The game of motions reached a new height of ridicule last week when the National Assembly unanimously denounced “the choice of words used in a recent judgment of the Supreme Court to designate women”.
Here is the motion in full:
“That the National Assembly denounces the choice of words used in a recent judgment of the Supreme Court to designate women; “That she reiterates the importance of retaining the word “woman”; “That she dissociates herself from the use of terms or concepts that contribute to making women invisible; “Let her recall the significant gains made in recent decades to advance women’s rights and the need to protect these acquired rights. »
Who can be stupid enough to promote the invisibility of women?
Result of the vote: 100 deputies for, 0 against, 0 abstentions.
It was Minister Martine Biron who tabled the motion jointly with Liberal MP André A. Morin.
These people should be embarrassed, like all those who voted without having read the judgment. Because you must not have read it to write such a motion.
The decision in question, R. v. Krukissued on March 8, far from making women invisible, on the contrary reaffirms the rights of complainants in sexual assault cases.
Where does this sudden desire to step up to the plate come from? From a text in the National Postincluded in a column by Richard Martineau in The Montreal Journal. This column was entitled “There are no more women in Canada!” “. It consisted of taking out of context a paragraph of this long judgment rendered the previous week on a technical point (the “standard of review” of the courts of appeal to overturn court judgments).
There is in fact a passage which seems strange if read in isolation, because it speaks of “people having vaginas”.
Before you freak out, you might want to read the 108 paragraphs that precede this sentence.
Christopher Kruk, of Vancouver, was convicted of sexual assault. The victim, a young woman, was in an advanced state of intoxication during the attack and forgot many details. She says she woke up with Kruk on top of her, penetrating her. Kruk denied any sexual contact.
The judge did not believe the accused and believed the victim. It is “extremely unlikely that a woman would be mistaken about this feeling,” the judge said.
The British Columbia Court of Appeal overturned the verdict: a judge should not make a similar assumption by simple inference. Questions of neurology, physiology and psychiatry are involved in concluding the reality of this sensation, said the Court of Appeal, it cannot simply be assumed. As if, when it comes to a drunk woman’s vagina, we can’t really trust testimony alone.
It is to this supposedly great mystery of the female sex that the Supreme Court was responding.
When an intoxicated person receives a blow to the face or shin, we do not ask an expert whether the sensation described is reliable. There is no need to resort to neurology or psychiatry. We believe this person, or not.
This is what the judge at Kruk’s trial did: “He found that her (the victim’s) testimony on the important question of whether there had been penile-vaginal penetration was reliable and therefore sufficient to justify a finding of guilt. »
If we do not need an expert to prove the sensations of a drunk person having received a blow, we do not need one in cases of rape, writes Judge Sheilah Martin on behalf of the Supreme Court.
“When a person with a vagina testifies credibly and with certainty to having experienced penile-vaginal penetration, the trial judge must be able to conclude that she is unlikely to be mistaken. Although the trial judge’s choice to use the words “a woman” may have been regrettable and caused confusion, in context it is clear that the judge considered it extremely unlikely that the complainant would be mistaken in about the sensation of penile-vaginal penetration because people, even when intoxicated, are generally not mistaken about this sensation. In other words, the judge’s conclusion was based on his assessment of the complainant’s testimony. »
What the Supreme Court criticizes the judge for is not the use of the word “woman”, it is for having seemed to want to guess at the credibility of what “a woman” feels in general.
The word “woman” appears 67 times in the Supreme Court judgment, which in no way says that it should be banned in favor of “person with a vagina”. The expression is used here semi-ironically to express the idea that, whatever the gender of the witness and whatever part of the body one is talking about, one does not need an expert to determine whether the sensation is plausible or not.
It is therefore in truth a judgment which promotes the equality of women and which recalls at length the myths and sexist prejudices of which the complainants have been victims before the courts in cases of sexual crimes. You could say this is a feminist judgment.
Let Richard Martineau see in this a sort of Wokist drift which makes women disappear, let him say that it is the fault of Justin Trudeau, who appointed this judge (chosen by a selection committee chaired by a former conservative prime minister , by the way), whether back order of exclamation points, that’s in the order of things.
But that the Minister of the Status of Women, a former journalist, makes a judgment that she has not read, a judgment which consists precisely of defending women’s rights, that she makes him say falsely that it makes women invisible, It’s frankly saddening.
As for the Liberal MP Morin, a lawyer by trade, who continues to denounce attacks on the courts by the Prime Minister or others, that he is co-piloting this crooked motion is not strong. The next motion on the agenda, which he presented himself, consisted precisely in denouncing the unjustified attacks by politicians on the courts…
Bad idea, Mr. Deputy.