I think it takes just one comment like some of the high-profile comments we've heard to make victims decide that this isn't a route they're going to take. It was already bad enough before the advent social media, but now it's widespread. Some of these comments are widespread. Just imagine the impact these have on a victim who's thinking about reporting.
We already know that we have issues at the policing level just in terms of training. When a victim goes through all of those steps, and then to think of going through the court and trial process, it is a re-victimization. It takes a lot of courage to do that and to go through the process, and then to think that you might be in front of either a prosecutor or a judge who doesn't understand the law and might make a comment like that.... Really, at the end of the day, it's about attacking the character of the complainant.
To be honest, I think it's ridiculous that we have a situation where people aren't trained and they're dealing with issues like this that are extremely traumatic for people.
It's timely. I saw an article the other day where someone wrote that these kinds of issues should be left up to judges to make the decisions. They're human beings, and we see these kinds of issues.... Again, I'll reiterate that the only reason we know about some of these cases is that there happened to be a reporter sitting in a courtroom.
Again, often these are oral decisions, not written decisions. When they're oral decisions, yes, they're transcribed, but if you want to get access to that document, usually you have to go through the FOIP process. You have to pay for it. It's cumbersome, even if you're trying to do research on the accumulation of these kinds of comments. There's a woman—I think it's Dr. Craig—at Dalhousie who has spent a fortune just in trying to accumulate the kind of information and research that goes to make the case that we need better training.
We need to see more written decisions and more transparency. Frankly, the Judicial Council should just step up and say that we're going to have better training, it's going to be transparent, we're going to work with experts to make sure it's good, and we're going to mandate it.