Colonization through Disclosure: Confidential Records,Sexual Assault Complainants and Canadian Law

This article explores the Canadian experience of widened access to sexual assault complainants' private records. It dissects legal developments from the mid-1990s, when the Canadian Supreme Court established a liberalized disclosure regime in the landmark O'Connor decision. A legislative reform passed in 1997 that sought to establish a stricter regime was recently upheld and at the same time weakened by the Supreme Court in Mills. The article contends that access to complainants' records stands as a critical example of how a liberal legalistic discourse of sexual assault is extending its hegemony by colonizing and silencing, in particular, feminist and therapeutic discourses. At issue is the relative status of legal 'Truth' and dissonant and emergent feminist narratives, as well as our ability to understand and speak about sexual violation outside of the narrow confines of law.