McBean says offer to join Hockey Canada committee withdrawn after her call to fire top execs

Three-time Olympic gold medalist Marnie McBean says a leading crisis-management firm hired by Hockey Canada asked her earlier this month to join a committee that will purportedly hold the organization accountable to the change it has promised. 

But McBean says the offer was withdrawn a week later after she made it clear her joining the committee would be conditional on Hockey Canada’s top officials being removed from their positions.

McBean said in an interview with TSN on Wednesday that she was contacted Aug. 10 by Adam Vaughan, a former member of parliament and journalist with Citytv. Vaughan is now a principal at Toronto-based Navigator Ltd., the firm working with Hockey Canada to help the organization weather criticism from parliamentarians, its corporate partners, and the public over its response to allegations of sexual assault.

Hockey Canada released an action plan July 25 the organization promised would “shatter the code of silence and eliminate toxic behaviour in and around Canada’s game.” As part of that action plan, Hockey Canada said it would create a committee to act as a watchdog for the organization. McBean said Vaughan offered her a place on that committee.

McBean, who represented Canada in rowing from 1987 to 2000, winning a total of 12 world and Olympic medals, said she told Vaughan that she would consider working with Hockey Canada if the organization’s current top executives were accountable and removed from their positions.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,” McBean said. “I said I would be involved but that it would require a change in senior leadership and a board that was prepared to do hard work, which could include updating and or replacing themselves with [others who have] skill sets required to do the work.”

Eight days after they first spoke, McBean said that Vaughan told her on Aug. 18 that Hockey Canada chief executive Scott Smith and other top officials have the support of the board and would not be replaced. (Hockey Canada announced board chair Michael Brind’Amour’s resignation on Aug. 6.)

“I had come in with my requirements…,” McBean said. “Navigator came back to me and said, ‘That’s not going to happen, so we’re not going to recommend this position to you anymore.’”

Vaughan did not respond to a request for comment. Hockey Canada declined to comment.

McBean, who also was Canada’s chef de mission for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, said she was concerned that if she agreed to join Hockey Canada’s committee, it might use her for her profile and as a “bullet point.”

She said that during her initial call with Vaughan, she “had been led to believe that there was going to be enough change in senior leadership and within the board that we could be hopeful that there would be governance and culture change at Hockey Canada.”

A week later, however, McBean said Vaughan told her there would be no changes in leadership. 

 “There doesn’t seem to be a willingness to make those hard changes,” she said. “It was really disappointing.”

McBean is an officer of the Order of Canada and was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1994 and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1997. She also has worked with the Canadian Olympic Committee to help with athlete mentoring.

Navigator’s ties to Hockey Canada have not been reported before now. The crisis-management firm, whose brand statement is, "When you can't afford to lose," has had a number of high-profile past clients, including Brian Mulroney during a public inquiry in 2007 into business dealings between the former prime minister and former arms industry lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber, The Globe and Mail reported.

Former CBC journalist Jian Ghomeshi, who was fired by the broadcaster, charged with sexual assault and later acquitted, also hired Navigator.

Hockey Canada officials have already been called to testify twice before a parliamentary committee that is scrutinizing Canada’s most powerful national sports organization. More hearings are expected to take place after parliament resumes on Sept. 19, MP Peter Julian told TSN.

After a woman alleged that she was sexually assaulted by eight former Canadian Hockey League players, including at least some members of the 2018 world junior team, in June 2018 in a London, Ont., hotel room, Hockey Canada hired the Toronto law firm Henein Hutchison to investigate.

Players were not required to participate in the investigation and faced no consequences for refusing to do so. Hockey Canada has reopened its investigation into the allegation and now says players must cooperate or they will no longer be allowed to have ties to the organization.

Hockey Canada also has hired former Supreme Court judge Thomas Cromwell to review the organization’s governance.