Sexual Assault - Raise Awareness, Stop Violence, Support Survivors

Mr. Speaker, sexual assault is a difficult topic, as my colleague just mentioned. I would like to start out my remarks on this topic by saying that we need to believe survivors. Survivors can be any gender, but they are more likely to be women or non-binary folks. We need to believe these people, we need to support them, but most importantly, it is our opinion that we need to dismantle the systemic barriers that perpetuate the cycles of sexual violence and assault.

I believe that that is our role in this Chamber. I think there is an ecosystem required to engender the cultural change that we need to shift this cycle that has been going on - who knows, maybe since humans took their first steps. Regardless of how long it has been going on, it needs to stop. As legislators, I would suggest that our role is to change the systems that perpetuate that.

Those systems can be the big systems. That can be core stable funding for all of the incredible frontline organizations who know how to do this work - folks like the YWCA, the TESS network, women's centres across the province, the Elizabeth Fry Society, Coverdale, the people working with women who are disclosing, and obviously transition houses.

It can also be on the micro level. It can be calling out the misogyny that we see on display. It happens in this Chamber. It happens in the locker room. It happens in school. Yesterday or the day before I made a member's statement about the situation at a school recently in the Annapolis Valley where a woman - a girl - sat down and the boy in front of her was wearing a T-shirt that read, and I have tabled this document, "'tis the season to be rapey." I referenced that phrase as being part of rape culture.

My colleague who just spoke said that a lot of things that she referenced might make people feel uncomfortable. The term "rape culture" is a term that would make people feel uncomfortable, but I think as we seek to dismantle these systems, we need to be really careful about the language we use. This is the kind of language we need to use. It's not a joke. It's not funny. It is harmful, and it is language like that, it is jokes like that, that have a direct line to the shocking statistics that we see about sexual assault.

The member just now shared a personal story. When we talk about topics like this, it is always my inclination not to share the personal story, because I don't - for myself, I feel like I want to be able to stand as a woman in this Chamber and speak about this from a policy lens, but I will acknowledge that statistically, the majority of us in this Chamber have experienced sexual assault. That is just absolute fact. It's incontrovertible, and it's terrible.

To my colleagues in this Chamber who have not experienced that, think about that for a minute: statistically speaking, the vast majority of your female colleagues in this Chamber, of your female staff, of your family, of all of the women that you know have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime. It's a sort of common sense. You see the statistics, and then when you drill down and look at it, it never ceases to be shocking.

A 2019 telephone survey conducted for DCS - the Department of Community Services - found that a majority of residents of Nova Scotia think that domestic violence can be provoked. Think about that for a minute: Yeah, well, you know, she was asking for it. Right? We hear that. She was asking for it. Again, these are phrases - I'm 44 years old, so I've lived enough years that things stick. How many times have we heard that phrase? She was asking for it. She was asking for it.

Now we know - it's sort of in the zeitgeist that we say, "Well, that's wrong. That's bad." But it doesn't stop you from hearing that, and it's not true. You don't ask for it. There is never a situation when it is okay for a woman to be assaulted in all the ways that the member previous described in the Criminal Code. It is never okay.

If we are going to stop this cycle, I would say that all of the work that our caucus has done, that all these folks on the front lines are doing simply to achieve gender equity in every field, to lift up women, to make sure that women are able to live fully human lives, woman and non-binary folks, that is a pre-condition I would suggest for changing the culture of sexual assault. If we are going to do that, we have to tackle the gender roles and stereotypes and biases that we have.

When we bring forward legislation like changing the gender markers in Vital Statistics, I think often there is this view of like, oh, that is another niche NDP bill. Of course, the NDP would bring a bill like that, instead of thinking about important things like tax breaks or whatever it is that everyone else thinks is important.

I suggest that it is incredibly important because in the NDP, and I am sure we have other colleagues in other Parties, we understand that this is a life cycle. This is an ecosystem, and it starts with one word, and it ends up in violence. This happens all the time. We have all seen it in our own lifetimes, and it needs to stop, and we can play a really big role in that.

I would join my colleague who just spoke in suggesting that we have a very strong role to play. Again I want to close by saying that there are remarkable people in this province, and I think in my own constituency of women like Charlene Gagnon, who has led the incredible work that the YWCA has done on human trafficking; but many, many others; Emma Halpern with the Elizabeth Fry Society. I will note that criminalized women statistically have almost all suffered sexual assault and sexualized trauma in their lifetimes.

Think about that - how does that impact your life choices and your life outcomes? I think about these folks on the front lines, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are undersupported, they are underfunded, they are underappreciated. My contribution to this conversation, to this very important topic in this room at this time is to say, if we are serious about ending sexual assault, about breaking that cycle, breaking the cycle of violence, then we need to put our resources, our beliefs, our money where our mouth is. These organizations need stable, multi-year funding to do the work that they do, to do the work that very often - our judicial system, our constituency offices, our frontline workers - refer people to them constantly to do.

Government often refers to these folks on the front line as their partners. Be a partner. Give these folks the funding they need, create the systems that are sustainable, ensure that individual MLAs do not have to go begging to have sexual assault nurse examiners and other sexual assault services in their constituencies. Just make sure that they exist everywhere, and with those actions I believe that all of us in this Chamber, that this government can make a dent.