Hundreds more cases of sexual assault and sexual exploitation have gone to trial in Alberta since 2017 — and such trials make up a greater proportion of court dockets, according to Alberta Justice data obtained by CBC News.
The Court of Justice and Court of King’s Bench, combined, saw roughly 1,800 such trials in fiscal 2016. The number of trials jumped to nearly 2,000 the following year and has continued climbing, reaching more than 2,300 trials last year, data shows.
Cases of sexual assault and sexual exploitation make up a tiny fraction of all trials, but their proportion of the total grew from 0.83 per cent a decade ago to almost 1.4 per cent by fiscal 2023.
“It signals the decrease in the stigma and the shame that survivors are feeling around sexual violence,” said Kiara Warkentin, director of justice, research and outreach for the Saffron Centre, a sexual abuse support and education organization based in Sherwood Park, just east of Edmonton.
“I also hope it indicates that we’re taking sexual violence more seriously as a society, in terms of everything from investigation to emotional support to prosecutions.”
Alberta police have seen a similar trend. Police received more than 3,000 reports of sexual assaults in 2017 — which, at the time, was the most reported since at least 1998, Statistics Canada data shows. More reports have come in the years since, rising to more than 4,300 in 2023.
The rise in reported incidents and trials coincides with the publication of major journalism investigations in 2017, including a Globe and Mail series, Unfounded, about the handling of sexual assault cases by Canadian police, and a New York Times exposé of sexual misconduct allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Days after the Weinstein investigation was published in October 2017, #MeToo went viral. The “me too” movement had started in the mid-2000s, but the hashtag exploded as women shared their experiences of sexual violence on social media. That moment led to more open conversations about the issue.
CBC spoke with multiple people who work with sexual assault survivors, criminal defence lawyers and police officials. They said the aftermath of such events helped destigmatize the crime and likely encouraged more survivors to come forward.
The spotlight on sexual assault and survivors has forced law enforcement in Alberta to become more trauma-informed. Police agencies are creating more comfortable environments for people to report their experiences, and have opened themselves up to feedback on how such investigations have been handled.
“There have been huge improvements in the way that police investigate these incidents,” said Natalie Read, who leads the police and court support team for the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton (SACE).
“They are more prepared than ever before to take those reports and to explore different ways of moving the process along.”
Despite an increasing number of cases, police and advocates believe the data still does not reflect the full scope of sexual violence, because a small percentage of sexual assault survivors report the crime.
But they suggested the figures hint that the institutions and organizations in place to support survivors are doing their jobs and working well together.
Criminal defence lawyers, however, told CBC that cases that wouldn’t have gone to court in the past are now going to trial — in part because Canada has limited the use of preliminary hearings, which determine if prosecutors have sufficient evidence to proceed with a trial.
“There is no testing of the evidence. There is no sussing out the strength of the case until you get to trial,” said Amy Lind, a criminal defence lawyer in Edmonton.
Police make changes
In February 2017, the Globe and Mail published the first of a series of articles about how Canadian police handle sexual assault reporting. The investigation, which reviewed data from hundreds of law enforcement agencies, found that about one in five allegations in Canada were labelled as unfounded. In Alberta, 18 per cent of such allegations were deemed unfounded.
In 2019, a StatsCan survey suggested that only six per cent of all sexual assault incidents were reported to police.
It marked a reckoning for the RCMP, said Cpl. Mike Fulton, who leads the Alberta RCMP’s sexual assault response team.
The police force reviewed how it handles sexual assault cases, finding that almost 60 per cent of unfounded files across Canada in 2016 were misclassified. The RCMP made several commitments in response, including measures to improve police training and awareness, victim support and investigative accountability.
Now, officers can better interact with survivors, Fulton said. Alberta RCMP have established comfortable spaces, including one in the Saffron Centre, where survivors can make reports. The Alberta RCMP’s sexual assault review committee, which meets quarterly, also allows advocates — like those at Saffron Centre and SACE — to scrutinize dozens of sexual assault files and highlight concerns.
“We’ve started to do better,” Fulton said.
“[Survivors are] providing more detailed statements, in ways that we can actually understand the story better. Then we can translate that to go to our Crown prosecutors, who can have a better understanding of the information that’s available, which then allows us to go to court.”
The Edmonton Police Service (EPS) has undertaken similar initiatives, including public education about sexual assault and the investigation process, and establishing a file review committee. Read, of SACE, said the committee can spot missed steps and whether myths about sexual violence affected an investigation — such as the amount of alcohol a survivor consumed before the incident.
Staff Sgt. Harry Grewal, head of the EPS sexual assault section, also credits the service’s online crime reporting portal for the rise in reports it has received. The site, which allows people to report any crime, means sexual violence survivors don’t have to walk into the police station, he said.
“Before, the stigma of walking into a police station … and [telling] them what has happened would basically keep people away from reporting the crime,” Grewal said.
More cases going to court
Sexual violence cases are among “the most challenging and complex” files, and each has unique circumstances and lasting impacts on survivors and their loved ones, a spokesperson for the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement.
Prosecutors must weigh multiple factors before moving to trial, including available evidence and the likelihood of conviction — and they must continue evaluating those factors throughout the judicial process, according to the Decision to Prosecute, a guideline describing the decision-making steps for Alberta Crown prosecutors.
Given the Crown’s high burden of proof, the increase in the number of trials suggests the ecosystem of support for sexual violence survivors is working cohesively, advocates and police officials told CBC.
“We tend to think that a person’s experience of sexual violence is linear — and it’s anything but linear,” said Mary Jane James, CEO at SACE. “The last people they’re going to call is probably the police.”
James and others described a sort of assembly line through which various institutions and organizations support survivors, from when they first confide what happened to them and seek counselling, to going to the hospital where a trained nurse can collect forensic evidence, to telling police — should they choose — and going to court.
“If we are not together, this is where people fall through the cracks and you don’t realize — and everyone’s confidence is basically shattered,” said Grewal, of EPS.
Criminal defence lawyers who spoke with CBC agreed that #MeToo has led to more police reports, and as a result, more trials. But they also believe police are proceeding with charges more often than they did previously.
“It used to be that the police would dismiss, out of hand, some of the weaker cases,” said Dino Bottos, an Edmonton lawyer who has practised criminal law for more than three decades.
“They will now, instead, proceed with charges and let the Crown and the courts deal with those cases,” he said.
Lind has also noticed more cases involving allegations from the “lower end” of the Criminal Code’s definition of sexual assault. She also noted that there have been more trials because there are fewer preliminary hearings.
In 2019, the Criminal Code was amended so preliminary hearings can only occur in cases where someone is charged with an indictable offence that carries a punishment of at least 14 years in prison. As a result, some sexual assault cases go straight to trial. Some of them are weaker cases, and some don’t finish, Lind said.
“Halfway through, after a witness testifies, we’re seeing that the case isn’t as strong as maybe it appeared and the charges are getting stayed … or juries are finding people not guilty,” she said.
Hope for fewer cases
As numbers of reported sexual assaults and court trials have increased, so has funding for the Saffron Centre. Since the #MeToo movement started, the centre’s staff has tripled from about 10 people to 30.
“Unfortunately, the demand is still so high that we could continue increasing and increasing and it’s possible that we would always have a wait list for our services,” Warkentin said.
SACE is in a similar position, Read said. The police and court support team she leads, which guides survivors through things like reporting to police and preparing for court, was only established a few years ago.
Meanwhile, the organization is dealing with historically long waitlists for its services, Read said.
James said SACE is working hard to educate children — and the greater public — about topics like consent and sexual violence in the hopes that it leads to change.
“Let’s hope we have this conversation in another five years, where we say there are less cases being investigated,” James said.
