Regina Sexual Assault Centre pushes back against claim of increased calls following Experience Regina campaign
CTV
The Regina Sexual Assault Centre (RSAC) is speaking out after an open letter claimed the Experience Regina campaign led to an increase of calls to sexual assault services and called for a town hall to discuss the effects of the campaign.
The Regina Sexual Assault Centre (RSAC) is speaking out after an open letter claimed the Experience Regina campaign led to an increase of calls to sexual assault services and called for a town hall to discuss the effects of the campaign.
The open letter was released on May 9 by Sexual Assault Services Saskatchewan (SASS).
“Survivors have been reaching out to SASS, sexual assault crisis lines, and other supportive community agencies for help due to re-traumatization from the campaign, and its messaging," the letter said.
SASS consists of nine organizations located across the province. None of its member organizations are located in Regina.
Lisa Miller, the executive director of RSAC, agrees that the campaign was problematic but disagrees with several points made in the SASS letter.
For one, she said that “core agencies” in Saskatchewan did not receive a noticeable influx of calls following the failed Experience Regina tourism campaign, which tried to incorporate unsavory attempts at humour involving the city's name.
“There are three core sexual assault agencies in the province, Battlefords, Saskatoon and Regina … We would need to go back and kind of analyze how many calls we got after the blow-up of that campaign but we did not notice any increase in calls,” she told CTV News.
