Senator Boisvenu: I take it, then, that there’s no connection between discharges and overcrowding. However, you’re saying that there is a connection between the reverse onus for offenders from all walks of life and overcrowding. Will you be voting against the bill?

Senator Batters: Senator Simons, in your speech, you primarily referred to absolute discharges. Would you concede that conditional discharges are also included in this same framework and so this would eliminate conditional discharges as well? The types of conditional discharges — as I’m sure you know well from the kinds of cases you reported on — can involve weapons and firearms prohibitions, probation and non‑contact orders for those types of interpersonal violence, which is very common and that can be, of course, more than one.

As well, a discharge involves a finding of guilt, and then a discharge is the type of sanction that the judge chooses for it. That is not the least bad of anything. They have been found guilty of the criminal offence, and this is simply the sanction that has been chosen.

Hon. Denise Batters: I have a brief question for Senator Boisvenu. In regard to this, I just want to make it clear for those of us who are not fluent in French, and who do not have a full understanding of what has been said. My understanding is that this particular amendment returns the bill to the form in which it existed previously. The part of bail reform relating to serious offences would apply not only to people who have been convicted, but also to people who have been found guilty and were discharged, whether it’s an absolute discharge or a conditional discharge. Just so that my colleagues know, absolute discharges can be quite serious matters. For example, in 2008, Saskatchewan Roughriders general manager Eric Tillman received an absolute discharge after he sexually assaulted his children’s babysitter. That is the kind of serious charge that we’re dealing with here. Is it correct that those are the types of matters that we’re dealing with, and that we want to ensure we can have a reverse onus on bail applied to those conditional and absolute discharges?

[Translation]