If you don't mind, I'd like to add to those comments.
Similarly, we are happy to see some changes to the law of self-defence. We are concerned in particular because we're dealing with the self-defence review of which we were a part and which the Department of Justice co-sponsored in 1996-97. That review made some recommendations with regard to the notion of reasonableness. It's not necessarily what's objectively reasonable and proportionate that needs to be taken into account; it's the subjective interpretation of the person involved.
Because my co-panellist from the Canadian Bar Association just raised this, I'd like to add that oftentimes the risk that is perceived or understood is very real to the woman. Objectively it may not look real or it may look avoidable when someone says to them, “If you ever try to leave or if you try to do something tonight, I will hunt you down, and I will hunt down all your family”. As we've seen in far too many instances, those are threats that have in fact been carried out, so the systemic issue is very real.
The objective test, if you understand violence against women and the subjective interpretation, is in fact that the risk is real. Yet it may not be seen as imminent or proportionate if the woman then grabs the man's gun and uses it when he's sleeping, even though it's clear that he's indicated...as in the case of Jane Stafford. There is a whole group of cases we have our students study in the course we teach on defending battered women on trial. In fact the real risk is very subjectively and objectively present when you look at it. We have Kim Kondejewski's case. There are a number of cases for which juries have heard that information, but unless it's contextualized, unless there is some direction or somebody who understands that and puts it forth, it may not be put forth at all.
So I think it's important to have reflected in this that much clearer language around the fact that it's reasonable in the circumstances as understood by the individual. We've suggested charter analysis so that it can't be used in a way that would be seen as subjectively discriminatory, as in the cases of homosexual panic or those sorts of things.