I guess the context we've tried to present in our brief is that if we look at the current situation and the characteristics of the dangerous offender population in the system right now, there's a high number of offenders that have been convicted. In many cases these are people who are coming into the system as young people, as young offenders, and then continuing. We have a statistic, which the Library of Parliament presented, that 45% of them had at least 15 criminal convictions for serious offences before they were declared dangerous offenders.
The criterion that is being established for the reverse onus now will, we hope, generate more applications to consider these individuals for dangerous offender status and will put some onus on an accused person in those situations, with that serious criminal past, to demonstrate why in fact they should be released back into the community, given their serious criminal record. But at the end of the day, the judge will still have the discretion, whether or not the criterion has been met, to declare that person a dangerous offender. And it's certainly my understanding that this bill does not change that criterion, in terms of what the characteristics are to be evaluated, before that designation would be granted, and the assessment process will still require the same experts to evaluate that person as well.
From our perspective, should it generate a higher level of applications for more serious offenders? We hope so. Will it place different criteria in place on which the judge is going to evaluate them? No. Certainly, from our perspective, the characteristics and the risks that are to be assessed during the process would remain the same.