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A society that can’t tell the difference anymore has lost its way

Weeping, Smith described how the year before at another court, Hryciuk allegedly had kissed her hard, sending her into a tailspin of uncontrollable crying, frantic teeth-brushing and fears she might have caught a disease from him and would be unable to have children.

It was not the allegation that shocked me — the judge denied it in any case, and he was subsequently vindicated — but its characterization (a kiss being described by a lawyer as “tantamount” to sexual assault) and, even had it happened exactly as Smith said, her grotesque overreaction to it.

I wrote at the time, “If the purpose of this public inquiry is to answer the question, ‘Do we want as a judge a man who French kisses young female Crown attorneys?’, then I believe a secondary question is in order. It is, ‘Do we want as a Crown attorney a young woman who is reduced to irrational hysterics by such a kiss?’

“If the answer to the first question is ‘No’, so must the answer to the second one.”

Hryciuk’s vindication at the Ontario Court of Appeal was then three years away.

At the inquiry itself, in the final report that found he’d acted inappropriately, had engaged in “reckless” sexual humour and which recommended he be removed from office, and certainly in that hearing room that long-ago day, he was an object of contempt, his purported “victims” each and every one praised as brave little souls who had felt powerless.

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In the 22 years since, things have only worsened, such that the latest shock-horror-outrage is what happened to the comedian Jen Grant at a printing industry awards dinner on May 13.