Source:  News Release/Julie Cull

Findings Related to an Appeal by Lorraine Stubbs against Dressage Canada

Equine Canada is announcing the results of an inquiry the federation has conducted in response to an Appeal filed by Lorraine Stubbs against decisions by Dressage Canada, pursuant to our Appeals Policy.

Dressage Canada (“DC”) is a discipline committee created by Equine Canada to administer our domestic Dressage system and our national Dressage teams, and to develop Dressage athletes and the sport of Dressage. Dressage Canada is led by the Dressage Canada board, composed of volunteers elected by those individual members of Equine Canada who have exercised the option of becoming members of Dressage Canada, and of volunteers named by some Dressage Canada board committees. The DC Athletes Council is a standing committee of Dressage Canada, comprised of Canada’s high performance (long-listed and short-listed) Dressage riders, and represents the views of athletes in DC decision-making processes and to the Dressage Canada board. The DC High Performance Committee is a standing committee of Dressage Canada, responsible for the development, selection, training, and deployment of Equine Canada’s high performance Dressage athletes and Dressage teams.

Lorraine Stubbs is a member of Equine Canada and of Dressage Canada. She is also accredited by Equine Canada as a senior Dressage judge and by the International Equestrian Federation as a 4-star Dressage judge. On 30 March 2011, the Dressage Canada board ratified an earlier decision by the DC High Performance Committee to name Ms Stubbs as chair of that committee.

On 24 August 2011, the DC Athletes Council met and adopted a resolution asking the Dressage Canada board to remove Ms Stubbs from her role as chair of the DC High Performance Committee, due to concerns by the DC Athletes Council that there is a conflict of interest in having a Dressage judge serve as chair of the DC High Performance Committee. There were no allegations of wrongdoing by Ms Stubbs.

During an in-camera session at its meeting of 25 August 2011, the Dressage Canada board received the resolution from the DC Athletes Council. The Dressage Canada board reminded Ms Stubbs that, as per the Equine Canada “Conflict of Interest Guidelines for Councils and Committees”, she would be required to recuse herself from the vote on the matter.

Equine Canada has received contrasting and irreconcilable accounts from those present of how that meeting unfolded, how much prior notice Ms Stubbs’ received, and what opportunity she had to participate in the process. Although minutes of the meeting were produced, the meeting itself was not recorded. Subsequent events, however, supersede the differences in those accounts.

It is clear that by the end of its meeting, the Dressage Canada board voted to ask Ms Stubbs for her resignation.

Immediately afterwards, the chair of the Dressage Canada board telephoned Ms Stubbs and informed her of the results of the vote. During the course of that conversation, Ms Stubbs orally conveyed her resignation as chair of the DC High Performance Committee and as a member of the Dressage Canada board. Ms Stubbs has subsequently stated that she uttered her words of resignation believing that she had no alternative, that she felt the Dressage Canada board decision was taken in response to a rushed process that did not afford her sufficient opportunity to fully understand the concerns, study the situation, review her options, and respond meaningfully.

On 29 August 2011, the Dressage Canada board issued a public advisory through Equine Canada, “announc[ing] the regretful resignation of Lorraine Stubbs as chair of the Dressage Canada High Performance Committee”. On 06 September 2011, the DC Athletes Council circulated through Equine Canada an e-mail to its members, stating that the Dressage Canada board had paid heed to the athletes’ concerns and had “fulfilled our recommendation to have Lorraine Stubbs removed as chair of the High Performance Committee”.

Ms Stubbs filed an Appeal with Equine Canada, asking the federation to invalidate her departure as chair of the DC High Performance Committee and as a member of the Dressage Canada board.

Equine Canada has come to the following conclusions:

1. Under the terms of the “Dressage Canada Board Member Resignation/Dismissal Policy”, a resignation by a Dressage Canada board member must be offered in writing to be valid. Notwithstanding Ms Stubbs’ oral statement during her telephone conversation of 25 August 2011 with the chair of the Dressage Canada board – and irrespective of her motivations or the background leading to that statement – all parties are agreed that she did not and has not filed a letter of resignation. As a result, she can not properly be said to have resigned. It is, therefore, the finding of Equine Canada that Ms Stubbs remains chair of the DC High Performance Committee and a member of the Dressage Canada board.

2. In the absence of a written letter of resignation, the Dressage Canada board erred in announcing that it had accepted Ms Stubbs’ resignation. In consequence, the DC Athletes Council e-mail of 06 September 2011 was also erroneous. Although these actions were taken in the good faith belief that Ms Stubbs’ oral resignation was sufficient, that belief was mistaken. It is, therefore, the decision of Equine Canada that this error be rectified by the public issuance of this report.

3. The “Dressage Canada Governance and Policy Manual” is largely silent on questions of how a motion of non-confidence in a Dressage Canada board member should be managed: how much notice should the subject receive prior to the motion being moved at a meeting; what information the subject is entitled to receive; what are the duties and responsibilities of the subject in co-operating with efforts to come to a fair and reasoned decision; what are the subject’s rights in replying to the stated grounds for removal. In Ms Stubbs’ case, this gap had no bearing on the ultimate outcome of her Appeal, which was instead decided by the absence of a written letter of resignation. However, this case does illustrate that this gap in Dressage Canada’s rules of procedure can lead to confusion over due process. It is, therefore, the direction of Equine Canada to the Dressage Canada board to properly elaborate the process in writing within ninety days of the issuance of this report.

4. The “Dressage Canada Board Member Resignation/Dismissal Policy” states, “No member shall, [sic] discuss the reasons behind any resignation of any member of the Board.” This appears to represent a well-intentioned effort to uphold the legitimate expectations of privacy of volunteers who resign for personal reasons. However, it is equally clear that the absence of any substantive explanation for a resignation (or apparent resignation) can feed uninformed speculation about the causes of a resignation, which may in turn unfairly damage the reputations of the individual in question, of the other members of the Dressage Canada board, and of Dressage Canada as an organisation. It is, therefore, the direction of Equine Canada to the Dressage Canada board to review this policy and report to the Equine Canada Sport Council its proposed amendments within ninety days of the issuance of this report.

5. As the body ultimately responsible for Dressage Canada, Equine Canada expresses its regret and sincerely apologies to Ms Stubbs and to the other members of the Dressage Canada board for any distress that precipitous statements, errors in process, and public speculation may have caused them.

To enable us to identify any errors or omissions in this report, Equine Canada shared draft copies of our findings and directions with Ms Stubbs and with the chair of the Dressage Canada board for their comments.

Because the substantive matter leading to Ms Stubbs’ Appeal under the Equine Canada Appeals Process has been reversed, the federation considers her Appeal closed. However, Ms Stubbs retains the right to pursue a complaint under the Equine Canada Complaints Process, if she wishes to do so.

About Equine Canada
Equine Canada is Canada’s national governing body for equestrianism.  A member-driven, charitable institution, it is the executive branch of the Canadian Equestrian Team, and the national authority for equestrian competition; the national voice for recreational riders; and the national association for equine welfare, breeding, and industry.  Equine Canada is recognised by the Government of Canada, the International Equestrian Federation (FEI), and the Canadian Olympic Committee as the national organisation representing equestrian sport and equine interests. For more information about Equine Canada, please visit www.equinecanada.ca.

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