Three years ago, Rehtaeh Parsons ended her life. Her story is now ubiquitous, but the things we needed to learn about, the things we needed to change? Well, those things aren’t ubiquitous at all.
Three years ago, I wrote about Rehtaeh Parsons – a lot, to the point where what I wrote on this web site was apparently referred to the RCMP. What happened to her – she was gang-raped, and the proceedings were later disseminated on the Internet – was beyond words, to me. It was evil, it was sick, it was the worst of the worst.
People like to hope that some good sometimes comes out bad, but I don’t really think that happened in Rehtaeh Parsons’ case. Sure, the NDP government’s pathetic response to the case accelerated their removal from power. Sure, a Nova Scotia cyberbullying law was passed. Sure, people became more aware of the issue.
But a judge later summarily tossed out the cyberbullying law, and the women-hating trolls got back to work on their basement computers. The Nova Scotia NDP are gone, but no government has done much since then – for instance, check out this federal web page about cyberbullying, which references provincial laws, and then hyperlinks to a page that is “not found.”
Out of all that rank mismanagement and villainy, however, emerged one hero: Rehtaeh Parsons’ Dad, Glen Canning.
I got to know Glen, a bit, as a consequence of my limited involvement in what happened after his daughter’s death. I got to know that he is driven, he is courageous, and he is a force of nature. He is a great man. I can personally attest to all of that, too: without getting into a lot of detail, I can say that he helped me out on issue involving one of my own kids.
Anyway, read what he has written, so passionately, here. And then, when you are done, ask yourself: what have I done to ensure that what happened to Rehtaeh Parsons never happens again?
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