My concern is that the system the way that is now does what I call back-ending. It saves all the tough penalties in terms of sentencing and reverse onus for the end of the criminal justice system.
Frankly, in intimate partner violence cases, a lot of cases don't make it that far. It's very routine in my jurisdiction—I can't speak for any other places—that nine times out of 10 in the cases I've seen, the offender is offered a peace bond if he doesn't have a criminal record and does counselling. Counselling is good; there's value in it. In a typical situation, he'll go off to 16 weeks of PARS program where, in the context of the program, he's required to make an admission of guilt and participate in counselling. Then when he provides the Crown attorney with a certificate saying he completed the program, he is given a peace bond. There's no criminal conviction. It stops there.
Then in many cases, he comes back or goes to the family law system and says, “Oh, that wasn't really a serious offence—look, the Crown withdrew the charge.” What he said to get that peace bond is very different from what he says in the future, both in the family cases and if he comes before the criminal courts again.