E.M. Is Still a Victim: When Institutions Fail, So Does Justice

At The Restitution Project, we often remind people: Not guilty does not mean not harmed. But after the verdict in the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial, that reminder carries a heavier weight—because in the eyes of the law, no one was found guilty. And yet the harm to E.M. remains undeniable.

Despite the outcome, E.M. is still a victim.

Not because the court got it wrong. But because the systems surrounding her—from policing to prosecution to public discourse—were never built to hold her truth, or protect her dignity.

She was victimized long before she ever entered a courtroom .M. was victimized the moment she feared that coming forward would result not in care or accountability, but in ridicule and shame. That her consensual decision to meet one man would be used to discredit her when five others became involved. That her sexual autonomy would be spun into a justification for what came next.

She was victimized when the police declined to lay charges the first time. She did everything we ask of survivors: she spoke up, she cooperated, she told her story. And the system told her it wasn’t enough.

She was victimized again when the case was re-opened—not because of new facts, but because of mounting public criticism. When institutions choose to act only when headlines demand it, survivors become pawns—not people. Did the Crown move forward because it believed it could win? Or because it needed to be seen doing something?

Either way, E.M. was thrust back into a process that had already dismissed her once. A process that forced her to relive her trauma under the harsh glare of a nation that still struggles to understand consent, coercion, and fear.

Justice was never just about a verdict In a system built around “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” many survivors will never see a conviction. That is not their failure. It is the result of a legal framework that prioritizes certainty over healing, process over people.

The question is not whether E.M. proved her case. The question is: Did we, as a society, show up for her at all?

Did the police? Did the Crown? Did Hockey Canada? Did the media? Did we?

Or did we retraumatize her—again and again—by treating her trauma as a controversy, her body as evidence, her pain as a public spectacle?

E.M. is still a victim. But she is also more than that. She is a survivor who stood up in a culture that punishes women for doing just that. She gave voice to an experience that too many carry in silence. She endured public scrutiny so intense that most institutions would have crumbled beneath it—while the young men she named will inevitably return to professional careers, protected by silence and status.

At The Restitution Project, we exist for survivors like E.M. We are not here to debate verdicts—we are here to affirm humanity. To remind the public that legal outcomes do not define truth. That harm can exist even without conviction. That healing requires more than a trial—it requires a shift in how we understand justice itself.

Restitution means giving back what was taken For E.M., and for every survivor like her, that includes restoring voice, restoring agency, restoring the right to be seen not as a headline, or a problem, or a burden—but as someone who matters.

E.M. is still a victim. She is still worthy of our belief. And she is still waiting for the world to do better.