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The Discriminatory Use of the “KGB Procedure Against Women in Canada”
In R. v. B. (K.G.), the Supreme Court set out procedural criteria to ensure certain police statements by witnesses are reliable enough to be admitted for their truth. The Court did not intend this framework, known as the KGB protocol, to be used broadly, and police do not typically apply it to those reporting crimes. In practice, however, two groups of witnesses are subjected to KGB: those the Court intended — such as the criminally implicated, co-accused or presumptively untrustworthy — and women who report sexual or gender-based violence. A close look at case law, evidentiary rules and Crown prosecution standards shows that applying KGB to the latter group is usually unnecessary, based on discriminatory assumptions about women and rape, and likely to cause harm to those seeking justice for sexual violence.