Documents reveal Hockey Canada received $14M in federal funds over the past 2 years

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