The name of Philippe Bond was on everyone’s lips Thursday evening, to the well-cooked The evening is (still) young at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier. I listened to Maude Landry and Suzie Bouchard ironically about the fact that Philippe Bond would be the last of the Mohicans in the colony of comedians/sex offenders and that we could now move on to another (comic) number. A good thing settled.
Posted at 7:15 a.m.
No, Philippe Bond will not be the last. There are others and there will be others, of course. I was behind the scenes of this show, and the feeling that I perceived, among the participants – majority – at the gala, was that of a generalized exhaustion and a deep weariness.
Catherine Éthier was talking to me about the column she was going to deliver the next morning on Radio-Canada radio, having the impression of repeating what she has said many times since they handed her a microphone. But with the conviction that these things must be repeated.
“Every time a voice is raised, every time a woman denounces, following the channels provided for this purpose, nothing happens,” she told All one morning Friday. She experienced it herself, going to a police office twice to file a complaint, for two different events, without follow-up.
Sometimes victims not only come up against the inability of the police and judicial system to properly handle their complaint, but also suffer the backlash. They are threatened with libel suits, they are summoned to shut up, they are censored and muzzled, recalled Catherine.
I know victims who have paid dearly, for their careers, for their mental, physical and financial health, the price of having dared to denounce their aggressor. I know allies of these victims who have paid just as much the price of having said publicly what others whispered in private. Silenced for telling the truth. We would probably never see them again, in hindsight.
Women. To whom we quickly made it clear that big mouths are still funny when they make jokes, but only when their speech is not compromising, that it does not interfere with current affairs or upset the advertisers and sponsors.
Yes, everyone knew, in the middle of humor, that Philippe Bond dragged a reputation of toxic personality. Many wondered how he had slipped through the cracks of #MeToo. This story of the locked car door and the captured passenger has been circulating for a while, like the apology letter after a wrap party of TV.
Journalists had investigated and contacted victims, who were not ready to testify openly, for fear of reprisals. We can easily understand them. Some feared the repercussions of a kick in the anthill of an environment incapable of self-regulation, plagued by sordid stories that we prefer to sweep under the carpet.
While allegations of sexual misconduct involving Philippe Bond have been mounting for more than a decade, and some have decided to keep the comedian at bay, others have brandished the convenient excuse of the presumption of innocence (a principle of criminal justice) to justify their willful blindness.
Nothing prevents a diligent employer, who is not a criminal court, from bringing to light internally allegations of sexual misconduct. For then, if these are confirmed, give the benefit of the doubt to the victims who denounced it.
However, employers and partners have preferred to blindly trust a comedian on whom many suspicions have been hanging over for years. Rather than asking more questions and giving even a minimum of importance and attention to the version of the alleged victims. And we are still surprised that women hesitate to denounce their aggressor?
If a long-term journalistic investigation had not ended up revealing the misconduct of Philippe Bond, if his alleged victims, faced with the distressing public denial of the comedian – unable to recognize himself in the mirror held up to him -, no Hadn’t decided enough was enough, Bond would still be at the helm of a popular Energy network show.
Until one day, maybe — who knows? —, a complaint to the police is finally taken seriously and that the justice system reaches the 21ste century in dealing with crimes of a sexual nature.
While women, for reasons of principle, ethics and solidarity, or for fear of becoming victims in their turn, have refused contracts so as not to find themselves on stage or on the air in the presence of Bond, this the latter continued to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars with impunity.
For the past few years, seeing the picture of Philippe Bond on a billboard, I have often asked myself this question: couldn’t someone else host this show? I didn’t even say a woman. Someone else. Someone who does not potentially threaten the safety and integrity of women, who allows them to work in a healthy environment.
Didn’t Philippe Bond’s employers have a duty to be more vigilant, so that women in general do not bear the brunt of their association with this controversial comedian? I asked them on Friday. I’m still waiting for the answer.