FEATURES

FARRAH KHAN
Manager of Ryerson’s Consent Comes First Office

ROBYN DOOLITTLE
(Journalism ‘06)

As the #MeToo movement has spread around the world, there’s been a huge change in awareness about sexual assault and consent. More and more people are coming forward with their stories. Ryerson University Magazine spoke with Farrah Khan, manager of Ryerson’s Consent Comes First Office, and award-winning Globe and Mail journalist and Ryerson alumna Robyn Doolittle (Journalism ’06), two women who are changing how Canada deals with sexual assault and how survivors are supported. In addition to her work at Ryerson, Khan is responsible for numerous initiatives to educate the public and support survivors. Last spring, at the invitation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Khan joined the Gender Equality Council for Canada’s G7 Presidency. Doolittle is best known for her investigative journalism, most recently the Unfounded series for the Globe and Mail detailing how police handle sexual assaults, which has resulted in major changes to sexual assault investigations across Canada.

RU MAGAZINE: Robyn, how did the Unfounded series come about?

ROBYN: It was back when everyone was talking about the Jian Ghomeshi case and I was wondering if there was a way to look at this from an investigative standpoint. Is the criminal justice system discriminatory against sexual assault complainants, beyond just anecdotal one-off cases?

I came across a study that talked about unfounded rates, which is essentially when police finish an investigation, if they think that it’s not a real investigation, that the complaint is baseless, or it’s false, they designate it unfounded. And, then, it doesn’t count in their statistics.

This seemed to be the most obvious way to prove whether sexual assault cases are being disproportionately dismissed.

I collected all these numbers and nationally, the unfounded rate was 20 per cent. So, one in five complaints were being dismissed. But in 115 communities at least a third of complaints were being dismissed.

Before the series ran, I emailed all the police services (there’s 177 of them), outlining exactly what was in my series. “This is your unfounded rate. This is what the national unfounded rate is. These are the problems I find with the cases. You know, they’re not being investigated properly. They’re being closed before witnesses are being investigated, or being questioned.” I think 10 police services sent me responses.

After the series ran, there was overnight change, partly because ministers in various levels of government were demanding that they change.

We’ve had more than 30,000 cases being reviewed. Hundreds have been reopened. I know of at least a dozen that have resulted in charges.

Half of the country is now being policed by a service that is rolling out, or has rolled out, specialized sexual assault training that has a trauma-informed approach. And, half of the country is being policed by a service that has adopted civilian case review.

It means that those working in the violence-againstwomen field are being invited to review raw police files to look for signs of bias and investigative missteps.

So, in terms of what’s happening in Canada, it’s pretty radical, compared to other places in the world. And, it is totally related to media and political pressure…

22 Ryerson University Magazine / Winter 2019