It is rarely used as a defence, and even more rarely invoked successfully. There have been no reported cases since we've amended the legislation. Since the earlier Supreme Court decision, it was only rarely used, and was very, very infrequently successful.
It makes women safer and it makes men safer from acts that are perpetrated while in a state of self-induced intoxication, in the sense that it holds more people criminally responsible and only carves out those who had no way of knowing that this could have or should have happened. It helps us in a larger sense to deliver the message that intoxication is not a defence. You are responsible for what you do when you get intoxicated. I think that is as important as the Criminal Code amendment itself. It is sending out that message to everybody to counter the false narrative that somehow you could get off if you were drunk or if you were high. That is simply not the case.