Going back to my earlier comment about risk management, sometimes the difficulty around calibrating what is the appropriate approach to balancing those two very important considerations, public safety on the one hand and constitutional values on the other.... As I've said, it's not a science; it's an art. It requires Crowns and also bail jurists to exercise common sense and also to be alive to, as I said, the necessary social contexts.
We understand that we don't want people who pose a tremendous risk—the language used in the code is “substantial risk”.... How do we determine whether or not this person poses a substantial risk of reoffending?
The code gives us some guidance. It tells us about antecedents, whether or not this person committed other offences or has convictions. Also, it tells us about the type of offence—the normative dimension of the offence—so whether we're talking about a serious violent offence and so on. These are considerations that a bail jurist will take into consideration in making a decision.