Two members of Hockey PEI committee resign, further delaying Mark Connors case

Two people recently recruited to help investigate racist incidents involving Hockey PEI have resigned.

Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly told a legislature committee Wednesday that both people are members of the BIPOC community, and were members of Hockey PEI's discipline and ethics committee until their resignation. 

McNeilly told the standing committee on health and social services that  he attended a meeting late last year when the members in question first joined the committee.

"I was part of a meeting early on in December and there was a good vibe," said McNeilly. "Then things kind of changed … there was no mention of using people from the marginalized communities to become a disciplinary committee as such and I just wanted to ask on the record what and when that changed."

Connor Cameron, executive director of Hockey PEI, the resignations have added to delays in the already long-awaited disciplinary ruling on the Mark Connors racism case.

National attention has been focused on racism in the hockey community in P.E.I.  Mark Connors, a Black goalie from Halifax, was subjected to repeated racist slurs and taunts at a tournament in Charlottetown last November. In December, Hockey PEI suspended a player for anti-Asian slurs, but the entire disclipline and ethics committee resigned after intense criticism that the penalty was too lenient.

Hockey PEI recruited people for a new five-member committee to address the Connors case, two of whom have now resigned.

Cameron told the legislature committee he did not know why the two people resigned.

"I got conflicting reports," Cameron said. "They told the chair one issue and they told me a different issue. So I'm not sure and I don't feel comfortable to talk about that because I don't feel as though it's fair to those two members that dropped out."

McNeilly suggested that the two people saw no other choice.

"Hockey PEI was potentially putting them in a situation that they had to make a ruling on something that could come back and be detrimental to them as a community, the marginalized community," he said.

 "What I'm saying to you is that when you bring marginalized people to the centre, everyone benefits. When you use marginalized people to solve a problem, that hurts everybody."

Cameron told the committee that Hockey PEI is putting "boots on the ground" to tackle racism.

"We're currently in the listening phase," he said. "We do have groups and people and organizations identified that we're going to [partner] with … people that are going to provide training."