Chairman: It's busy right now, I realize that.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: It would be better to sit for one or two full days before Parliament adjourns in June, before we go on holidays.

[English]

The Chairman: Yes.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: We would only do that, we would hear witnesses and then we would have all the necessary documentation to go on with our work.

[English]

The Chairman: If the government decides to adjourn on the 12th, maybe on the 14th or 15th we could push our witnesses and have two full days.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Yes.

The Chairman: Okay, very good.

The Clerk: The problem is, you have to let your witnesses know now, because they won't come if you give them short notice. They need time to prepare and do their briefs.

The Chairman: Write to them all now and say there is a possibility they could be called on the 15th or 16th, so please be ready.

Okay, gang, thank you. The meeting is adjourned.