Justice committee  Yes, you're correct that the Supreme Court of Canada has made it clear in relation to conditional sentences that the first point is to determine whether a sentence of imprisonment is appropriate. Then the next consideration is whether that term of imprisonment can be served in th

Justice committee  Thank you. There is a $2 million grants and contributions fund in the Department of Justice to encourage innovative projects to meet the needs of victims of crime. That money can be provided, on a project basis, to provinces and territories and to non-governmental organizations.

Justice committee  The department has some research. I believe it's been provided to the committee; if not, we can make it available. Unfortunately, there is no conclusive answer with respect to the benefits of conditional sentences. We would certainly like to do more. Professor Roberts has done

Justice committee  It's impossible even to answer which of two people who have had the exact same sentence under similar circumstances is likely to reoffend. That's a question you should pose to a criminologist who has had an opportunity to attempt to devise a methodology to do that research.

Justice committee  We can provide additional information to you through the minister's office about how those figures were reached.

Justice committee  These are estimates that we developed in the Department of Justice. But as the minister indicated, he's meeting with his colleagues in about three weeks, and we expect that they will indicate their costs from their own perspective, because certain information can only come from t

Justice committee  As I indicated, those are national figures with a national average. It does vary by jurisdiction, and it has been noted that in provinces with high aboriginal populations, the impact will be different.

Justice committee  I don't recall whether I was there either, but certainly the figure we have been operating with is that the cost of the Bill C-9 reforms to the provinces would be $21.7 million. Our colleagues in research and statistics obviously looked at all the data and made a number of assu