That's a great question. Thank you. I love that question. It gets me so excited.
This sounds sort of silly, but as a public educator, I could do a two-hour workshop, and especially men will write in the evaluation form that what they took away the most was me reminding them that people are as likely to set their house on fire for insurance purposes as they are to make false claims of sexual assault, but you wouldn't know that from watching the news.
People need to know that statistically the rates of people making up false claims are the same as or lower than they are other crimes. That narrative is not out there. People think I have some sort of ulterior motive and say that it benefits me to make that statement, but that's the reality.
If you have a police force...in Ottawa, where we had very high rates of sexual assaults that were being dismissed, that became its own news story. We all knew that was in no way accurate.
I think when you are making legislation, when you're having conversations about the law and sexual assault, which sounds like that's really the question, it's around reminding people that we don't treat other crimes with the same level of doubt as we do with sexual assault. That's not a coincidence; that's purposeful.
Those who benefit from lies around sexual violence are perpetrators, and most perpetrators are repeat offenders. Why? It's because women don't come forward. Why? It's because we blame them. However, it starts from the premise of why we treat it as though everyone who comes forward around sexual assault is lying, when the statistics are the same as, or lower than, they are for other crimes.