I don't have any stats as they connect to the restitution issue. What I do know is that our organization monitors reported case law, so that's all the decisions that are publicly available to lawyers regarding sentencing and other matters that are going before the courts. Restitution is almost never mentioned in the offences we monitor, which are the online child sexual exploitation offences—like what is called child pornography in the Criminal Code, online luring, agreement or arrangement, those types of offences that tend to involve technology.
In the few cases we are aware of where restitution was requested it wasn't granted because the judge's sense was that the individual was going to jail for a long time, so he wouldn't be able to pay. It's similar to the reasons judges use for not imposing a victim surcharge. To that, our organization would say that people in this country don't go to jail forever. They do come out. They do get jobs. They do work. There's no reason there couldn't be a restitution order that is there and that is payable at some point in their lifetimes. It doesn't have to be, obviously, the moment they're incarcerated.
Our other issue is with the wording of the Criminal Code itself, which requires that the restitution be readily ascertainable at the time of sentencing. For victims of online crimes, the damage and the full cost and impact on the person's life is often not even remotely known at the time of sentencing. You don't know whether that person's child sexual abuse material is going to go viral within offender community circles. You don't know what other offenders are going to target this person because their imagery or their personal information was placed online.
Those are some challenges we see with the restitution issue.