Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for opening the debate in a real fashion by saying that conditional sentences are an appropriate sentence in some cases. If we only looked at the newscasts, we would think that conditional sentences are not appropriate for anything and house arrest sentences are synonymous and free willy, people can just do whatever they want.
Could the member expand on his comment that conditional sentences are appropriate in certain cases and could he refer to the whole page, the menu, of conditions that a judge has at his or her disposal in section 742.3 that are not available to a judge in giving a probation order or in sentencing someone to incarceration? There is a menu of items that might be useful in terms of rehabilitation, reintegration, cost saving and so on that a judge might use especially subsection (2).
Could he expand on the types of crimes that have found conviction and should fall within the category section 742.3, specifically subsection (2), and all those conditions about going into a treatment program, a remedy that is not available through a probation order, abstaining from the consumption of alcohol or drugs, the very specific things to which this enactment was designed to be tailored.
We know from our tour of the country with the justice committee, that many of the people in our prisons suffer mental illness, or mental illness problems, addiction problems and other issues that could be better probably dealt with through treatment rather than incarceration.
Perhaps the member could expand on that list, but did not have enough time to go through it.