Thank you so much.
Hello, everyone.
I will be doing my presentation in French.
I'm happy to answer questions in English.
I am appearing before your committee as the spokesperson and Executive Director of Juripop.
Juripop is a nonprofit organization founded in 2009. Our mission is to improve access to justice throughout Quebec. Our services are available through a team of 35 people based in Montréal.
We were asked to appear before you today because of our expertise in providing legal support to people who have experienced gender-based violence.
For more than five years, Juripop has supported thousands of victims of sexual violence, domestic violence and harassment in the workplace in Quebec. We help victims and survivors understand their rights in all areas of the law and to assert them, whether it be through an internal administrative investigation, after a complaint to the police, or a civil suit.
Our expertise truly lies in the factors underpinning victims’ understanding or not of their rights; their trust or lack of it in a truth-seeking process; and obtaining justice after sexual violence.
In my remarks today, I will share observations drawn from our experiences with victimized individuals and survivors.
We are not experts in sports. We are active in several areas where we can draw significant parallels, such as power imbalances, be they due to positions of power or age, and where sexual violence is prevalent, as seems to be the case in the sports community.
I’d like to present what we consider ideal parameters for internal justice. By “internal justice,” I mean a process for seeking the truth, sanctions and remediation implemented by the organization where sexual violence has occurred. I will therefore emphasize the factors we consider essential to the success of a process with victims. It ensures that people feel heard and maintains or reestablishes their trust in the organization.
I will go quickly to stay within my time. Don’t hesitate to ask questions if needed.
First of all, for people who are victims, it is essential to ensure confidentiality of the complaint. I cannot stress this enough. People want their complaints to be confidential. We realize this is not always possible. We’ve seen situations where organizations committed to ensuring complaint confidentiality, but in the end, they were unable to meet that commitment.
Therefore, we recommend that if a complaint cannot remain confidential, it’s essential to be transparent with the victimized individual and inform them in advance, as well as on an ongoing basis.
Quality internal justice, in our view, is led by an independent and impartial entity. The organization’s investigative mechanisms are very unlikely to gain the support or trust of victimized individuals, be it due to a real conflict of interest, or the appearance of a conflict of interest. It is therefore essential for an independent entity to lead the process.
The process must be fast as well. All too often, we see internal processes that take months. If an entity wishes to proceed with an internal investigation, it must grant priority to the investigation and dedicate the human and material resources required to lead it quickly. Otherwise, it could lead to work stoppages and mental health issues, or the individual who initially decided to participate in the process may quit.
It’s also essential to support the person who was victimized or the complainant on two levels.
First, it’s important to offer them psychosocial resources to put them in a good frame of mind and, second, to offer legal support resources.
That’s what we do at Juripop: we support people who file a complaint with an employer. Our role is not to replace an investigator. It is to be present for the victim in order to explain the investigation, as well as make sure that the person is able to understand their rights and assert them throughout the process.
There’s another important aspect, but it’s controversial. It’s communication of the investigation’s findings. Obviously, the detailed report usually remains confidential, specifically to protect witness confidentiality. However, the conclusions must be communicated and explained to the complainant; otherwise there’s a sense of misunderstanding or breach of trust…