First about the restitution, it's very simple. I'm just so delighted to see that now emotional abuse will be covered under that. It's something that women have been asking of us for a long time. Of course, now they can ask for restitution for their car windows that have been smashed in, but that doesn't go far enough, so thank you for including that.
Secondly, with respect to spousal immunity, I think that it's very important to continue to include the clause that allows spouses to testify, not for the reasons that have been mentioned by my colleagues to the right, but because it.... You know, at one time in history, spouses were not allowed to testify, mostly because women were not considered to be persons, and therefore were not credible to testify. I think this, first of all, alleviates that and makes women more equal in society.
But, secondly, I know that there has been some concern raised about women in fear, and I'm counting on the new subsection 486.31(1) on page 17 to help with that. I am not minimizing the thinking that every abused woman is going to go and testify behind this shield. Certainly women are called upon to testify on an ongoing basis right now as witnesses against their abuser. I'm talking about these very serious cases where women are threatened, battered, beaten, and end up in the hospital for weeks on end, where it could result in an attempted murder charge, where organized crime is involved, where their abusive partner is involved with organized crime, and where we would like to see these women pursue charges but they don't because of fear. We believe in those cases and that this section will be very helpful for them.