Justice committee  Right now, the Criminal Code says: the presiding judge or justice shall...at the first reasonable opportunity, inform any...victim of the right to make an application for the order In practice, this doesn't happen. A victim doesn't see a judge until way down the line, and pub

Justice committee  I think a big piece is information. Everyone approaches navigating the legal system a little differently. I'm very Type A, so I wanted to have every single piece of information I could possibly have. The problem was that it's all very piecemeal. Trying to understand the complexit

Justice committee  I think it's definitely assumed by Crown attorneys that everyone will want one, so they put them on without asking. I would have never wanted one. Many of the women I speak to also wouldn't have wanted one. It should be about consent. It's a foundational element of feminism and

Justice committee  I'll give you the long form of my recommendations. Those were the short ones in my opening remarks. What I'm hoping to see is an ability that allows victim complainants the chance to publish, broadcast and transmit self-identifying information at any point in proceedings without

Justice committee  Absolutely. Publication bans are really important tools and under no circumstance should people not have access to them. I respect any victim of a sexual offence who chooses to keep her publication ban in place, but for people who don't want them, we need to make sure our process

Justice committee  In terms of consultation with the Crown or any lawyers, I received literally none. The only reason I knew there was a publication ban on my name was that the judge mentioned it in passing during the sentencing hearing. I, as the victim, was on the call completely shocked, because

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  When I asked the Crown to lift it.... In my case, we had a lunch break, and the judge in the first half mentioned the publication ban. When I heard this, I sent an email to my victim services worker and said, “Tell the Crown to lift this. I don't want it.” They went back and fort

Justice committee  The problem is that at that point I had already delivered my victim impact statement. As a victim, you are a witness to a crime. You don't actually have the right to participate in proceedings, so I couldn't actually say anything. However, being me, I put myself off of mute and a

Justice committee  I was only able to speak to the Crown attorney in my case once they had decided that they would be doing a joint submission with the defence. My sexual assault case ended up having a plea deal for the lesser charge of assault. When the Crown came to the determination that this is

Justice committee  Thank you. In January 2020, Matthew McKnight was found guilty of five counts of sexual assault. His 13 victims in Edmonton have not lifted their publican bans, but I want to tell you about N.T. She said that sharing her story was an incredibly important part of healing. She foug

Justice committee  There are three parts to the Victims Bill of Rights—information, protection and participation—that I look at particularly as a victim. Throughout the process, as I navigated the legal system, I felt that those did not apply to me. I was not protected, due to either malice or ne

Justice committee  I would like to thank our host, the Algonquin Anishinabe people. I hope your study incorporates the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action, notably call to action 36 on culturally relevant services, call to action 41 on addressing the victimization of women and gi