Two and a half years have passed since I first wished to publish such a letter. Two and a half years that I refrain from spreading these words.
I was sexually assaulted by a fellow MP in October 2017. If I first chose to store this event in a small box in my brain, it was because denial seemed easier to me than its alternative: denounce. I was 25 years old, I had been elected for less than a year and I didn’t want to make waves. However, I learned that it is not because we want to forget that we forget.
Between the aggression and the moment of my denunciation, I often found myself cowardly. While my public statements encouraged victims to file complaints, I myself was not ready to face the legal system. I also blamed myself for remaining silent, since I felt that by doing so, other women were at risk of going through what I had gone through. I felt selfish and hypocritical.
In July 2020, after a long personal journey at the end of which I finally decided to file a complaint, I gathered all my courage to go to a Sûreté du Québec police station, where I was greeted with tact, respect and empathy by the agent, even though it was 4:45 p.m. on a Friday. A week later, I met with a major crimes investigator to record my testimony, still in the open. I was then referred to an investigator in the area where the crime had been committed.
This investigator became the person in charge of my file, the one with whom I was able to be in contact throughout the investigation process, which stretched over several months. Available and caring, he was a huge support for me. If I insist on the quality of the work of the police, it is because I am convinced that it is important to underline the advances of the system, but for things to continue to improve, it is also necessary to bring to light its failures. .
We decided for me
In July 2020, I decided to file a complaint because I was assured beforehand that my identity would be protected, a possibility that I was unaware of before. This guarantee of anonymity is what convinced me to go ahead: it was the turning point in my journey.
There are all sorts of reasons why a victim may not want to file a complaint against an abuser, or decide to do so later in life. I have mine. One of them concerned my professional occupation, as well as that of the other person involved in the story. The last thing I wanted was to have to deal with a media storm concerning me, at the same time as having to deal with the emotions that such a denunciation can arouse.
I could neither change nor ignore what had happened to me, but it seemed legitimate to me not to want to be at the heart of an affair that was never sought. Even more, I especially wanted to protect my parents, my brothers, my grandmother and my relatives from a sentence that I considered unnecessary, by putting them at the same time sheltered from the media hype. In the end, I had no choice: they decided for me.
Protection of the identity of victims of sexual assault is provided for in section 486.4 of the Criminal Code. This section provides that a publication ban prohibits anyone “from distributing or publishing in any way any information that would establish the identity of the victim”. Thus, all the stakeholders involved in my process (Juripop, CAVAC, SQ, DPCP) assured me — and repeated 1001 times, in view of my insistent requests — that all that should be accessible to the media and the public was the city and the year of the crime, as well as the name of the assailant and the charge laid against him: nothing more than that. At least that’s the promise I was made for six months.
62 minutes. This is the time it will have finally taken between the arrest of my attacker on December 15, 2020 and the communication of information allowing me to be identified in the media (my function, my place of work, my age, the date of the event, the setting in which the attack took place, etc. — everything happened there). But the worst was yet to come. At the end of the day, a columnist revealed my name directly on television, as part of a program broadcast at prime time, throughout Quebec.
When I think back to that day, my heart still hurts. Heartbreak for this mess in the communications of the police force responsible for carrying out the operation. Heartbroken at the too late reactions of the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) in his attempts to rectify the situation. Evil at the heart of the game in which most of the media have indulged. I can also still imagine the disappointment felt by all the stakeholders in the system who had accompanied me with such professionalism since day 1.
Taking responsibility
On the stroke of emotion, a few days later, I wanted to publish an anonymous open letter to denounce the situation. The prosecutor assigned to the file strongly advised me not to go ahead, which I quickly understood and accepted. However, my letter had to be sent immediately to the opposing party, because the DPCP must provide all the elements relating to the case to the defense lawyers.
Several excerpts from the text that you currently have in front of you are taken from this letter of December 2020, because two and a half years later, they still reflect my thoughts just as well. If the anger and the feeling of betrayal are necessarily less intense over time, I remain deeply hurt and marked by the consequences of this non-compliance with the order. I hope today that my speech will serve to ensure that victims are better protected.
In July 2020, in the midst of a wave of denunciations, I could have told my story anonymously on social networks, but I chose to trust the justice system. The least we could do would be to collectively ensure that the identity of the victims is at least as protected there as it can be behind a Facebook page or a Twitter avatar.
Famous figures or not, there are real people behind the victims of sexual assault. People with family and friends. People with feelings, motivations, aspirations and hopes. People who, by requesting recourse to the publication ban duly provided for in the Criminal Code, are making a choice that should be theirs alone.
It is to these people that we should give priority when such a file is dealt with in the public arena. I call for accountability.