Yes. Thank you.
Can you imagine if, in your family, someone was murdered and the federal government didn't think that it was appropriate to let you know that the offender was being released, or if you could participate in a parole hearing but they didn't tell you that it was happening. That's the problem. Nobody has a legal responsibility, prior to Bill S-12, to inform people, certainly on the federal side, about how to register to receive information. That's a major source of complaints to our office.
There are women who participated in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, who have family members who disappeared or were killed, and still, after all of that process, they aren't being told about these hearings and about the release of people back into their communities, so this change has to happen.
I think we need to improve overall information. I'll just highlight why independent legal advice is really important in sexual assault.
We had a complaint recently where somebody said, “I wish that someone had told me to speak to a lawyer before I reported it to the police, because I told them that I had seen a counsellor and that I was journaling.” Both of those things became part of the disclosure and were subpoenaed by the offender. In the end, the complainant stayed their charges because it felt like such a personal invasion.
This is happening across the board, where survivors' experiences are not being protected in the way that we do justice. That is certainly the case with this issue of therapeutic records, which I know has passed through the Supreme Court and has had different perspectives. However, I don't think that a survivor-centred perspective has been fully considered on that, and it could be better protected with independent legal advice.