Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have three points I wanted to touch upon regarding conditional sentences.
Mr. Pichette, what is your impression of how the criminal population views conditional sentences? Is it viewed as a “get out of jail free” card, or is it viewed as genuine supervision? There was some mention made that a conditional sentence actually has a longer supervision period than a custodial disposition, but is it actually viewed that way? Is it viewed by the criminal population as genuine supervision? I'd surely be surprised if both levels of supervision were viewed, in any sense, as close or similar.
On that same point, probation also serves a sense of supervision, a limited sense, like a conditional sentence. Obviously, there'd be longer periods of probation for someone who had a custodial disposition versus a conditional sentence. Could you touch upon that?