Canadian Sexual Assault Law: Neoliberalism and the Erosion of Feminist-Inspired Law Reforms

Canadian Journal of Women and The Law, 2015

Crime, Law and Social Change, 1985

Akron L. Rev., 2008

Book review of Elizabeth A. Sheehy ed Sexual Assault in Canada

Canadian Journal …, 2008

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy

This article offers a cautionary tale for efforts to decriminalize domestic violence through a retrospective analysis of Canadian feminist legal activism to decriminalize sex work. Both domestic violence and sex work are contested terrains of activism, litigation, and scholarship and have come up against the disparate views of criminalization as necessary to protect women from violence, versus criminalization as compounding women’s potential risks for violence. Through the example of Canadian feminist jurisprudence in R v Bedford, wherein the Supreme Court of Canada recognized the endangerment of women as resulting from the criminalization of sex work, I explore the liminal space following this decision, and how regressive legislation was introduced to re-entrench carceralism in the breach of a seeming feminist victory. My focus is on how carceral feminism continues to occupy the liminal space as a force of colonial violence, further endangering Indigenous women. I draw linkages bet...

2016

Despite the vintage of Canada’s rape shield provisions (which in their current manifestation have been in force since 1992), some trial judges continue to misinterpret and/or misapply the Criminal Code provisions limiting the use of evidence of a sexual assault complainant’s other sexual activity. These errors seem to flow from a combination of factors including a general misunderstanding on the part of some trial judges as to what section 276 requires and a failure on the part of some trial judges to properly identify, and fully remove, problematic assumptions about sex and gender from their analytical approach to the use of this type of evidence. A lack of clarity as to how section 276 works, and the ongoing reliance on outdated stereotypes about sexual assault to interpret the provisions, are particularly problematic because trial judges continue to face applications to adduce evidence of a complainant’s sexuality activity which are inflammatory, discriminatory, and clearly exclu...

Travaux & mémoires 27, 2023