Are police in Canada a barrier to properly addressing gender based violence?

I recently wrote a case comment about the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Janzen v. Platy Enterprises Ltd. (read LEAF's factum here). I argued that the Supreme Court erred when it failed to position the sex discrimination faced by the two young women within the context of gender based violence and that young women were particularly susceptible to gender based violence in the workplace due to their social location. These are ideas that I explored in my discussion about the lawsuit launched by Jamie Laskis against Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt LLP. When thinking about sex discrimination it's important to position it within the historical context and identify the conditions in which it is perpetuated.

Sex discrimination against young women was highlighted this week in two incidents from Toronto area universities. Osgoode Hall Law School was thrust into the news when Constable Michael Sanguinetti of the Toronto Police Service told a group of students that they could avoid sexual assaults by not dressing like "sluts". He quickly apologized, but the damage was already done.  The University of Waterloo recently experienced posters (second one: here) and a fake email being circulated attacking women. The university's response was to close two centres devoted to female and queer students, a perplexing course of action and probably what the perpetrator desire. Incredibly, Dan Anderson, the Director of the University of Waterloo Police Service, stated that the posters (and presumably the email) "do not reach the standard of a criminal offense". Now I'm not a police officer, but s. 403(1)(c) of the Criminal Code which addresses identity fraud seems to capture the situation of a fraudulent email purporting to be from the university president and if there was a successful prosecution certainly s. 718.2(a)(i) which addresses sentencing principles when a crime is "motivated by bias, prejudice, or hate" could be utilized by the Crown Attorney to argue for a harsher sentence.

 

Both of these incidents highlight the continuing problem of sex discrimination and a reluctance by the state to address this problem through the police, the courts, or by utilizing other public policy instruments. Particularly disturbing is that there apparently hasn't been a lot of change on how the police address gender based violence, this of course is when the police aren't allegedly perpetrating gender based violence themselves (see David Tanovich's analysis of the Stacy Bonds case). In the article Jane Doe states "In 2007, I was paid by the Toronto Police Services Board to monitor their sexual assault training for two weeks and the course is riddled with sexist and racist myths and attitudes about rape. I produced an assessment for them and it quickly disappeared." The systemic problems that exist within government institutions act as barriers to addressing gender based violence and perpetuates inequality and oppression in Canada. Governments within in Canada would should be taking a more proactive stance towards addressing gender based violence and seek to rapidly modernize the ways in which police respond to gender based violence in all forms.

For past articles about sex discrimination, see: here, here, and here. If you have any comments, please email me.