What I am hearing from defence lawyers and Crown prosecutors alike is that in many cases, preliminary inquiries allow the courts to deal with many matters and to better organize the trial that's coming. I don't hear that it's a useless procedure.
In terms of cases of domestic violence in particular, very few of them get to the criminal justice system. I think that speaks to the fact that criminalization is often not the answer we should be getting at in terms of dealing with domestic violence and that we should think about other means.
Other people have talked about prevention. I would also add to the discussion restorative justice. I've been conducting research with indigenous women in an indigenous community in Quebec. They want to deal with domestic violence through their indigenous legal traditions. They want to introduce more restorative justice procedures. I'm not sure that the criminal justice system is responding to their needs right now. I understand and I have been going in another direction, but I think it's important to put that on the table as well.