Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you.

Canadian Heritage committee  No. Thank you to everyone.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate this. Thank you, everyone, for being here. I appreciate this. I would like to start my questions with Dr. Sims. In my riding, Dr. Sims, we have a number of small, independent weekly news outlets. Some of them are as small as two journalists and an editor.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's very comforting to hear. To follow up, Dr. Sims, if our local media starts doing well, can you see the trend of small outlets closing cease, and perhaps even see—to address what has been referred to here as “news deserts”—expansion into other regions? Is that a possibility?

Canadian Heritage committee  Will be, okay, so when was the first recommendation fully implemented? When did you start taking action?

Canadian Heritage committee  Okay, thank you. It just basically is about people asking how we can trust you to move forward if you haven't already implemented some of these programs. You have to know the problems before you fix them. It remains to be seen if that's understood. Right now it appears that—

Canadian Heritage committee  —you either did not know about these practices of abuse or that you did know and didn't take action until you had no choice. How can Canadians hold you accountable? What metrics can we use so we can come back later and you can prove that you've earned that trust back?

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Madam Chair.

Canadian Heritage committee  Maybe I would start my questions with Mr. MacKenzie from the Canadian Hockey League. Part of the problem that we've seen systemically is that players do not feel comfortable reporting off-ice misconduct, and the broad definition of that misconduct is stuff that we've talked about: hazing, bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, violence, sexual violence, discrimination and physical or sexual abuse.

Canadian Heritage committee  I appreciate that [Inaudible—Editor], but what exactly was the time?

Canadian Heritage committee  Then I'll segue to Mr. Smith from Hockey Canada. It was mentioned previously that there were, I believe, 11 recommendations from the Henein Hutchison investigation. What was the date on which you were provided with those recommendations?

Canadian Heritage committee  How many of those have been fully implemented? I believe in your testimony you claimed that they've all been worked on. How many would you consider fully implemented?

Canadian Heritage committee  What happens to those reports? Would you be willing to share those with us? Would you be willing to share them in public to find out what can be done better?

Canadian Heritage committee  Great. In the interest of time, I need to keep moving on. I'll maybe go back to Hockey Canada. You settled on behalf of these players, some of whom were not contacted beforehand. I believe you advised all players after the settlement. Today you've answered on why you settled, and we're going to accept that answer, but I don't feel you've answered on why you didn't settle through insurance.

Canadian Heritage committee  As a last question, you mentioned a lifetime ban. Moving forward, if any player does not participate in investigations, they'll be banned. What about players who are involved in a settlement? If they went through an investigation and there was a settlement, would those players be allowed to continue playing?