Nygard inquiry overdue

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/11/2023 (654 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It is important that the Free Press has called for an inquiry into the Nygard miscarriage of justice. There are many unanswered question regarding a system which allowed a man to continue to abuse women for so long after they started to report his criminal behaviour.

The learned Justice Jennifer Pfuetzner said it succinctly “Nygard’s behaviour paints a picture of criminal behaviour that was planned, financed, and executed on a staggering scale.”

Where was the community all this time? Just like Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby, lots of people knew about Nygard.

Many women made reports to the police but the system was stacked against them. They were told that to pursue charges would not be wise because their personal lives would be dragged through the public and they would lose. Nygard was too important and too wealthy to be challenged.

Maybe a few cases got to the prosecutions branch at the provincial government. Their advice in those years might have been destructive as well. “Your past will be dragged up and it won’t look good for you. You were wearing a short skirt that night, were you not? Had you been drinking? Where you just looking for a job as a model? We don’t recommend pursuing this case.”

We might recall that several people convicted falsely in Manitoba of murder were prosecuted in the same time frame. Was the prosecutions branch affected by his business reputation and the concept he was “too important and too wealthy to be challenged”?

Over the years, prominent people showed up to Nygard events, senior politicians, well-known business leaders. High-profile “society women” often seen on his arm surely must have recognized his predatory behaviour.

Mayor Sam Katz gave Nygard the Key to the City in 2008.

Surely, they had heard the rumours. Did they inquire further?

Did they think even for a minute that they were being used by Nygard to try to present a good image of himself? Thankfully Mayor Scott Gillingham has just this week withdrawn that honour, recognizing it would bring it into disrepute.

There was a workplace investigation by the Free Press which acknowledged that he sometimes fondled himself during meetings and walked around while nude. But nothing seemed to come of it.

These are disturbing lessons from a man who was feted, deferred to and supported as women tried many different ways to get the public to recognize him for who he was.

Some changes in handling sexual assaults have occurred over the last several years.

Klinic Inc. now has an agreement whereby they report assaults to the police, without naming names if the survivor requests, it so the police have a better sense of the actual numbers.

The police have new protocols, and sensitivity training although much more needs to be done. The hospitals have trained staff and space to help survivors and gather evidence in case of charges. The new minister of health, Uzoma Asagwara, is committed to strengthening that department after it had been almost decimated under the Tories.

Survivors of sexual assault are not blamed as they were, in part because women all across Canada demanded and forced the legal change of designation from rape to sexual assault, thus focusing on the actions of the perpetrator not the conduct of the woman.

The prosecution branch has many more women lawyers and a lot more feminists who have grown up in a time when women can become the head of the Supreme Court.

Surely with all the publicity given to Nygard, Weinstein and the many others, the public is getting sick of this and determined that this scourge will now end.

Too many women were victimized by Nygard, over too many years, to allow this to be swept under the rug.

We need an inquiry to understand what parts of the system failed untold numbers of women in this province.

And then, we need to change it.

Linda Taylor is a Winnipeg researcher and writer.