The day after the hearing of the leaders of Hockey Canada before the parliamentary heritage committee, Me Benoît Girardin believes that the Canadian federation has not gone all the way.
According to the lawyer specializing in sports law, Hockey Canada was required to shed light on the alleged gang rape committed in London, in June 2018, by eight players against a 20-year-old young woman.
National federations like Hockey Canada and others have a duty to implement disciplinary procedures and a code of conduct for their athletes, coaches and all their members when they are affiliated with the national federation.explained Me Girardin in an interview on the Isabelle Richer program on ICI RDI.
The lawyer closely followed the work of the committee on Monday in Ottawa.
Faced with the refusal of Hockey Canada to make public the report of the law firm that the federation itself has commissioned the investigation, Me Girardin goes further. While emphasizing the confidential nature of the conclusions of such an investigation, he affirms that the federation should still push its approach to the end.
” We must continue the process and get to the end of things. Such an investigation should normally lead to a disciplinary hearing from which possible sanctions may or may not follow. It depends on the verification of the facts and the results of the disciplinary investigation. “
The lack of follow-up is, according to him, linked to the private nature of Hockey Canada, which is a non-profit company.
It is true that confidentiality is omnipresent in the world of sport and in private organizations in generaladmitted Mr. Girardin, while wondering whether a certain degree of public disclosure should be required of them in order to demonstrate that the facts are processed and examined, and that the sanction is commensurate with the fault.
He believes that the new independent mechanism for safe sport put forward by federal minister Pascale St-Onge will precisely allow some publication of the results of investigations into major cases of abuse.
Not only were the players allegedly at fault not identified, but they were also not forced to cooperate in the investigation, which ended abruptly with the issuance of a check to the victim almost four years later. the alleged incident.
” It is deplorable that the procedure did not go to the end and that we do not check whether this thing really happened or whether these acts were really committed. It is through a financial settlement following a civil lawsuit that we close the books. “
And what will happen to the ongoing NHL investigation? Me Girardin believes that we should not hold our breath.
According to him, even if the professional circuit has its own code of conduct, the question will remain a matter of jurisdiction since it will be necessary to ask whether or not the eight players in question were subject to this code at the time when the alleged reprehensible acts were committed.
HASwith information from Isabelle Richer
Source: Radio-Canada
