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As someone very much smarter than me said recently, the federal government’s purported modernization of Canada’s sexual assault laws may make lucky white women feel better, but it appears to accomplish little else – and it certainly does nothing for the unlucky among us.

This is Bill C-51, which got second reading in Parliament earlier this month and is now headed to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

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It has had scant attention, probably because it touches upon the accepted and sacred wisdom that women just can’t get a break in the criminal courts.

Only a handful of defence lawyers have had anything to say about it, none of the criminal lawyers’ organizations to my knowledge and only one non-lawyer, the activist and vlogger Diana Davison.

In the name of all that is holy (that is, complainants’ alleged harsh treatment in cross-examination), the bill proposes some unique changes.