It's a great question.
Mr. Chair, in general in Canada, we have work to do to balance the system with regard to the rights of offenders and the rights of victims, where the rights of offenders are guaranteed under the charter, and victims typically have to ask for their rights to be respected, and there's no recourse for them to follow up outside of the complaints mechanism, which is part of why our office is vitally important to victims and survivors of crime.
In terms of clear language, it's not accessible to the average Canadian to understand. I just want to read this portion of the bill:
they departed markedly from the standard of care expected of a reasonable person in the circumstances with respect to the consumption of intoxicating substances.
For a survivor of sexual assault who tries to look at and understand the law, that's not clear, so the messaging has to be there, because already, as Ms. Thomas has pointed out, we know that less than 6% of sexual assaults in Canada are reported to the police. If women feel that they're not going to be believed because there was intoxication involved, that's significant. We need to clarify that.
We need to look at this issue also in the context of drug and alcohol policies and harm reduction and consider the importance of safer consumption programs as a means of people using more safely than in other contexts where private violence could occur.