Madam Speaker, I would like to start by thanking everyone for their great interventions in this conversation that we have had. It is more of an apt description to call it a conversation as opposed to a debate.
I would also like to take this opportunity to say it was great to hear the words of the parliamentary secretary. I would also like to recommit to him, as we did the first time we went through this, to work with the Province of Ontario to make sure we can have this be more effective, perhaps expanding it to our province, as well. I am looking to working with him and the provincial government to hopefully have it also include something like this in its legislature.
Bill C-3 is an act to amend the Judges Act and the Criminal Code. I believe that this bill is fundamentally a step in the right direction. The justice system is of course supposed to be a safe place for victims of sexual assault. However, as many have commented, as a member of the bar and as a member of the justice system, I have seen complainants revictimized by the system over and over again.
Sexual assault is the only violent crime in Canada that is not declining. Out of over 500,000 sexual assaults, only 3% are reported to the police. While one in three women and one in eight men will experience some form of sexual violence in their lifetime, the majority of sexual assault crimes are not reported to police. In fact, of all the types of crime, sexual assault is the least reported to police. While the rate of self-reported sexual assaults has remained relatively stable, the percentage of offences reported to police has dropped from 12% in 2009 to 5% in 2014.
Why is it that victims of sexual assault just do not feel comfortable going to the justice system for support?
It is estimated, as some of my colleagues have commented, that fewer than 1% of sexual assault cases experienced by women lead to an offender being convicted. Believe it or not, this is even worse for vulnerable women in our society. Young women, women with disabilities, indigenous women, particularly those in the north and the territories, have a much more heightened risk of sexual assault.
To highlight this, to say that these are not just words, they are not just numbers, I would like to tell a story of the truth of a 12-year-old aboriginal girl who lived in Saskatchewan. This comes from Sexual Assault in Canada, edited by Elizabeth Sheehy. This young lady had a fight with her parents, as many teenagers have, and, as many teenagers have in the past, myself included, she went to blow off steam. She walked down the road. Unfortunately, she met up with three men who befriended her and gave her alcohol. Eventually, they got her intoxicated to the point of vomiting. At this point, they decided to hold her down and rape her. When they dropped her off at her friend's house, she was frantically crying and screaming.
Two of these three men were found not guilty, as the judge believed the testimony that they thought she was over 15 and had consented. This, despite the fact that she was 12, drunk, being held down and was vomiting at the time. One of the three men was convicted. He received a sentence of two years less a day, hardly having the book thrown at him.
To make it all worse, to make the trauma even worse for this young lady, the police officer, when questioned in court, said, of the intoxicated 12-year-old girl, “Well, she might have been the sexual aggressor.”
For this to go on in Canada is utterly and completely unacceptable. It is really incomprehensible that in this great country of Canada we have things like this going on. While I cannot begin to imagine what it is like for a victim of a sexual assault to have had this experience, I know there are many reasons why victims may not come forward. Victims might experience a range of psychological responses. They might feel grief, shame or denial, and these are reasons why they do not feel comfortable. To make it worse, they may not have faith in our criminal justice system.
It has been reported that women feel revictimized, over and over again. In the last 10 years, as some of my colleagues have mentioned, these are some of the statements from justices. One commented, “Well, why could she not just keep her knees together?” Another commented, “Why did the victim not scream?” One of the worst I have heard is, “Why did the victim not simply skew her pelvis to avoid penetration?”
I am paraphrasing because the actual language in these comments is unparliamentary. How anyone, particularly a justice, can think they are appropriate in a court of law is astonishing. Our government, our justice system and our society must do better.
According to the Canadian Women's Foundation, while 96% of Canadians believe all sexual activity should be consensual, only one in three Canadians actually understand the meaning of the word consent. We have to make sure judges are not part of that two out of three and they understand that unless there is a clear “yes”, it is a “no.” Coming forward and reporting assault to police is hard enough for women. We need to do everything we can to ensure victims of sexual assault are supported. The justice system is the last thing they should fear.
Women who have had the courage and perseverance to make it through years in the justice system, reliving their pain every step of the way, are often faced with yet another blow. The perpetrator, the one who has changed their lives forever and destroyed dreams, brought on addiction, poverty and a lifetime of mental illness, will be given an almost non-existent sentence.
According to StatsCan, from 2009 to 2014 only 21% of sexual assaults completed their court case within six years. Some 60% of those cases were pleaded down to a lesser offence, so the perpetrator avoids custody for the most part. For cases that made it to completion, approximately half, or 55%, will result in any time in prison for the perpetrator. Of the tiny percentage of sexual assault perpetrators who are actually sentenced, most will not receive a day in prison. What will they receive? Average probation for sexual assault is 730 days. A woman's life is destroyed and the price is a couple of years of checking in with one's parole officer. That is not good enough.
If there is anything we can do in the system for victims of sexual assault we should do it, and we should do it not tomorrow, not today, but yesterday. I will definitely be supporting this bill. In fact, I salute the government for bringing it forward and thank it for doing so. Perhaps by giving the judges the necessary training, we can avoid the outlandish comments in the future and give victims more confidence in our justice system so they know they will be treated with respect when they perform the act of bravery of confronting their perpetrator.
Fixing the criminal justice system is about helping our federal judges begin to understand the suffering of our victims and teaching our judges to be more compassionate toward victims. The bill is not simply about fixing our justice system, it is about making Canada a safer place for all women and children.
I am a son, a brother, a husband and a father. I worry about my loved ones. I worry about my five-year-old daughter. I find the history of our justice system appalling. We need to make Canada a safer place, a place where victims have faith in our justice system, where everyone knows the meaning of consent, where women can feel comfortable walking alone, walking with anyone and walking anywhere they want wearing whatever they want, knowing society will always be there to protect them.
Bill C-3 is a positive change, albeit a modest one, that will help Canada be a safer place for my daughter, my mother, my sisters and for all Canadians. I will be supporting it wholeheartedly.