POLICY PUSH: Province directs schools to make improvements

Province pushes forward with regulatory changes urged by student groups

Ontario colleges and universities have until the end of next March to improve their sexual violence policies so that students who come forward with allegations cannot themselves be disciplined and won’t be asked questions about their past by school investigators.

In an announcement Thursday, Colleges and Universities Minister Jill Dunlop said the government is moving ahead with the regulatory changes that student groups have been calling for, after holding consultations earlier this year.

“Our number one priority is the safety of students — everyone should be able to pursue their studies on or off campus without worrying about sexual violence or harassment,” Dunlop said in a written statement.

“That’s why our government is working with post-secondary institutions to update their sexual violence and harassment policies to better support students who have already gone through a difficult experience and may be feeling scared and vulnerable.”

The changes come as Western University continues to grapple with multiple allegations of sexual assault this month, including social media postings that allege female students were drugged and then sexually assaulted in a residence. Additional sexual assault allegations had already been reported to police.

Opposition critics are urging the government to do more to end sexual violence on college and university campuses.

“The changes announced by the Ford government do little to support survivors, many of whom who have been fighting back against rape culture on campus,” said New Democrat MPP Laura Mae Lindo, her party’s post-secondary critic and a former equity director at Wilfrid Laurier University.

“Tinkering with regulatory language does nothing to ensure those holding student disclosures understand the impact of their questions or can assess why some questions are irrelevant. Nor does it give students survivor-centred options for reporting sexual and genderbased violence.”

She added that “not only is the government late to recognize that irrelevant questions about sexual history are problematic in investigations into sexual and gender-based violence on campus, but the government is asking institutions to create their own individual policies without giving them any resources or real guidance. Ontario needs to establish minimum standards so we don’t wind up with a patchwork of different policies ... Province-wide, trauma-informed standards must be developed in broad consultation with experts, front-line workers, students and survivors.”

Green party Leader Mike Schreiner wrote to Premier Doug Ford asking the government “to immediately convene a task force to address sexual violence against women at university campuses” and revive an expert panel on violence against women.

The province’s new rules cover all public colleges and universities and private career colleges, and schools will have to ensure that a complainant, “acting in good faith, who discloses or reports sexual violence, will not be subject to actions for violations of the institution’s policies related to drug and alcohol use at the time the sexual violence took place.”

Complainants can go to police with allegations of assault, but can also report it to their school, which will conduct its own investigation, so the new regulations mean they are not to be asked “irrelevant questions from institution’s staff or investigators, such as those relating to past sexual history or sexual expression.”

The latest changes were at the urging of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, or OUSA, which has called the issue a top concern among students.

President Eunice Oladejo, who is also a vice-president of Western’s student council, said in a statement that “more needs to be done to address this violence, and OUSA supports the government’s regulation changes to make sexual violence policies on campus more trauma-informed and survivorcentric as a necessary first step.”

However, Oladejo also said “OUSA has yet to see the exact wording of the regulatory amendments, and given the importance of language and nuance, we will be paying close attention to ensure that it is clear that questions about a person’s prior sexual history and sexual expression are not only discriminatory and harmful, but are always irrelevant.”

“Everyone should be able to pursue their studies on or off campus without worrying about sexual violence or harassment.”

JILL DUNLOP

COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES MINISTER