Council’s latest decision to deny the FortisBC workers’ lodge was a simplistic reaction to a nuanced issue.
Glossing over the irony that the council members sat and watched while a man opposed to the lodge chased out a woman who was part of the FortisBC contingent trying to make it to her car in a dark parking lot, it would be nice to be able to say that thanks to council’s decision, females are safer here.
Unfortunately, what has gotten lost in this critical discussion around sexual assault is that it isn’t just men who do certain jobs who commit sexual assault.
It is happening now, it happened five years ago, and it will happen even with the lodge defeated.
Doctors, lawyers, environmentalists, baristas, bankers, professors, politicians, firefighters, academics, journalists, mountain bikers, yoga instructors, office workers, CEOs, climbers, cops and the tourists we invite here in droves may commit sexual assault.
Vilifying a certain type of worker—or the gathering of certain workers—ignores the fact that friends, acquaintances, and neighbours represent 52% of perpetrators.
It ignores the fact that lots of men gather here at various times of the year; they gather after events at bars on Saturday nights, as the mayor feared these construction workers would do.
Studies have shown that for our children, school staff represent a considerable sexual abuse risk.
According to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, 252 current or former school staff working in Canadian K to Grade 12 schools committed (or were accused of committing) sexual offences against students between 2017 and 2022.
Of offenders, 74% were coaches.
Over the same period, 38 additional staff were charged for child sexual abuse material-related offences. (71% of victims were female and 29% male.)
Considering also that 93% of child abuse cases are never reported, the real numbers are much higher.
Yet, no one is suggesting Squamish shutter its schools and stop sports. That would be ridiculous.
Instead, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection recommends ways to keep kids safer in schools.
Woodfibre LNG and FortisBC have addressed concerns and put in safeguards, such as training and strict policies, that weren’t in place when the oft-quoted studies on remote camps were done.
Those patting themselves on the back for this “win” have managed only to give the dangerous impression that sexual assault is committed only by a dude in a hard hat rather than by any wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Rather than a win, for some, this rejection of a lodge for workers is an embarrassing example of how the community has gone from a proud working-class community to a gentrified town that centres the divisive voices of those who, while never having done manual labour, vilify the very workers who built it.
