Appliquer des stéréotypes est inapproprié, que ce soit dans l’évaluation du comportement de la personne accusée d’agression sexuelle ou de celui du plaignant.
Le juge du procès n’a pas non plus rejeté erronément le témoignage de l’appelant sur la base de généralisations et de stéréotypes. Tout comme les juges majoritaires de la Cour d’appel, nous sommes d’avis que les affirmations du premier juge à cet égard visaient la preuve propre à l’appelant lui-même ainsi que la crédibilité des prétentions de celui-ci quant à la façon dont il avait réagi dans les circonstances particulières de l’espèce, et non quelque conception stéréotypée de la façon dont les hommes se conduiraient dans de telles circonstances.
[21] The appellant submits that the trial judge applied stereotypical myths when he rejected aspects of his evidence as “fanciful” and “unbelievable”. We have had the benefit of reviewing the dissenting reasons of our colleague in draft form and agree that it is inappropriate for a court to apply or rely on generalizations or stereotypes about sexual behavior whether assessing the conduct of an accused person or a complainant. However, in our view, the trial judge did not do so when he rejected the evidence of the appellant. When the trial reasons are reviewed in their entirety, it is apparent that the trial judge was not suggesting that it was “unbelievable” that a man would be less interested in engaging in sex than a woman but rather that he found it unbelievable in view of all of the evidence that the appellant was not interested in engaging in sex with the complainant.
On ne peut pas faire du « cherry picking » lorsqu’on analyse les raisons qui sous-tendent la décision du juge d’instance
[34] If viewed in isolation some of the trial judge’s statements might raise a concern about stereotypical male thinking and attitudes. However, when viewed in the context of the judgment as a whole, it is apparent that his views were about the appellant, not men in general.
[35] As cited with approval in R v Davis, [1999] 3 SCR 759, 1999 CanLII 638 at para 103:
It is not sufficient to “cherry pick” certain infelicitous phrases or sentences without enquiring as to whether the literal meaning was effectively neutralized by other passages. This is especially true in the case of a judge sitting alone where other comments made by him or her may make it perfectly clear that he or she did not misapprehend the import of the legal principles involved. As McLachlin J. said in [R v CRB, 1990 CanLII 142 (SCC), [1990] 1 SCR 717, at p 737]: “[t]he fact that a trial judge misstates himself at one point should not vitiate his ruling if the preponderance of what was said shows that the proper test was applied and if the decision can be justified on the evidence.”