Mr. Chair, if I could answer Mr. Garrison's question, mandatory minimum sentences are generally less than two years, which means that any offender who is sentenced to that period of time will spend it in a provincial jail. Conditional sentences must, by definition, be less than two years. In effect, some of these mandatory minimum sentences, which are passed by federal legislation, put a substantial burden on the provincial jail system. That system isn't able to deliver the kind of programming, number one, because they don't have the resources, and, number two, because people aren't in a place long enough to become entrenched in a program and see it through to its completion.
A much better alternative is to allow offenders—non-violent offenders, obviously—to serve their sentence in the community. They begin their sentence with a conditional sentence, which could include a period of house arrest, as well as treatment. Their sentence, because it would be less than two years, can be followed by a period of probation of up to three years. In effect, that person has the ability to receive five years of supervision and access to rehabilitative programming.
Eliminating these mandatory minimum sentences is a first step to seeing people receive better, longer and more involved treatment and emerge from the system rehabilitated, as opposed to being warehoused until they can be released.