Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, my name is Michael Jackson. I am a professor of law at the UBC Faculty of Law. I am in equal measure surprised, disturbed, dismayed, and alarmed that I am appearing before you today. I say this for three reasons.
First, over the past winter I made submissions and appeared on behalf of the Canadian Bar Association before the House committee on justice and human rights and the Senate committee on constitutional affairs on Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act. This bill, now enacted, contained a specific part that made a number of amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. The House and Senate committees heard from many witnesses addressing these changes. Nowhere in any of the reports that were the foundation for Bill C-10, or in any submissions to these committees by officials from the parole board—