Very briefly, I think my colleague, Professor Jackson, talked about the changes to the CCRA that will have an impact and the changes to the pardon act that would create further roadblocks to reintegration into communities.
The simple answer is that many of the restrictive sentencing measures that are being put in place--such as the increased use of mandatory minimum sentences and the restrictions on conditional sentences, which assist offenders to continue doing positive things in life, continue working, and continue having interactions with friends and family while under strict conditions and monitored by the state--assist and enhance public safety. Restricting those sentencing measures has the opposite effect.
In terms of the resource issue, the increased use of mandatory minimum penalties is going to put enormous pressure on the criminal justice system. Crown prosecutors are going to have many more cases to deal with. They'll have greater discretion in the sense that they'll have to do acrobatics and gymnastics to potentially come up with other charges that could be laid that don't have the mandatory minimum sentence in order to avoid unjust results.