‘This changed me.’ The lasting impact of the Ghomeshi scandal (Gillian Hnatiw quoted)
It’s been exactly one year since Jian Ghomeshi was fired from the CBC, the first in a series of events that would lead to his arrest. We asked seven women to reflect on how that day affected their work and their lives.
Gillian Hnatiw is a partner at Lerners LLP and represented Lucy DeCoutere, a complainant in the Ghomeshi case, at the October pre-trial hearing. “I’m not suddenly seeing the floodgates open. What I would say is Ontario’s Action Plan to prevent sexual violence, is, legally speaking, the biggest change to come out of the whole Ghomeshi story. That was the biggest cause and effect change I saw. There are quite a few concrete policy statements in there that will lead to legal change that I think will make it easier for victims to come forward in the future. The fact of the matter is, all of the systemic barriers that existed pre-Ghomeshi and worked against women coming forward are, for the most part, still there.”