this is worth dwelling on because it is a juxtaposition of the new and old conservative values, crashing against each other. you used to expect conservatives to be cold, heartless accountants that acted like sociopaths because they were suffering from some childhood trauma leading to an arrested emotional development that prevented them from being able to experience empathy. nowadays, conservatives appear to have no brains at all, don't think before they speak, routinely carry out no fiscal analysis of their policies at all and operate solely on the level of exaggerated emotion. they've converted themselves from uncaring, overcalculated, asshole jerks to hysterical, psychotic, impulsive bitches.

while there is some direction in the code, our bail conditions were developed by judges, not by politicians. our independent court system can accept some direction, but the judges would be correct to essentially ignore this bill as an extreme overreach of the house of commons. politicians should not be telling judges how to sentence criminals.

the reason that judges tend to avoid onerous bail conditions for most criminal acts is that the reasons for sentencing people don't work. decades of research make it clear that judicial deterrence is a joke, stopping repeat offenders is a crap shoot and viciously punishing people for the sake of it is barbaric. the one valid reason to put somebody in jail is for the protection of the community, but that is difficult to establish after trial, let alone before it, and people are and must remain innocent until they are proven guilty.

there is one condition on the list - sexual assault - that should generate very strict bail conditions, but it already does. crimes like kidnapping and trafficking seem terrible, but they are usually done by organized crime, and when the police catch the thug that did it, they caught the fall guy. it would usually be more helpful to send hired thugs to school or to rehab than to jail.

the list of crimes that should generate severe bail restrictions are crimes of passion, usually involving an ex-lover, and being a higher up in an organized crime ring. it's not the runners on the ground that you need to lock up, it's the fat tonies in the smoke filled cellars and garages.

increasing bail conditions is mostly a waste of money, and it opens the state to liability in scenarios where people are wrongly accused. the old conservatives would have cared about that. the new conservatives just want you to please think of the children.