I should backtrack to the sentencing process. In many cases, in order to mitigate the sentence, an offender who can pay in situations where damages or losses have been suffered and restitution is a logical sentence, will voluntarily indicate that they would like to make restitution. That will, hopefully, mitigate their sentence. In those cases, sometimes probation may be an appropriate sentence. It always depends on a number of factors, such as the seriousness of the offence, the offender's record, and so on.
Some of the research done by the Department of Justice over several years has indicated that, where restitution is volunteered by the offender, it is paid more often than when it's ordered by the court. In situations where a court is sentencing an offender, and there's no offer to make restitution, perhaps because of an inability to pay or other reasons, the court may order restitution. The crown may ask for restitution, or the court can do it on their own motion, but they're going to take into account a whole variety of factors, again, in terms of what the appropriate sentence is. So it could be that restitution isn't going to be appropriate for the nature of the offence, and a consideration—not a determinative consideration, but it is certainly a valid consideration—is ability to pay. The courts know that if they order restitution to be paid by an offender who has no means of paying it, it's not assisting either the offender's rehabilitation nor assisting the victim in getting the reparation they seek.
So then moving on to the situation—