Mr. Speaker, the member for Abbotsford is an able chair of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. It is a pleasure to work with him on these issues.
I do not share his pessimism when he says that for once the Liberal Party has done the right thing. I am much more optimistic than the member for Abbotsford. We in the Liberal Party have done the right thing many more times than once. Hopefully, he will continue to work with us and come to that conclusion on his own. He mentioned Bill C-9 in the previous Parliament. He and I were lucky enough to serve in the previous Parliament as well.
I hope I do not stand to be corrected on this because I am going by memory, but I study these justice bills very attentively any time they are introduced and read a great deal about each justice measure that the government introduces. This was a bill from the previous Parliament and I want to ensure my recollection is accurate.
One of the problems that I remember with the previous legislation was that the Conservatives at the time proposed to restrict the use of conditional sentences any time somebody was prosecuted by way of indictment. That was overly broad. They were removing from judges, as they are prone to do, a number of tools important for the rehabilitation of offenders.
They have seen the light and perhaps in this case done the right thing and brought in a more restricted bill, which eliminates the use of conditional sentences in cases where the public clearly would not understand the concept of house arrest. That is why this time, because of the changes they made, we are happy to work with them in the interest of improving public safety.