Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his insight into the debate.
It is going to be very important to have this matter dealt with at committee. I am sure that many of the questions that have been raised in the debate will be resolved there, things such as cost, and I know the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been engaged to look into the costs of this and other legislation dealing with the Criminal Code.
The member talked about recidivism rates in his speech. I have recently seen a case in a media report that seems to indicate that all of the studies and the literature find that people who are given conditional sentences are substantially less likely to reoffend than those who would are put in jail and have to serve that full term.
It makes an interesting question about whether or not the intent of the legislation that we bring forward should be to reduce recidivism, and conditional sentencing appears to support the action of reducing recidivism.
I wonder if the member has any some comments on that.