Create and develop data to identify the different paradigms in which self-defensive violence is invoked and employ policy analysts to undertake a feminist, anti-racist, gay and lesbian-positive analysis of the systemic factors that should be considered in developing self-defence doctrine.

Enact a duty to retreat, where it is safe to do so, for those who initiate or threaten violence or abuse.

Exclude from the ordinary law of self-defence those who were exercising lawful authority and create a specific defence of self-defence for those in lawful authority that has more stringent criteria for self-defence.

Draft a defence that does not differentiate between those who intend and those who do not intend to kill or seriously injure when defending themselves or another.

Draft a defence that is open-ended in terms of protection of other persons, regardless of the legal relationship between the accused and the person protected.

Require that an accused must actually and reasonably, consistent with a s. 15 equality analysis, believe in the need to use defensive violence and in the need to use the degree of violence invoked.

Enact a self-defence law that requires the accused to believe that the use of force is necessary, but requires only that the degree of violence used by the accused be reasonable, not objectively necessary or proportionate.

Enact a statutory list of considerations going to “reasonableness” in cases where the accused or the person protected was subjected to a pattern of coercive control, violence, threats and orabuse. This list must include both systemic issues, as highlighted in Malott, and consideration of the particular features of the accused’s experience, as set out above.

Require that the reasonableness of the accused’s belief regarding the need to use force and the degree of violence that is needed be assessed from the standpoint of the ordinary, sober person.

Draft a self-defence law that disqualifies an accused’s belief in the need to invoke defensive violence or the degree of force used as unreasonable only where it constitutes a marked departure from the beliefs or force used by the reasonable person, consistent with s. 15 of the Charter.