A new report released yesterday (June 23) by the Wildrose Party says the policies surrounding the time from when a survivour of sexual assault comes forward after being assaulted to before their case goes to trial need to be strenghened.

The report, entitled "Standing With Survivours" was presented by Wildrose Leader Brian Jean, Airdrie MLA and Shadow Justice Minister Angela Pitt and Chestermere - Rocky View MLA and Shadow Status of Women Minister Leela Aheer.

Pitt says the report came about because of extensive consultations with stakeholders and sexual assault survivours who have seen gaps in the current system.  Pitt says there are many inconsistencies across the province in the current system.

"A lot of what is in this report is streamlining some of the inconsistencies and that being around time frames and that type of thing to make the whole system better and make sure that we're really supporting survivours."

One of the recommendations in the report include studying the possibility of legislating "third choice" or "third option" time frames for the secure storage of sexual assault evidence.  Pitt explains what those two terms mean.

 "Third choice is where the survivour has the choice to have the evidence collected after they've been assaulted but actually sit and wait to decide if they actually want to go ahead and press charges.  Sometimes these aren't stored if you're not going to press charges, in many cases they're not stored.  You have to decide immediately if you're going to, so this allows some time for the survivours to decide if they want to proceed and lay charges, because that in and of itself is a very gruelling process.  We believe that survivours need more time to decide if they want to go that route."

The Wildrose also believe there is too much discrepancy in evidence collection between Alberta's major cities and rural or remote communities.  "Obviously in the major centres, they seem to be more equipped to deal with evidence collection and the whole process for survivours in general.  We're seeing in rural communities there's not enough resources to be able to collect the evidence."

Pitt and her party hope that the changes recommended will empower more sexual assault survivours to be less afraid when they go through the system.  "Always, the message should be 'I believe you.'  Then we need to make sure we have the systems in place to make that process, once that survivour has made the brave step to come forward, we need to make sure we support them throughout the process."

Pitt says the findings of the report have been presented to the NDP government and she hopes they will agree to work together in a non-partisan way to address some of the gaps in the system and streamline the inconsistencies.  

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