From Nordik Spa to the RCMP, the Canadian Armed Forces, universities, schools and other institutions, Canada’s experience with sexual misconduct raises a larger question: what happens when the criminal system does not deliver accountability and the individual victim is left to confront a powerful person, institution or network alone?
There is an uncomfortable question that Canada should be prepared to confront: what is an ordinary person supposed to do when a serious sexual assault or other form of sexual misconduct is reported to police, but the criminal-justice system does not produce a prosecution? The formal answer is that criminal investigations are governed by evidentiary requirements, prosecutors exercise discretion, and accused persons are protected by the presumption of innocence and the requirement that guilt be established beyond a reasonable doubt. Those principles are indispensable to a constitutional democracy. The more difficult question concerns what happens after the criminal process ends without a prosecution, particularly when the alleged offender is unknown or incompletely identified, relevant information is held by an institution, legal representation is difficult to obtain, and the victim lacks the money required to pursue civil litigation.
That problem should not be confused with a claim that police routinely mishandle sexual-assault complaints. The available evidence does not support such a sweeping proposition. There are legitimate reasons why investigations do not result in charges, including insufficient evidence, inability to identify a suspect, unavailable witnesses, conflicting evidence and the demanding criminal standard of proof. Nevertheless, the scale of attrition through the criminal-justice system is substantial. Statistics Canada found that approximately 6% of sexual assaults were reported to police in its earlier national self-reported data, while its analysis of police-reported sexual assaults from 2015 to 2019 found that approximately 36% resulted in charges being laid or recommended. Among those incidents, 61% proceeded to court, and 48% of completed court cases associated with those incidents resulted in a guilty finding (Statistics Canada, 2024). More recent national data concerning experiences of sexual violence also show continuing under-reporting and significant reservations about the usefulness of reporting to police (Statistics Canada, 2026).
These statistics cannot fairly be used to suggest that every uncharged complaint represents a policing failure. They do, however, establish a basic structural fact: a large proportion of sexual assaults disappear from the criminal-justice process at different stages before a criminal conviction is obtained. The consequence for victims is that criminal prosecution cannot be the only mechanism through which society evaluates institutional responsibility or provides a remedy. A criminal prosecution concentrates on the accused and the alleged offence. Civil proceedings, regulatory proceedings and institutional investigations can address different questions, including whether an employer negligently supervised an employee, whether an institution failed to respond to previous warnings, whether professional duties were breached, or whether an organization’s own policies and practices contributed to the harm.
The Criminal-Justice Gap
A Criminal Decision Is Not Necessarily the End of Every Legal Question
The legal distinction between criminal and civil justice is fundamental. A criminal prosecution asks whether the state can establish the elements of an offence beyond a reasonable doubt. A civil claim ordinarily applies the balance-of-probabilities standard and can raise a different set of questions about negligence, breach of duty, institutional responsibility or damages. A regulatory proceeding may examine professional conduct, while a police-oversight proceeding may examine investigative or operational misconduct. A class proceeding may address common legal or factual issues affecting a defined group. These mechanisms cannot simply be substituted for one another, but neither should the end of one be mistaken for the automatic resolution of all the others.
This distinction becomes particularly important when an alleged offence occurs within an institutional setting. The person alleged to have committed misconduct may be only one part of the legal problem. The surrounding organization may have possessed information concerning the individual, may have controlled access to the environment in which the conduct occurred, may have received earlier complaints, or may have had policies designed to prevent precisely the conduct alleged. Whether those facts ultimately establish liability is a matter for the courts, but the questions exist independently of whether the individual offender is criminally prosecuted.
The public discussion often compresses all of these outcomes into a single binary: charged or not charged, prosecuted or not prosecuted, guilty or not guilty. The law does not operate that simply. A decision not to prosecute is a criminal-justice outcome; it is not necessarily a universal factual finding on every issue that might arise later in a civil, regulatory or institutional proceeding.
Nordik Spa and the Transformation of an Individual Allegation
From One Complainant to a Collective Proceeding
The proposed class action concerning Nordik Spa Village in Chelsea, Quebec, provides a particularly visible recent example. In August 2025, a woman identified in the proceeding as A.B. commenced an application for authorization to institute a class action after alleging that she was sexually assaulted during a massage at the spa on December 2, 2024. The proposed proceeding alleges institutional responsibility in relation to sexual misconduct and seeks remedies for members of the proposed class. The allegations remain allegations, and the filing of a proposed class proceeding is not itself a finding of liability.
The case became considerably more significant as other women reportedly came forward. Global News reported in August 2025 that more than 20 women had contacted lawyers concerning alleged sexual assaults during massage sessions at the facility. Later reporting stated that the number of women involved in the proposed action had exceeded 100 (Global News, 2025).
Nordik has stated that it does not tolerate misconduct, that its therapists are subject to screening including criminal-record checks, and that it cooperates with authorities. Those statements matter because a proposed class proceeding cannot establish that every allegation is true. The significance of the case lies elsewhere: an allegation that begins as an individual encounter can become a much broader institutional question when additional people report similar experiences.
The Institutional Questions Behind an Alleged Assault
An individual criminal case may ask whether a particular accused committed a particular offence. A civil proceeding against an institution can additionally ask whether the organization had reasonable safeguards, whether it adequately supervised personnel, whether prior warnings existed, whether complaints were appropriately addressed, and whether the institution itself bears an independent basis of civil responsibility. Similar allegations do not automatically prove one another, but multiple complaints can become relevant evidence in determining whether an institutional pattern existed.
That distinction is central to understanding why collective litigation can be important. A class action is not simply a collection of criminal complaints moved into civil court. It may address a different object of responsibility, namely the organization and the systems surrounding the alleged misconduct.
The RCMP: When Individual Misconduct Becomes Institutional Culture
Merlo-Davidson and Thousands of Claims
Canada has already experienced the transition from individual allegations to systemic institutional litigation on an enormous scale. The Merlo-Davidson class action involving the RCMP concerned gender- and sexual-orientation-based harassment and discrimination affecting women in the organization. The settlement resulted in approximately $125.4 million in compensation to 2,304 claimants and eligible family members (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2026).
The importance of Merlo-Davidson was not simply financial. Former Supreme Court Justice Michel Bastarache’s independent assessment examined claimant experiences across the organization and concluded that sexual harassment and discrimination were embedded in the RCMP’s culture. The report characterized that culture as toxic and concluded that sustained external pressure was necessary to address the systemic problems it identified (Bastarache, 2020).
That finding must be stated carefully. It does not establish that RCMP members generally engage in sexual misconduct, nor would it be defensible to generalize the conduct of particular people to every member of the organization. It establishes something narrower and considerably more consequential: a major law-enforcement institution can develop systemic conditions in which sexualized harassment and discrimination persist and individual complaint mechanisms may be inadequate to expose or remedy the full problem.
Tiller/Copland/Roach and the Workplace-Culture Problem
The subsequent Tiller/Copland/Roach class action reinforced that institutional lesson. It concerned women who worked in RCMP workplaces but were not necessarily regular members of the force. The RCMP states that the settlement involved approximately $20.1 million in compensation to 417 claimants and eligible family members, and its public materials describe concerns involving gender- and sexual-orientation-based harassment and discrimination (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2026).
The lesson from these proceedings is not simply that individuals can commit wrongdoing inside organizations. That proposition is obvious. The more important lesson is that institutional culture can itself become part of the legal problem when hierarchy, career dependency, fear of reprisals and organizational practices influence whether people report misconduct and how complaints are handled.
The RCMP Medical-Examination Litigation and Information Asymmetry
The RCMP medical-examination class action brings the information problem into sharper focus. The Federal Court certified a proceeding concerning allegations arising from mandatory medical examinations performed by physicians designated by the RCMP for applicants. The allegations included sexual assault, battery and inappropriate or unnecessary procedures. The RCMP expressly stated in its certification materials that the allegations had not been proven and that certification was not a determination of liability (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2021).
The significance lies partly in the relationship between the individual and the institution. The organization may possess information concerning designated physicians, appointments, procedures, communications, policies and previous complaints. An individual applicant ordinarily does not possess the same institutional record.
This is institutional information asymmetry. The individual may know what happened personally, while the institution may know the broader context. It may know who was involved, what procedures were supposed to apply, what records were created and whether previous concerns had been raised.
Susan Butlin and the Consequences of an Inadequate Investigation
What an Independent Oversight Investigation Can Uncover
The 2026 findings concerning Susan Butlin provide an unusually powerful illustration of why the quality of an initial investigation matters. The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP examined the force’s handling of Butlin’s sexual-assault complaint and its response to concerns about her safety before her subsequent murder. The Commission conducted a major review of the RCMP record, including thousands of pages of material, audio and video evidence and interviews with relevant individuals. It concluded that the sexual-assault investigation was seriously deficient and identified systemic problems in the handling of such investigations (Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP, 2026).
The importance of that investigation extends beyond the individual case because it illustrates the difference between what an oversight institution can investigate and what an ordinary complainant can investigate independently. The Commission had statutory authority to reconstruct the institutional record. A victim ordinarily does not possess equivalent powers.
What an Individual Victim Cannot Investigate Alone
The problem therefore becomes one of unequal investigative capacity. A victim may know the date, location and circumstances of an incident but have no knowledge of the people who were elsewhere in the building, the records created by the institution, the existence of previous complaints, or the internal decisions made after the incident.
The state can potentially bridge those information gaps.
The individual generally cannot.
When the initial state investigation fails to do so, the information problem can be transferred to the victim.
Ontario Police Oversight and the Limits of Criminal Prosecution
The Special Investigations Unit and Sexual-Misconduct Investigations
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit provides an independent investigative mechanism for police incidents within its statutory mandate, and recent cases demonstrate why such independence matters. In June 2026, the SIU charged a Toronto Police Service officer with sexual assault and several related offences following an investigation involving a female youth. The charges remain allegations to be adjudicated through the criminal process (Special Investigations Unit, 2026).
In August 2026, the SIU charged an Ontario Provincial Police constable with three counts of sexual assault and three counts of breach of trust after an investigation that began with one woman’s allegation and subsequently uncovered allegations involving two additional women (Special Investigations Unit, 2026).
The significance is not that police officers generally engage in sexual misconduct. The evidence does not support such a claim. The significance is that an effective independent investigation can uncover information that the first complainant could not possibly know.
When an Investigation Concludes That Charges Are Unwarranted
The opposite outcome must also be respected. The SIU sometimes concludes that there are no reasonable grounds to believe a police officer committed a criminal offence. That means the statutory threshold for a criminal charge was not met on the evidence available to the SIU. It is not equivalent to a judicial finding that a complainant fabricated an allegation, and it does not automatically answer every hypothetical civil or institutional question.
Maintaining this distinction strengthens the argument rather than weakening it. A serious critique of institutional accountability should not confuse a criminal charging decision with a universal factual finding.
Private Prosecution: A Legal Right With Practical Limitations
Ontario’s Private-Prosecution Mechanism
Ontario expressly recognizes private prosecutions. The Crown Prosecution Manual states that a person has the right to have criminal process issued from a Justice of the Peace by swearing an Information alleging reasonable and probable grounds that another person committed a criminal act. The Crown Attorney is responsible for supervising private prosecutions and can intervene and assume conduct of the proceeding where necessary in the interests of justice (Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, 2026).
This is important because it means that the criminal process is not entirely dependent upon a police officer personally laying a charge.
Why Private Prosecution Cannot Replace Police Investigation
Private prosecution nevertheless cannot reproduce the investigative capacity of the state. A person who swears an Information does not automatically gain access to police databases, institutional records, security footage, employment records or other evidence.
A complainant who already knows the accused, has relevant evidence and can identify witnesses may have a meaningful ability to pursue a private prosecution. The situation is very different when the victim knows only a first name, a workplace, a role or an approximate description and the institution capable of identifying the individual is not providing the necessary information.
The Identification and Information Problem
This creates a structural paradox. The victim may need information in order to pursue the alleged offender, but police may be the institution best equipped to obtain that information. Where police decline to investigate or an investigation does not identify the alleged offender, the victim may be left with a formal legal remedy that is considerably more difficult to use in practice.
This is particularly significant where the alleged offender is unknown or incompletely identified. The individual cannot be expected to reproduce an investigative operation simply because the law permits a private prosecution.
When Civil Litigation Becomes the Information-Recovery Mechanism
The Institutional Records the Victim May Not Possess
Suppose an alleged offence occurs inside a business, hospital, university, school, workplace or other institution. The victim may remember the event but not know who else was present, whether similar complaints exist, what records were made or what policies governed the circumstances.
The institution may possess employment information, schedules, access records, security footage, complaint histories, internal communications and other documents. Whether any particular document is ultimately producible depends upon relevance, privilege, privacy and other legal rules, but the basic asymmetry remains.
The person seeking accountability may possess less information than the institution being challenged.
Discovery and the Cost of Obtaining Information
Civil procedure provides discovery mechanisms because parties often do not possess all relevant information. Yet this creates an uncomfortable irony. The victim may need discovery to determine whether an institution is legally responsible, but discovery generally occurs within litigation, and litigation requires money, time and legal assistance.
The legal system can therefore create a situation in which the process needed to obtain information is itself financially inaccessible.
The Victim as De Facto Investigator
When the initial criminal investigation is incomplete, the victim can effectively become responsible for reconstructing facts that the state was better equipped to investigate. The individual may need to identify witnesses, trace records, determine who was present, establish chronology and discover whether similar complaints existed.
This is an unreasonable burden to place primarily upon the person who has already suffered the underlying harm.
The Financial Barrier to Individual Civil Litigation
Adverse Costs and the Risk of Financial Ruin
Civil litigation introduces a second major barrier: financial exposure. Criminal prosecutions are publicly financed, while an individual civil plaintiff generally must finance legal fees and litigation expenses and can face an adverse costs award if unsuccessful.
The 2026 decision in Jane Doe v. His Majesty the King in Right of Ontario, B.H., and Toronto Police Services Board, 2026 ONSC 4437, illustrates the magnitude of that risk. The plaintiff pursued a historical sexual-assault claim. After a ten-day trial, the court found that the plaintiff had been sexually assaulted by B.H. but concluded that Ontario was not liable for that assault. Ontario sought $516,118.14 in costs. The court ultimately fixed costs at $275,000, while recognizing the plaintiff’s good-faith pursuit of a serious claim and the need for proportionality and reasonable foreseeability in determining the amount (Desormeau, 2026).
The Jane Doe Decision and the Meaning of a $275,000 Costs Award
This decision is important precisely because it illustrates several propositions that can all be true at once. The court can find that the sexual assault occurred. The plaintiff can nevertheless fail to establish the legal liability of the particular institution being sued. The plaintiff can then face a substantial costs obligation.
The point is not that a $275,000 costs award is automatically improper. The court expressly relied upon ordinary costs principles, Ontario’s complete success, the complexity and length of the proceeding and other factors. The broader point is that civil litigation can expose an ordinary individual to financial risks that many people simply cannot absorb.
Why “Just Sue” Is Not Meaningful Access to Justice
The cost problem is not limited to counsel’s hourly rate. Complex Superior Court litigation can involve document production, examinations for discovery, expert evidence, interlocutory motions, mediation, pre-trial procedures and trial. The process may continue for years.
For an individual of ordinary means, the prospect of a six-figure adverse-cost award can alter the decision whether to sue at all. A person does not have to lose a lawsuit to be deterred by the possibility of losing it.
The legal right to commence an action therefore cannot be equated with the practical ability to conduct one.
Community Legal Services Do Not Close the Gap
Legal Information Is Not Legal Representation
Ontario has a significant network of community legal clinics, but Legal Aid Ontario explains that clinics operate within defined mandates, with significant focus on areas affecting low-income people such as housing, social assistance, employment, human rights and immigration. Eligibility and services vary between clinics (Legal Aid Ontario, n.d.).
This means that the existence of community clinics does not amount to a universal publicly funded litigation service for complex civil actions involving sexual assault, institutional negligence or abuse of power.
Legal information is not representation. A referral is not representation. A brief consultation is not a litigation team.
The Practical Representation Gap
A victim can therefore possess a potentially serious civil claim while lacking the financial resources or specialist counsel required to pursue it. The problem becomes particularly severe when the defendant is a government agency, police service, university, hospital, large corporation or other institution with substantially greater legal resources.
Why Class Actions Become Economically Rational
Collective Claims and Common Institutional Questions
This is where class proceedings become significant. Ontario’s Class Proceedings Act, 1992 provides a procedural mechanism for aggregating claims when statutory requirements are satisfied, including requirements concerning an identifiable class, common issues, preferability, adequate representation and a workable litigation plan.
The economic logic is straightforward. A single claimant may have a legitimate claim but be unable to finance years of litigation. A group of claimants with sufficiently common legal and factual issues can create a proceeding in which common questions are litigated collectively.
Costs Protection and Contingency-Based Litigation
The class-action regime also changes the ordinary costs structure. Section 31 provides that class members other than the representative party are generally not liable for costs, except in relation to the determination of their own individual claims. The statute separately regulates agreements concerning class counsel’s fees and disbursements (Class Proceedings Act, 1992, ss. 31–32).
These provisions recognize an important economic reality: some claims are simply too expensive to pursue individually.
Class Actions as an Access-to-Justice Mechanism
A class proceeding can aggregate claims, allow common institutional questions to be examined once rather than repeatedly, connect people whose experiences would otherwise remain isolated and make contingent-risk representation economically possible in circumstances where an individual plaintiff could not finance the same litigation alone.
That is why the class action should not be dismissed merely as a mass lawsuit.
In appropriate cases, it is an access-to-justice mechanism.
Class Actions Are Not Guaranteed
Certification Requirements
The limits must nevertheless remain clear. A class action does not arise merely because many people have suffered harm. The plaintiff must satisfy the statutory certification requirements, including commonality, preferability and adequate representation. The court remains the gatekeeper.
Carcillo and the Failure of a Proposed Class Proceeding
The Carcillo v. Canadian Hockey League litigation demonstrates the problem. The proposed proceeding involved approximately 15,000 former major-junior hockey players and 78 defendants, with allegations spanning decades and including physical and sexual abuse, bullying, harassment and hazing. In 2025, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the refusal to certify the proceeding, emphasizing problems of manageability and preferability despite the legal viability of the claims (Court of Appeal for Ontario, 2025).
The lesson is important. A class action can fail.
A proposed class action cannot be treated as a guaranteed escape route when the criminal process does not provide the desired outcome.
The Canadian Armed Forces and the Scale of Collective Litigation
The Heyder-Beattie Claims
The Heyder-Beattie class actions involving sexual misconduct and discrimination in the Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence demonstrate the potential scale of collective litigation. The Federal Court approved a settlement making up to $900 million available to eligible class members, together with measures addressing institutional culture and restorative engagement (Department of National Defence, 2019).
What More Than 25,000 Claims Demonstrate
By the February 2023 deadline, the court-appointed administrator had received applications from more than 25,000 claimants. By April 2024, more than 22,000 claims had been approved for initial payment and/or paid (Department of National Defence, 2024).
The significance of those numbers is difficult to ignore. Tens of thousands of individual experiences can reveal an institutional problem that is almost impossible to understand solely through isolated criminal prosecutions.
Universities, Schools and Other Institutions
The Nadon Litigation and Professional Trust
The Dr. Vincent Nadon litigation involving University of Ottawa Health Services provides an important Ontario example. The class action involved approximately 150–200 patients who alleged that they had been photographed, videotaped and/or sexually assaulted without their knowledge or consent. In September 2025, the Ontario Superior Court approved a $21.05-million settlement. Dr. Nadon admitted fault and liability, while the University of Ottawa and University of Ottawa Health Services did not admit wrongdoing (Rabbat v. Nadon, 2025 ONSC 5187).
The professional relationship is central to understanding why collective litigation can become important. A patient may be expected to undress and permit intimate physical contact because the professional context makes such conduct legitimate. That creates a profound trust relationship, and an individual patient may have no way of knowing whether other patients have experienced similar conduct.
Ontario Training Schools and Historical Institutional Abuse
In June 2026, Ontario announced that the Superior Court had approved a $60-million settlement in the Ontario Training Schools class action concerning people who resided at 13 Ontario Training Schools between 1953 and 1984. Eligible individuals can receive compensation of up to $100,000 depending on the applicable category (Government of Ontario, 2026).
The case demonstrates that civil accountability can arise decades after the underlying conduct, when criminal prosecution may no longer be capable of resolving the full history because of death, delay, unavailable evidence or other circumstances.
Vancouver Schools and the Long Tail of Institutional Accountability
The litigation involving Vancouver College and St. Thomas More Collegiate provides a comparable example. In 2026, a $30-million settlement concerning historical allegations of physical, psychological and sexual abuse was approved after more than 200 people reportedly came forward. The settlement resolved the proceeding without a trial adjudicating every allegation against every defendant.
The important point is not that settlement equals proof. It does not. The point is that collective civil litigation can provide a structured mechanism through which large numbers of people can pursue claims concerning a common institutional history.
Calgary and the Civil Route When Criminal Proceedings Cannot Resolve Everything
Civil litigation involving former students at Calgary’s John Ware School similarly demonstrates the continuing role of institutional civil claims. A class proceeding involving allegations against former teachers resulted in a multimillion-dollar settlement. The case existed in circumstances in which criminal prosecution could not necessarily provide a complete adjudication of every issue, illustrating again that civil liability and individual criminal liability are distinct legal questions.
The Deeper Problem Is Power
Financial Power
Across these cases, a recurring theme is unequal practical power. A large organization can often sustain litigation for years, while an individual may be unable to absorb even months of legal expense. An institution can possess insurance, counsel and internal support systems that an individual lacks.
Institutional Power
Institutional power also manifests through access to systems. Organizations can possess personnel records, complaint histories, internal investigations and established relationships with professional advisers and regulators.
Information Power
Information may be even more consequential than money. The victim may know what happened personally without knowing the institutional context. The organization may know who was present, who supervised the relevant person, whether similar complaints were made and what records exist.
Network Power
Networks add another layer. An institution, professional group or organized criminal organization can possess relationships through which information and resources move rapidly. An isolated individual may possess no comparable network.
The point is not that networks are inherently improper. Networks are a normal part of society. The point is what happens when one side is highly connected and the other is effectively alone.
The Greater Toronto Area and Networked Power
Diversity Is Not the Problem
The Greater Toronto Area is among Canada’s most diverse metropolitan environments. Statistics Canada’s 2021 Census showed that 55.7% of Toronto’s population was classified as racialized, reflecting substantial ethnocultural diversity (Statistics Canada, 2022). Diversity itself is not evidence of criminality, and there is no sound basis for claiming that multiculturalism causes sexual misconduct or organized crime.
Unequal Access to Social and Institutional Networks
The more relevant issue is unequal access to networks. People can maintain strong family, linguistic, cultural, religious, professional and neighbourhood connections. These networks can be entirely legitimate and valuable, but they can also create distinctions between people who belong to a network and those who do not. A person who does not belong to the relevant network may not know whom to approach, who has influence, where information is held or how decisions are made.
This can produce a form of social isolation even in an extraordinarily connected city.
The Difference Between an Isolated Individual and a Networked Actor
The critical distinction is therefore not between ethnic communities but between an isolated person and an actor with substantial network capacity. The individual may have one lawyer, one adviser and a small number of people to whom they can turn. An institution may have a legal department, external counsel, investigators, insurers and established relationships with regulators.
An individual may have a few personal records. An institution may have extensive documentary evidence.
An individual may not know whether another person complained. An institution may have historical records.
This is a problem of information and power, not race.
The “Caged Sheep and Liberalized Wolves” Problem
Why the Isolated Individual Is Vulnerable
The metaphor of “caged sheep and liberalized wolves” is best understood as a description of unequal access to protection, information, social capital and institutional power rather than as a characterization of any ethnic, religious or social group. In a multicultural society, individuals may be expected, encouraged or socially conditioned to maintain significant portions of their lives within familiar linguistic, cultural, religious or community networks. Those networks can provide legitimate support, employment, friendship, cultural continuity and security, but they can also leave someone who falls outside a particular network, becomes isolated within it or lacks the social connections necessary to participate effectively in it with limited access to the wider relationships through which information and practical assistance circulate.
An individual can move through workplaces, schools, universities, medical facilities, businesses, public-transit systems, housing, neighbourhoods and community organizations believing that formal rules will protect them while knowing very little about who possesses influence, who has previously complained, who controls relevant information, who has access to institutional records or how important decisions are made. The vulnerability becomes greater when the person confronting the individual possesses superior information, institutional access, financial resources, social connections or the ability to mobilize others.
The problem becomes even more pronounced when people are socially expected to remain largely within familiar communities while institutions and powerful actors operate across those boundaries. A person may have family, friends and a small community network but still lack access to professional, legal, institutional or cross-community relationships that would be valuable when something goes wrong. The resulting isolation is often informational rather than physical: a person can live in one of the world’s most connected metropolitan regions and still be effectively alone when trying to determine who possesses relevant information, whether others have experienced similar conduct, who has institutional influence or how to challenge an organization with substantially greater resources.
Why Communities May Not Protect the Individual Outside the Network
A further problem can arise when strong community networks provide substantial mutual support but that support does not necessarily extend to people perceived as outsiders. This observation cannot responsibly be generalized to every community and should not be treated as an inherent characteristic of any ethnic, religious or cultural group. Nevertheless, social networks in any environment can distribute information, assistance and protection according to relationships, trust, familiarity and perceived membership. A person who belongs to the network may know whom to call, where to obtain advice and which relationships matter, while someone outside the network may encounter a significant boundary despite living in the same neighbourhood or participating in the same institution.
The problem becomes more serious when a person is outside several relevant networks at the same time. The GTA contains numerous cultural, professional, religious, neighbourhood and social communities, each with legitimate internal relationships. A person who does not belong to the network relevant to a particular dispute may see independent institutions and businesses where a well-connected actor sees a web of relationships. The outsider may not know who has influence, who has access to information, who previously complained or who can mobilize assistance.
The concern is therefore not multiculturalism itself. It is the possibility that social fragmentation and unequal network access can leave an ordinary individual with nowhere effective to turn when formal institutions fail.
When Informal Power Begins to Substitute for Formal Protection
This creates a more disturbing possibility. When people perceive legitimate institutions as incapable of providing effective protection, information or dispute resolution, informal sources of power can acquire greater practical significance. Public Safety Canada currently describes organized crime in Canada as sophisticated, agile, diversified and increasingly networked, citing an estimate of more than 4,000 organized-crime groups operating in Canada (Public Safety Canada, 2026).
This obviously does not mean that communities generally rely upon gangs, and it does not make criminal organizations equivalent to legitimate community organizations. It does demonstrate that Canada contains sophisticated networks capable of moving information, money and influence across geographic and institutional boundaries.
The danger arises when effectiveness begins to substitute for legitimacy in people’s perceptions. If a person repeatedly experiences formal institutions as slow or ineffective while observing that well-connected actors can obtain information, assistance, protection or rapid intervention through informal networks, the informal network can begin to appear more useful than the formal institution.
That is not a justification for criminal networks. It is a warning about the erosion of institutional legitimacy.
The Emergence of “Alternative” Sources of Security
The most serious concern is not that gangs literally replace police, but that they can sometimes be perceived as alternative sources of practical power where formal institutions appear inadequate. Public Safety Canada has specifically identified criminal organizations that target communities, businesses and prominent individuals and has described transnational criminal networks operating across borders (Public Safety Canada, 2026).
The implication is not that targeted communities support those groups. The implication is that criminal networks can exploit social relationships, fear, money and information to establish influence outside ordinary institutions.
When someone possesses money but lacks conventional institutional power, the temptation to seek informal assistance can become stronger if legitimate institutions are perceived as incapable of resolving the problem. Such informal actors may appear capable of obtaining information, recovering property, providing protection, collecting debts, enforcing agreements or resolving disputes more quickly than formal institutions. None of those activities becomes legitimate merely because they appear effective.
The danger is that effectiveness can be mistaken for legitimacy when confidence in formal institutions has deteriorated.
A City of Many Networks Can Become a City of Many Boundaries
The GTA should therefore not be described as a collection of ethnic gangs. There is no evidentiary basis for such a claim. It is more accurate to recognize that a highly diverse metropolitan area contains many overlapping social networks while organized criminal organizations can also operate through networks that cross neighbourhoods, municipalities, provinces and national borders.
For an ordinary individual, this can create a city of many boundaries. There may be legitimate community networks, professional networks, institutional networks and criminal networks, while the individual seeking justice belongs fully to none of the networks that might be useful in the particular dispute. The person is therefore expected to operate through formal institutions while potentially confronting actors who understand informal networks much better.
That is where the metaphor of the cage becomes useful. The cage represents dependence upon formal institutions. The wolves represent actors capable of moving through informal relationships, financial resources and other sources of power. The central question is whether the state provides a sufficiently strong counterweight to make those informal advantages irrelevant.
Why Investigative Institutions Are Supposed to Break the Cage
Police, regulators, courts and civilian oversight bodies exist partly because ordinary citizens do not possess the investigative authority necessary to protect themselves against sophisticated actors. They can identify people, obtain evidence lawfully, compel production where authorized, preserve records and investigate institutional relationships.
When they work, the individual does not need to know the right person.
When they do not work, the individual may begin searching for one.
That is the institutional danger.
From Explicit Hierarchy to Liberalized Abuse of Power
The Evolution of Coercive Power
Canada has formally rejected explicit white-supremacist models of racial hierarchy and discrimination, and that is an essential component of the modern constitutional order. But the rejection of overt hierarchy does not eliminate coercive power. Power can adapt to new circumstances and operate through professional authority, financial dependence, institutional position, information, technology and networks.
The important point is not that Canada has simply replaced one racial hierarchy with another. There is no basis for such a broad claim. The more defensible proposition is that modern liberal institutions can still be exploited by people who possess greater resources, information and organizational capacity than ordinary individuals.
Liberalized Thuggery and Organized Abuse of Power
This is the context in which the phrase “a system permissive of thuggery, intimidation and mafia-style abuse of power” can be used as political criticism. It is not a legal classification of Canada and should not be interpreted as a claim that liberalism or multiculturalism causes crime.
It describes the possibility that a formally liberal system can nevertheless permit highly unequal practical power. Where money, information, institutional position and networks are distributed unevenly, coercion can operate without resembling the overt authoritarianism or explicit supremacist hierarchy of an earlier period.
The central question remains: who possesses the ability to act, and who possesses the practical ability to stop them?
The First Complaint Matters Most
How Poor Investigation Can Hide Patterns
The first complaint can be disproportionately important because it may be the only early opportunity to determine whether alleged misconduct is isolated or part of a larger pattern. The complainant may know nothing about other victims, previous complaints or institutional warning signs, while police or institutional investigators may be able to discover those connections.
If that investigation is inadequate, the opportunity can be lost.
How Additional Complainants Can Change the Case
The 2026 SIU investigation involving the OPP constable demonstrates how an investigation beginning with one allegation can uncover others. The Nordik proceeding demonstrates how additional complainants can emerge once an individual allegation becomes publicly organized through litigation.
Neither development automatically proves every allegation.
Both demonstrate why an isolated complainant may possess only a small part of the relevant evidentiary picture.
Why “No Prosecution” Cannot Mean “Problem Solved”
Criminal Liability and Civil Liability Are Different Questions
It is legally incorrect to treat a failure to prosecute as a universal finding that no wrong occurred. The criminal standard is demanding, and different proceedings address different questions. Civil claims can concern negligence, institutional responsibility and damages. Regulatory proceedings can concern professional conduct. Oversight investigations can concern investigative or organizational failures.
That does not mean that a civil plaintiff automatically succeeds when criminal proceedings fail.
It means that one legal outcome cannot simply be substituted for another.
Institutional Responsibility Can Remain
An institution may have duties independent of the criminal liability of one employee or contractor. Where the facts and applicable law support such a claim, questions of negligent hiring, supervision, institutional response, record preservation or another civil basis of liability may remain.
Again, those claims must be proved.
The point is that the legal inquiry can survive the criminal inquiry.
What the System Should Require
The State Should Investigate What Individuals Cannot
The most basic requirement is competent investigation. Police should investigate reasonable complaints, preserve evidence, identify unknown suspects where reasonably possible and determine whether relevant patterns or related evidence exist.
That does not require charges in every case.
It requires an investigation capable of establishing whether charges are appropriate.
Institutions Should Preserve What Individuals Cannot
Institutions should preserve relevant records and maintain defensible procedures for handling complaints. Security footage, access records, employment information, communications and complaint histories can become important evidence.
Preserving that evidence protects complainants and defendants alike.
Independent Oversight Must Be Credible
Where police personnel are accused, independent investigation is indispensable to public confidence. The existence of the SIU and civilian police-oversight mechanisms reflects that principle, while the Susan Butlin investigation demonstrates why independent examination can become necessary when the original institutional response is questioned.
Civil Remedies Must Remain Practically Accessible
A civil remedy is meaningful only if people can realistically use it. The availability of a cause of action is not enough when the person seeking it must finance extensive discovery, retain experts, confront a well-funded defendant and risk substantial adverse costs.
The Message to Victims
Reporting Should Be the Beginning of Accountability, Not the End of It
Victims should not be told that a decision not to prosecute necessarily means that every legal avenue has disappeared. Reporting remains important because it can initiate investigation, evidence preservation and oversight. Criminal prosecution is one mechanism of accountability, not the only one.
Depending on the circumstances, civil litigation, professional discipline, regulatory proceedings, private prosecution and class proceedings can raise different legal questions.
Victims Should Not Have to Become Private Investigators
Victims should preserve whatever evidence they can reasonably preserve, but they should not be expected to reproduce the investigative capacity of the police. The individual may not know the offender’s complete identity, the names of relevant witnesses, the existence of previous complaints or the location of institutional records.
Those are precisely the circumstances in which public investigative institutions are most important.
The Message to Institutions
The First Complaint Should Trigger Serious Inquiry
The first allegation should not be treated solely as a reputational problem. It can be the first indication of a wider institutional problem. Appropriate investigation, record preservation and review of possible related allegations can prevent a problem from remaining invisible.
Institutional Silence Can Create Greater Consequences Later
The history of institutional sexual-misconduct litigation demonstrates that unresolved problems can eventually produce large collective claims. The RCMP and Canadian Armed Forces experience is particularly instructive. The cost of confronting a credible complaint early may be substantially lower than the cost of allowing a systemic problem to continue until hundreds or thousands of people are involved in litigation.
The Message to Potential Offenders
The Absence of Prosecution Is Not a Licence
There is one conclusion that should never be drawn from this analysis: that an individual should regard gaps in investigation, identification or collective litigation as opportunities to commit sexual misconduct with reduced risk of accountability. Sexual misconduct remains prohibited, and the absence of a criminal charge does not create immunity from civil, professional, regulatory or institutional consequences.
Misconduct Should Not Be Optimized Around Procedural Weaknesses
The justice system should never become a manual for remaining below the threshold at which a complaint can be investigated effectively. The objective should be prevention and accountability, not teaching offenders how to exploit investigative or procedural weaknesses.
The Larger Question for Canada
Is the System Formally Strong but Practically Weak?
Canada has criminal prohibitions against sexual assault, police services, prosecutors, civilian oversight, private prosecutions, civil courts, discovery mechanisms, professional regulators, legal clinics and class-action legislation.
The criticism is therefore not that Canada lacks laws.
The criticism is that the practical ability to use those laws may depend too heavily on wealth, information, institutional access and social connections.
Why Class Actions May Be a Symptom Rather Than the Disease
A class proceeding can provide compensation, expose institutional failures and make otherwise uneconomic claims viable. But its increasing use can also indicate a deeper problem when people must first organize themselves into a collective before they acquire sufficient practical power to obtain accountability.
The class action can therefore be both a remedy and a symptom.
It can remedy the economic and informational disadvantages of individual litigation while simultaneously revealing that those disadvantages were severe enough to require collective action.
Canada Should Not Become a Place Where the Strongest Network Wins
Formal Equality Versus Practical Equality
Two people can possess exactly the same formal legal rights while having radically different capacities to exercise those rights. One may have substantial financial resources, institutional knowledge and professional representation. The other may have limited resources, limited information and no comparable network.
Formal equality does not automatically eliminate that difference.
Accountability for the Person With the Least Power
The real test of a justice system is therefore whether a person without money, institutional connections or investigative authority can realistically obtain protection and accountability.
Can the person report?
Will someone investigate?
Will relevant evidence be preserved?
Can an unknown offender be identified where reasonably possible?
Can the person obtain legal advice?
Can the person challenge institutional wrongdoing without risking financial ruin?
Can the person obtain a civil remedy without first becoming an investigator?
Can the person be heard without first finding dozens of other victims?
These are the questions that determine whether legal rights are practically meaningful.
Why Do Victims Have to Stand Together Before They Are Heard?
The Canadian experience with sexual-misconduct litigation provides substantial evidence that collective civil proceedings can become a powerful accountability mechanism when criminal proceedings do not resolve all of the questions surrounding alleged misconduct. Nordik demonstrates how an individual allegation can become a broader institutional controversy when additional complainants come forward. Merlo-Davidson demonstrates that thousands of claims can expose systemic cultural problems within a major police institution. Tiller/Copland/Roach demonstrates that institutional misconduct can extend beyond conventional employment relationships. The RCMP medical-examination litigation demonstrates the information imbalance between individuals and institutions. The Susan Butlin investigation demonstrates both the importance of proper initial investigation and the value of independent oversight. The SIU’s recent investigations demonstrate that independent criminal investigations can sometimes uncover additional allegations that an individual complainant could not know about.
Heyder-Beattie demonstrates that collective claims can reach more than 25,000 people and a potential settlement value of $900 million. The Nadon litigation demonstrates the scale that collective proceedings can assume when professional trust is central to the alleged harm. The Ontario Training Schools, Vancouver schools and Calgary cases demonstrate that institutional civil accountability can emerge many years after alleged events. Carcillo demonstrates that a serious and large proposed class action can still fail certification, while Jane Doe demonstrates that individual civil litigation can expose an unsuccessful plaintiff to extraordinary financial consequences even where the court accepts that the underlying sexual assault occurred.
Taken together, these cases do not establish that Canada’s police services are uniformly incapable of investigating sexual assaults. Nor do they establish that every uncharged complaint represents police misconduct. They establish something more defensible and more troubling: the criminal process has substantial attrition, investigative institutions can fail, individuals frequently lack critical information, individual civil litigation can be enormously expensive, community legal services do not universally provide representation for complex tort claims, and class proceedings can sometimes provide the only economically realistic structure through which systemic institutional claims can be pursued.
That is why the central issue should not be framed as criminal justice versus civil justice. Criminal law remains indispensable. Accused persons must retain the presumption of innocence and procedural fairness. Civil defendants are entitled to defend themselves. Class proceedings must satisfy statutory requirements. None of those principles is negotiable.
The deeper problem lies in the gaps between the systems.
A victim reports.
The police may not charge.
The offender may remain unknown.
Private prosecution may exist but be practically difficult.
The relevant information may remain in institutional hands.
Civil litigation may be required to obtain it.
The individual may struggle to obtain counsel.
The possibility of adverse costs may discourage litigation.
The class action may offer a collective route but may not be certified.
At each stage, responsibility can shift back toward the person who has already suffered the underlying harm.
That is the structural criticism.
It is not that Canada lacks law.
It is that law on paper and accountability in practice are not always the same thing.
The network problem adds another dimension. A person may be surrounded by a society containing numerous legitimate professional, cultural, religious, family and community networks while remaining effectively isolated from the particular networks that possess relevant information or influence. Criminal organizations demonstrate the existence of sophisticated networks capable of operating across geographic and institutional boundaries. The problem, however, should not be racialized. The issue is not which ethnicity possesses the network. The issue is whether the ordinary individual possesses enough practical power to confront an actor who does.
Canada’s rejection of explicit white-supremacist hierarchy was an important democratic development, but the rejection of overt hierarchy does not eliminate abuse of power. Coercion can migrate into professional structures, financial relationships, institutions, information systems, technology and informal networks. A formally liberal society can therefore still experience what may, as political criticism, be described as a system permissive of thuggery, intimidation and mafia-style abuse of power when institutional and networked power become easier to exercise than accountability is to obtain.
That is not a legal classification of Canada.
It is a warning about practical equality.
The “caged sheep and liberalized wolves” metaphor expresses the same concern. The sheep are not an ethnicity, religion or community. They are ordinary individuals whose protection depends primarily upon formal institutions. The wolves are not an ethnicity either. They represent people or organizations capable of mobilizing greater money, information, institutional access, networks or coercive capacity.
The danger is not diversity.
The danger is unequal power.
A society should not require an ordinary person to possess a gang, a powerful social network, substantial money or a sophisticated lawyer merely to obtain the protection that formal law supposedly provides.
Nor should victims have to discover one another before their experiences become institutionally significant.
The first complaint should matter.
The first investigation should matter.
The first opportunity to preserve evidence should matter.
The first opportunity to identify a pattern should matter.
The justice system should not have to wait until the number of complainants reaches dozens, hundreds or thousands before the institutional problem becomes impossible to ignore.
When criminal justice functions effectively, there is less need for an alternative civil architecture.
When criminal justice fails to provide an adequate answer, people will inevitably search for another route.
Sometimes that route is private prosecution.
Sometimes it is regulatory oversight.
Sometimes it is individual civil litigation.
Sometimes it is a class proceeding.
And sometimes one person discovers that many other people have experienced something similar.
That is when the private complaint becomes a collective institutional problem.
The ultimate question for Canada is therefore not why victims bring class actions.
It is why victims so often need collective civil litigation before they acquire enough practical power to be heard.
A justice system should work for the person who stands alone.
If it does, class litigation remains an important but secondary mechanism for genuinely collective disputes.
If it does not, the class action becomes more than a legal procedure.
It becomes evidence that the ordinary individual was never powerful enough to use the law alone.
The class action may not be the disease. It may be the symptom.
References
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