Vital Role of Physical Activity and Sport

Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Senator Marty Deacon’s inquiry about the vital role that physical activity and sport play in enhancing our well-being, strengthening our communities and shaping the fabric of the Canadian experience.

Inspired by the highly entertaining speeches that some of our colleagues have given, I would like to share a few personal experiences that illustrate the power of physical activity and sport and the challenges they can present for some of us.

Ovid, the most famous of the Latin poets of antiquity, declared, “A horse never runs so fast as when it has other horses to catch up with and outpace.”

No doubt inspired by this age-old wisdom, my mother never tired of telling me that, when I was born, I must have felt I was behind in life because I came out so quickly and was so eager to crawl, walk, run and jump before everyone else.

Although I would never compare myself to the swift horse of legendary New Brunswick jockey Ron Turcotte, it’s true that the desire to catch up with and outpace my brothers was constantly on my mind.

I was born into a family where sport, especially hockey, was less a form of recreation than a national religion, complete with its own rituals, pilgrimages to the arena and the occasional overtime miracle. My three brothers, all of them extremely talented, were a source of pride to my family and the Acadian community of our province. Today, I want to pay tribute to Maurice, Paul and Gilles, three outstanding athletes, wonderful brothers and exceptional coaches to countless young people who wanted to play hockey.

As you can imagine, colleagues, my desire to join this very exclusive club of family heroes was stronger than my fear of failure. Thus, at the ripe old age of 10, I enthusiastically joined my town’s peewee B team, convinced I’d find glory there, along with recognition and the same level of praise my brothers got from my dad when they came home after their games.

Blessed with a particularly sharp sense of smell, I must admit that cohabiting with my brothers’ hockey bags already counted as mental training. Still, my burning desire to play and to win was stronger than those aromatic challenges.

As soon as my skates hit the ice, my coach and teammates recognized that I had one undeniable quality: I could skate fast, very fast. I whirled, spun and changed direction at an impressive speed. Some might say it was because of the oversized skates I had inherited from my brother — he wore a size 8; I wore a size 5 — or was it because of my boundless ambition to win a trophy? The mystery remains unsolved to this day and would no doubt warrant an independent inquiry.

Be that as it may, I got the nickname “Speedy Gonzales.” This made me extremely happy because, as someone who already loved music, I sincerely believed it was the name of a successful Mexican singer, and I thought of myself as Pedro de Mexico, an international star.

I was clearly destined for a brilliant career, colleagues. However, the speed of my skating and my pirouettes on the ice soon backfired on me. Unlike my brothers, the concept of offside was completely unknown to me. Driven by unbridled enthusiasm and an excessive love of the puck, I was constantly crossing the blue line before anyone else. I kept interrupting the game, without understanding how or why, much to the chagrin of my coach and the dejected referees.

Barely a few weeks after I joined this fantastic team, the axe fell. I was let go, with no explanation, no trophy, not even a commemorative puck or snack bar voucher. Gone was my dream of catching up to and even surpassing my brothers. Gone was my dream of joining the future Ottawa Senators. I stepped away from our national sport with a twinge of sadness, my pride somewhat bruised.

It was a small consolation, but the president of the parish skating club recognized the quality of my unintentional spins and invited me to sign up for figure skating lessons, which I did with little enthusiasm at first, but I was resigned to giving it a try. The very next week, I found myself on the ice, surrounded by young girls in tutus, the only boy in town doing arabesques to the strains of Moon River. Needless to say, the looks I got from my former hockey teammates left no doubt as to the judgment and nicknames of which I was now the prime target. It all reached its peak, colleagues, the day I walked into the arena wearing a pale grey jumpsuit and the only skates available in our house, which were my sister’s white figure skates.

My dear male colleagues, I dare you to show up like that at your local arena. It takes a great deal of humility to face the stares, a solid dose of resilience to survive the comments and, ideally, a clearly marked emergency exit nearby.

But I took my courage in both hands — or rather, both skates — and I pushed through. Despite the taunts and my polyester outfit that was on fire, aesthetically speaking, I took up what would become my favourite sport. Seeing my rapid progress, my impressive jumps and my now intentional spins, my uncle, who had no children but clearly possessed a strong sense of justice, came by one day and gave me a proper pair of black men’s skates.

Although this didn’t solve all the challenges I faced in asserting my masculinity, this new pair of skates piqued the interest of my former teammates, who laughed as they wondered how I was going to handle skating with toe picks.

Well, colleagues, I got the last laugh. Through sheer determination and hard work, I got my sweet revenge a few months later. Our end-of-year show promised to be a memorable event. As the only boy on the program, I was bracing for the reactions of my former hockey teammates. In front of a packed arena, I took to the ice nervously, but alongside the most talented, tallest and, yes, prettiest of the female figure skaters.

We skated with majestic grace to the music from Chariots of Fire. Although this move did cause me some back pain, I lifted my partner up and carried her above my head using just one arm, proudly holding her aloft.

We skated across the rink in this position, to the applause of the crowd and the astonished stares of my former teammates. We were treated to a standing ovation, cheers, thunderous applause. Spurred on by the crowd’s frenzied reaction, we finished our routine with a series of impressive jumps. The experts in this chamber may wish to know that we rounded off our performance with Axels, Lutzes, flips, loops, Salchows and toe loops. There was no doubt about it, colleagues: We were ready for the Ice Capades.

No more nicknames. No more nosy, judgmental stares. Completely stunned, my former buddies shuffled back home looking like scolded puppies. And the very next day, I found out they’d all signed up for gyms and started lifting weights. Apparently, I’d launched a full-blown fitness revolution without knowing it.

From that day forward, I haven’t stopped moving, and I’ve never let anyone stop me from moving the way I want. Walking, jogging, aerobics and dancing are part of my everyday life, because I truly believe that movement is a celebration of life and because it brings me immense joy. It’s the same kind of joy that gets us out of bed every day to come work in this place. It’s the same kind of joy we feel when we take a walk with our partner, family or friends around a beautiful bay or a historic site.

In a world where rapid mental processing and digital overload are an everyday reality, movement reconnects us with a basic truth: We were made to move. We think with our heads — at least I hope we do — but we live through our bodies.

From childhood, movement is our first language. Before words, we communicate through gestures, movements and postures. Over time, however, as we work sitting down, using screens, on Senate benches, trying to keep up with the frantic pace of daily life, we often lose that spontaneous connection to our profoundly dynamic nature.

Re-engaging with sports or physical activity is not about taking on another obligation. It’s about regaining something essential: the sheer, fundamental joy of moving and feeling truly alive.

This intuitive connection between the body, movement and the meaning of life is nothing new. In fact, it sits at the very heart of traditions that have inspired us for a long time.

Watching my Indigenous brothers and sisters dance, I’ve always felt that, for them, dance is far more than just an art form; it is a living language, one that carries memory, values and ancestral teachings. Through movement, rhythm and song, every gesture tells a story, honours past generations and strengthens the bonds within their communities.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to pay tribute to the women athletes in this chamber. I am referring, of course, to Senator McBean, Senator Marty Deacon and Senator Petitclerc. I’d like to express my particular admiration for Senator Petitclerc. Colleagues, I don’t know whether you’ve ever walked around this city with her, but the strength, agility and speed with which our colleague moves and navigates obstacles are impressive and speak volumes about her qualities as an athlete and as a woman.

These women athletes are sources of inspiration for young girls and women in Canada today. When I think of my great-niece Jasmine, who plays hockey and is doing well, it might be easy to believe that the doors are now wide open and that the progress we’ve made is irreversible.

However, it’s clear that a reversal, perhaps even a backlash, is under way in some provinces. Progress we thought was entrenched is now being called into question, sometimes openly, sometimes more insidiously.

One example of that is Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act. While it’s framed as legislation to ensure fairness and safety, it actually creates a legal framework that authorizes — even requires — schools and sport organizations to make athletes provide proof of sex assigned at birth in order to compete in women’s categories.

It establishes mechanisms for confirmation, challenges and verification that expose girls and women to questions about their body, their identity and their eligibility to participate in a sport. By shifting the burden of suspicion onto the athletes themselves, this legal framework turns sport, which should be about empowerment and confidence, into something that is more about surveillance and control.

The logical extension of my tribute to the leadership and courage of women in sport is a reminder that these practices violate privacy, erect new barriers to participation and impose profoundly disproportionate measures. They target trans women, but they ultimately affect all women by reinforcing restrictive standards of femininity and normalizing the idea that women must defend their bodies in order to participate in sport.

That is why I urge the federal government, in allocating new funding to the provinces for sport, to clearly link these funds to respect for Canadian values: inclusion, dignity, equality, and the right of every woman and girl to be able to participate in sport without fear, without humiliation and without having to prove who she is.

Let me conclude by saying this: Inspired by all these athletes, dancers and gymnasts, let us dare to move freely and embrace movement, honourable senators. There is not just one right way to move, but countless ways to inhabit one’s body with joy, pride and freedom.

As for me, colleagues, I’ve finally made peace with our national sport. Yes, I admit it: Watching the excellent and highly inspiring series Heated Rivalry helped reconcile me to hockey. More importantly, though, I now understand that we don’t always need to score more goals to win. Sometimes, we just need to stay in the game and keep skating, because being able to move our bodies in the company of others is the best trophy of all.

Thank you.

Honourable senators, I might bring it down a little bit, but you get me twice in one week. Whether that’s good or bad, I leave that up to you.

Today I would like to speak to an inquiry that I have no doubt resonates with us all in one way, shape or form. I acknowledge and I’m so deeply grateful to Senators Marty Deacon, Marnie McBean and Chantal Petitclerc for their inquiry on the vital role of physical activity and sport. I’m extremely humbled to be sharing my experience in sport and being an athlete in an inquiry with these Olympic-level public servants. I thank them for their leadership here in the Senate and for their Herculean, heroic efforts in Olympic sports and sports across our great country. You inspired the nation time and time again, each of you, so thank you.

For me, where to begin? It’s a tough one for me today. I will be a bit more personal, and I am not comfortable. Sport has been a part of my life — family life, community life, work life — through the darkest of times to many euphoric times and some of the more challenging times.

I would like to frame what I will speak about in advance so you know what is coming; you can make your judgment now. I promise not to speak too long, but chatty Kathy will probably rule.

Today I want to lean into leadership as a beginning. I would like to then jump into community and sport and share a story about a community that I will never ever forget. I would like to run full steam into the empowerment of sport and being an athlete myself, in my own little sort of way. Finally, I would like to cycle through the impact of sport on health and well-being. That’s as funny as I am going to get. You got it with the other senator.

For leadership, I’m simply going to use quotes here. How about, “It’s a team sport”? I overuse these four words all the time. The Senate is a team sport. Family is a team sport. Marathoning is a team sport. Team sport is how life is lived, whether you know it or not. When it is not a team sport, I think that’s when it can be hard.

Here’s another quote: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” Thank you, African proverb, because that describes the epitome of team sport. I have this bracelet that I wear all the time — it is not a prop, it is just a bracelet. It is a gift from an amazing team where we worked together many years ago, and we chanted that proverb. On the inside it reads, “FAR TOGETHER.”

“The hardest part is getting to the start line. Then trust in your training to get to the finish line.” As a former marathoner, that was my mantra — in running and also in all the work I’ve had the privilege of doing in my lifetime. Trust in your training. Do the work to get to the start line. Do the due diligence to get to the start line. The race is to the start line. The rest is strategy and some added fuel and adjustment along the way.

Let’s do some sports quotes, too. Pat Burns said, “You don’t cry because it’s over, you’re happy because it happened” — unless you are a Leafs fan; then you are just crying. I know. “Hockey is a metaphor for life. You have to be willing to get knocked down and get back up.” I say that’s what bravery is: getting up.

Or how about a quote from the great Paralympic athlete Senator Petitclerc:

To me, this is the ultimate proof that if you have a strong commitment to your goals and dreams, if you wake up every day with a passion to do your job or your sport, everything is possible.

That’s grit and determination that are in your hands.

How about we hear from Olympic athlete Senator McBean, and I love this one, short and to the point, about how hope is an attitude? Here is the quote: “It’s a good day to have a good day . . . .”

And then there is Olympic chef de mission Senator Deacon:

Failure is not a weakness but a process. Failure is feedback. The goal is to fail in practice, learn what happened, fix it and show up better the next day. . . .

“There is a lot of remarkableness in the unremarkable.” My dad used to say that all the time, and then he would say, “Just look for it.” Too bad he didn’t say, “Just do it.” We could have coined that phrase.

Here is the thing about sports quotes: They’re all about courage, grit, team, humility and seeing beyond yourself.

Okay, so now I have pumped myself up with some encouraging quotes. I’ve given myself some confidence. I will move to the personal side of sports and me. I’ve said 14 times I’m not comfortable. However, it’s a good day to have a good day, and I’m going to jump into community and sports.

My dad was transferred from Winnipeg — Blue Bombers all the way — to a small town. Sorry, folks from Saskatchewan and Hamilton, but I moved to a small town outside of Hamilton called Dunnville. I always hated that name, but I lived there. We settled there for a quite few years.

As a side note on politics and team sport, my dad ran to be a candidate for the Haldimand—Norfolk riding, a Conservative candidate, and I was a self-appointed brand and marketing manager. I was 10. I had an excellent chant and song in my marketing strategy — remarkable, really — thanks to Aerosmith. You may remember the song; I changed the words a little bit. It was: “Walk this way, vote Jack Hay.” And he lost.

Now I want to introduce you to my brother John Douglas Hay, a kind, shy, not-so-great student, my older brother. I was bossy; he was patient. We went everywhere together. We lived in the country, so our bikes were everything to us. The cornfield was an amazing place for hide-and-seek.

When John started high school, he was not very big, tall or confident — he was an even-keeled kind of kid and plodded along — but he was fast. I was faster, but he was pretty fast. He was humble, so me talking about him here? Not good.

In Grade 9, he tried out for the high school football team, the Dunnville Panthers. It is a big deal in Dunnville. It’s not exactly “Friday Night Lights” but a big deal. He almost made the cut.

Then something happened between Grades 9 and 10. John had a growth spurt. If any of you met my son at my swearing-in, John got that tall and big in a year, and he was still pretty fast.

School was not easy for John. He kept pushing forward. He had a great work ethic — he had that in spades — so he made his way through.

He tried out again, and he made the cut. John was a running back, number 11, third string. John was still shy, a quiet teen. Sport gave him something that unlocked so much. It gave him a community. It gave him permission to take risks. It gave him confidence. In that, the no-so-great student found something in school that he was really great at: computer science in those very early days of the computer. Hold on to that thought for later. Perhaps that is why I love the down-and-out, underdog sports stories. We lived it.

The Panthers were average: win some, lose more. The coaches, a high school football coach and two community members — Dan Dulmage, a former Ti-Cat and dentist, and, yes, Jack Hay — never gave up. I offered to do the marketing for the team. The reply was a polite, hard no.

John was never a star, not a popular jock. He was a workhorse player. He did catch a few in the end zone. In Grade 13, yes, the underdog Dunnville Panthers beat their nemesis, the Cayuga Wildcats, for the championship. This was something. My brother was on a championship team with my dad as the sidekick coach. There was even a parade.

John tried out for the Ti-Cats summer camp that summer. He didn’t make it but, as you can imagine, John didn’t fuss about that kind of stuff. He always dusted off and kept trying to get into the next play.

Sport had done something for him that shaped him so well: He belonged to this community, and he had confidence. He got accepted into Western University, one of the first computer science programs ever there, and he absolutely thrived.

In the second year, he was well beyond what was being taught in the class, and he was already working in research design labs. He made the varsity football team, the Western Mustangs, third string.

At the end of the second year, on May 23, John died in a car crash on his way back to work from having lunch with his girlfriend. A family devastated, a community shocked and a community that rallied around them. That is why I wanted to tell this story.

I rarely ever talk about this, not publicly, anyway. Here is what I will never forget. As my brother’s funeral was ending, and it was that heart-wrenching moment when we all had to leave and follow John out. I remember that being so hard and terrifying, thinking, “He can’t go, not alone.”

The community of sport took care of that. Every single one of his Dunnville Panther teammates from Grade 10, with their jackets on, came up the centre and both aisles of the church. All of them walked in front and walked us out. He wasn’t alone.

His footprints through his short life on and off the field mattered. His footprints remain. I have never, ever forgotten how a community of sport unlocked all of my brother’s potential, and I have never forgotten how that community of sport was there for him until the very end.

On a side note, many years later, I was at Western University for a meeting a couple of years after the Pan Am Games in 2001. They built this amazing sports stadium. I was wandering about.

For their campaign, they sold bricks for $2,001 for the year. I thought that was smart. It had finished. It was a few years after that. I asked if I could buy one and put my brother’s name on a brick in this stadium where, theoretically, he had played. They couldn’t. Everything was complete. They didn’t know where the bricks were.

Here is the thing about the community of sport. A few months later, out of the blue — I totally forgot — the Western University team called to say that they had figured out how to get a brick and that they could do it. Did I want it? I said, “Yes, I want it.”

My mom, sister and I figured out what we wanted on the brick, and now my brother’s name lives there. Here is the fun fact. Remember, he was an early adopter of the world of computer science. Remember, the campaign was already closed. John had died 20-plus years before then. There would have been no way for this to have been orchestrated, none. It is just serendipitous. It is how things happen.

When we went to see it, there was “John Douglas Hay,” his brick, with two pretty large bricks on each side: one was Microsoft and the other one was IBM. I smile when I think of that.

Now I am going to go fast, because that took up a lot of time, but thank you for letting me share my brother with you.

I am going to jump into empowerment. I always use sports as my adrenaline rush. I like goals. I like start lines. I like finish lines. I didn’t know what I was thinking back then — maybe it was my brother — but I decided to run a marathon. My first was Chicago.

I was at the start line, with all my chants. The hardest part is getting to the start line. Trust in your training: I used many words of profanity as I chanted that until the 35-kilometre mark. Then I knew I would make it. I had seven kilometres to go. I could run seven kilometres. That’s the empowerment of sport.

In Chicago, the last 500 metres are lined with stadium seating. There are hundreds of people in the stands. I remember turning that corner into that last 500 metres and hearing so much insane cheering, crazy cheering.

I literally looked around and wondered: Who are they cheering for? Who is back here with the slow pack, at the back of the pack? Then it hit me. They were cheering for me, an athlete among thousands. That is the empowerment you get within a community. That is what I say sport is.

Finally and briefly — I am looking at my time — I want to cycle into impact and well-being.

There is no question that any and all sport — from walking to cycling to running to gardening — plays a vital role in one’s well-being. That is a one-to-one ratio. It’s indisputable. My running and tennis — I long gave up basketball — were anchors to my well-being in life, for hard days, good days and challenging days. It also ended up saving my life.

Senator Hay, I will have to interrupt. Would you like more time?

Yes, please. I would ask for leave.

Is leave granted, honourable senators?

Thank you, colleagues.

I was training again to do the work and to get to that start line. I got a bib for Berlin. I knew how to train. My body knew what to do. I had run at least 100 half-marathons, 10 full ones, Dublin being my tenth. That city knows how to party when they do marathons.

I thought, “Maybe I’m working too hard. Maybe my shoes need to be replaced.” The days were cold. Something was off. I wasn’t right. I used to leave my home in Mississauga and run to Union Station and take the train back. That was training. Now I was struggling to get my groove going. I even had to take the train back from Long Branch. Those of you in Toronto know that’s only two or three stops from my home.

I couldn’t go further. That’s when I decided to get checked, to go to the doctor, get a blood test or something. Nothing much came of it. I was now starting to not even run seven kilometres, which was always my marker in a race, if you remember.

After another couple of trips to the doctor and a few more tests, my marathoning days were definitely over. To be honest, at that moment, I went, “All right. I’m done with that. Thank you.” But my health journey began.

Had I not been training, I may have not noticed that things were not right. I may have not made it, actually, to the fall of that year, according to my doctors.

Training for a marathon probably did not save my life — my doctors did that — but I always wondered, “If not for sport.”

Now I run a much more normal distance. My long runs are — you guessed it — seven kilometres or so. My chronic health issue is now part of my life, and that’s totally okay because I know intimately the vital role that physical activity and sport will have on my well-being today and hopefully long into my future.

When someone asks if being appointed to the Senate is a lifetime appointment, I always say, “I sure hope not.”

Thank you for indulging me in my journey with sport. I thank Senators McBean, Deacon and Petitclerc for your leadership and kindness. I’ve never really shared much of this with anybody outside my tribe. My advice to all of you is to get out there, get moving, lean into something, run, walk, jump, cycle or garden. I guarantee you will find community. You will feel better. You will thrive. It will impact your life. Thank you, chi-meegwetch.