GUNTER: Cancel culture dealt a blow with Hockey Canada sex assault trial verdict

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“#MeToo changed our culture, but it couldn’t change our courts.” “No justice for the victim.” “Survivors of sexual assault need our understanding, not courts deaf to their complaints.”

Those and many, many other headlines and ledes blared out Friday that, in one form or the other, the woman known only as “E.M.,” who had alleged five Hockey Canada junior players had gang assaulted her in 2018, had been let down by the justice system or even wronged by it.

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But the decision brought down Thursday by Justice Maria Carroccia in a London, Ontario courtroom — all five defendants were “not guilty” — makes me thankful the #MeToo movement didn’t change our courts.

For a time, at the movement’s height in 2018, being accused of sexual misconduct by a MeToo follower was enough to end the career of any man accused of harassment or unwanted advances. No evidence was needed, no trials were held.

To be sure, lots of pigs guilty of real crimes got outed — deservedly. Movie producer Harvey Weinstein was one. In 2021 and 2022, Weinstein was found guilty in both New York and Los Angeles of five counts of rape for forcing young starlets to have sex with him in return for roles in his movies.

Other abusers, who had gotten away with coerced or non-consensual sexual behaviour for years, saw their reigns of terror ended. Good.

And I do think the movement has made men, especially those in positions of power, rethink their behaviour towards female underlings. Another good.

But because social media and cancel culture were the juries that decided which men tarred with the MeToo brush were worthy of punishment (indeed the term “cancel culture” evolved in lockstep with MeToo) a lot of men lost their careers as the result of a tweet (or two million tweets).

Actual courts have to concern themselves with little matters such as evidence, due process and reasonable doubt. But not online lynch mobs.

While office romances were once common, most large companies now have policies preventing bosses (male or female) from “fraternizing” with employees. Data company Astronomer has just such a policy that, if followed, would have saved CEO Andy Byron and HR executive Kristin Cabot the humiliation of having their extramarital affair exposed to the world on a kiss cam at a Coldplay concert outside Boston last week.

We’ve forgotten the concept of innocent until proven guilty, too. In the Hockey Canada trial, E.M. levelled serious allegations against five players who were playing professionally at the time. When police first investigated her claim, they found it insufficient to arrest the quintet. A second look that included the Ontario Crown attorney Office came to much the same conclusion.

But when media and politicians took an interest, charges were laid, the players were suspended from their teams and dragged through nearly three years of legal proceedings.

Were the sex acts they committed with and to E.M. reprehensible? Without a doubt, even if they were consensual. But were they criminal? Not according to Justice Carroccia, who before being appointed was one of the most experienced criminal lawyers in Ontario and who, since joining the bench in 2020, has presided over at least two other complex sexual assault trials. She decided one for the Crown and one for the defendant.

Yet thousands of advocates and activists are enraged by her ruling and have promised to fight for justice for E.M.

They find E.M.’s telling of events authentic in part, I think, because activists over the last 20 years or more have convinced themselves women never lie about assault. At the very least, they are sure a woman’s version is always the whole truth.

Justice Carroccia didn’t see it that way. After listening to more than seven weeks of testimony, the judge found E.M.’s version lacked credibility.

But the response of women’s groups and E.M.’s fans has been, essentially, “We didn’t get the outcome we wanted, so the system most be broken.”

In this case it worked as it should, unlike the “rough justice” demanded by the mob.