It is actually uncommon. It is an exceptional measure, the reverse onus. Gradually, over the years, we've seen them come into bail in a very limited way and to certain other provisions of the code in a very limited way, but every time the Supreme Court of Canada is called upon to talk about reverse onus, they still use the word “exceptional”, because it is in fact contrary to what the system generally should be doing.
Other than the comments I made earlier, I think one of the big problems we see here is that in the absence of empirical evidence showing why this is necessary, it's highly unlikely that it will pass a constitutional challenge, because if we don't have the evidence here to show why it's necessary, how is the crown going to have it at the challenge stage before the Supreme Court of Canada?
This is what my colleague beside me was talking about: there's no evidence here to show why it's necessary in these circumstances to reverse the burden.