Thank you.
This is a difficult issue for many reasons, because in society it is a difficult issue, so I can understand some of the things you face. You mentioned the United States and the disincentives, the penalties, that are put in place by the federal government. The federal government in the United States, however, is responsible for education and here we're not. There's this constitutional thing that prevents us from doing it.
There are tools that we can use, and you are right that one of them is the federal government. The only problem is that the transfer of the PSE is a bulk transfer, so how you use that as a club is going to be very difficult. I wanted to ask if you have thought about how it can be used in the Canadian context, because that's a very important piece.
We're talking about how we penalize, but I liked your idea of an independent person, where there is a confidential safe place for people to report and for people to be accused. This way, both the “perpetrator” and the victim can go and have this safe, confidential hearing by a person who knows what they're doing and who has an expertise. There is a feeling there isn't anything like this, that nobody wants to go to the university and the university is using blackmail tactics. You go and the next thing is that you can't get in the next year or you feel the faculty might turn against you. I like that idea of an independent person. I think it's a very elegant way of dealing with the problem.
Those are important pieces you bring up, and I think it's worthwhile for the committee—I'm not a member of the committee—to think about with respect to recommendations. This is something Australia has done very well, because this culture is pervasive in society. There's what Donald Trump said and everybody saying it was just locker-room talk. The acceptance that this is locker-room talk is just not right. The federal government has a real role to play in doing public service announcements, doing public education. In Australia, they succeeded very well by having national athletes, Olympians, whom students, including male students, really admire, who are supposed to be “the jocks”. When they speak out and talk about violence and sexual violence, it has made a real impact in what has happened in Australian society, never mind in universities where people can see each other.
I think there's a role in public education that the federal government can play without crossing any jurisdictional boundaries.
Finally, I want to ask a question about prevention. This is very important. How do we change the culture? How do we help young girls who have come from immigrant families, first generation? Their parents don't want to talk about this. This discussion is a no-no. How do we prepare them? Is there a role for the high school, cultural organizations, or NGOs to play in helping young people to be ready for going to university, where they're really thrown into the deep end and their parents don't want to discuss it? Is there a role for NGOs in this?
I know we did this when I was minister of status of women. We did it with churches and we did it with NGOs in order to break through the cultural no-no attitude towards talking about anything, the denial phase.
I wondered if you saw any way of doing that.