TORONTO -- Eight years after his relentlessly cyberbullied daughter died just days after attempting suicide at home, Glen Canning says governments and police have done a lot to address online harassment since then, but there is a long way to go.
Canning said there is still a need for more education on gender-based violence and misogyny, two factors he says were a "big part" of what tormented his daughter, Rehtaeh Parsons.
"She was essentially just devalued by people and by the systems we have in place and I think a lot of that had to do, especially in her high school, with the fact that she was a girl," Canning said in an interview with CTV's Your Morning on Thursday.
Parsons was taken off life support and died on April 7, 2013, three days after the 17-year-old attempted to die by suicide at her home in Dartmouth, N.S.
Parsons had been sexually assaulted at a party by four boys nearly a year and a half earlier, when she was 15. A photograph of the assault circulated among her peers shortly after and was used to cyberbully her repeatedly up until her death.
Canning explained that Parsons took the correct steps after the assault: she reported it to police, she saw a therapist, she changed schools, and she admitted herself to a mental health facility.
However, Canning says the systems in place to help her actually failed her nearly every step of the way.
"I know police departments now are able to take it a lot more seriously, I know that our government has stepped up and given them some power so they can help victims of cyber abuse. So they've done an awful lot and we've come an awful long way, but there's still a long way to go," Canning said.
While more school education is devoted to addressing the danger of cyberbullying, Canning says they also need to address toxic masculinity, specifically when teaching young people about healthy relationships.
"We don't do anywhere near enough of that and I think that would be a huge step for us to take if we really want to have a big impact on making everyone in our community safer," he said.
Since his daughter's death, Canning has been speaking out about gender violence, specifically in high schools, where he said more and more young men are interested in learning how to address the issue.
He said this is "probably the best" outcome he could expect from the situation.
"I've seen high schools form groups of young men who start to speak out about violence against women, they started to educate themselves on issues of consent, and they really took the lead in it," Canning said.
In his new book, "My Daughter Rehtaeh Parsons," Canning not only addresses the circumstances around his daughter's death, but also provides insight into the triumph of the strong woman Parsons was outside of what happened to her.
Canning said Parsons was an "inquisitive young lady" since she was a toddler. He explained that he would take her for walks in the woods growing up, and Parsons would be "so amazed" by animals and nature.
Canning said she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian or a marine biologist. But after being assaulted, Canning said Parsons had a new focus for a career.
"She was a woman who would put aside her dream of doing that, and wanted to become a lawyer so she can help people who've been victimized by sexual violence. That was one of the last goals that she was trying to work towards," Canning said.
However, he noted that this was a difficult goal for her to work towards as the cyberbullying made her unable to go to school.
Canning said one enduring memory of his daughter is driving her one day to her summer job at a dog day camp.
During the drive, Canning said they talked about how she was coping with everything that had happened.
"She told me, 'I would forgive them if they just said they're sorry'," Canning said.
He added that this memory stands out to him because it shows who Parsons was as a person.
"She kind of just said this out of the blue to me, and I carried that with me for a while because after her death, I didn't think I'd ever get to a place of being able to forgive somebody. But I always thought in the back of my head, 'if your daughter will, how could you not?'" Canning explained.
"She was that beautiful of a person," he added.
