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accurate statistics are hard to come by, but according to the institut national de santé publique du québec , as few as six per cent of sexual assaults are disclosed to law enforcement in canada each year.
but the focus of media reports — and a resulting uproar — has been on how the woman was denied care at the montreal general, a bilingual hospital that is part of the mcgill university health centre, because she’s a francophone.
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jean-françois roberge, quebec’s minister of the french language, zeroed in on this as “unacceptable.” maxime laporte, president of the mouvement québec français, described it as “scandalous.”
but treating this as an affront based on language may be misleading.
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“that’s the protocol that exists and it’s the same protocol that has been in existence for over 40 years,” said deborah trent, executive director of the montreal sexual assault centre . “it was done linguistically, partly as a way also of sharing the load, but it’s also because these hospitals have developed expertise.”
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the judge didn’t even name the hospitals at the sentencing hearing. la presse dug it up later.
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