I think what we have to do is work out what restitution is justified in respect of the harm that was done to the victim and what actually gets paid. You should not be trying to get blood out of stone. You have to recognize that somebody who's incarcerated is typically not getting a lot of income and therefore you're not going to get a lot of money. What the UN General Assembly declaration says is that you first look at what restitution you can get from the offender, and then, in cases of violence—and that's not limited to physical violence, it could be serious psychological trauma—you turn to compensation.
But I am realistic: I don't think we're going to get all the $83 billion paid back by anybody. That's why I think it's so important that our legislators at the federal and provincial levels start seriously investing in what we know will stop this violence. Alberta provides a good example of what we need to be looking at from coast to coast, and, up to a point, what the federal government needs to collaborate in.
There are other ways of getting that payment made. That's effectively what happened in the Jones case, where the Royal Bank came up with $17 million. So there are the possibilities of third-party suits or contributions, where something can be paid. But it's not going to happen in every case. If you go back to the McDonald's triple murder, I don't think you'd be able to show how McDonald's contributed to negligence in that case. You can't always expect there to be a rich corporation around the corner to pay those amounts.
We have to start looking at this in a broader context, and we have to look at it from the victim perspective. That's what's so important. Criminal justice should respond to the needs of victims in a just and fair way, and that includes getting judges to order restitution.