Yes, I will.
As I explained to the witness who was here just before we moved to clause-by-clause, much of the testimony we heard with regard to the procedures and controls that the government's Bill S-6 would put into place might inadvertently deny an offender from being able to apply for the faint hope--not in most cases but in some cases--and the bill as currently written provides for absolutely no flexibility and no authority on the part of any individual institution to extend the deadline in extraordinary or exceptional circumstances that are beyond the control of the inmate and which prevent the inmate from being able to make an application within the window that the government has put out in Bill S-6. Therefore this amendment by the Liberals would give a discretionary authority to the appropriate chief justice or his or her designate to extend the 90-day limit by a maximum of 90 days if the person, due to circumstances beyond his or her control, is unable to make an application within the 90-day limit.
Clearly that person would have to bring solid evidence to a chief justice or his or her designate to demonstrate why he or she was unable to meet the 90-day deadline, and then that chief justice or his or her designate would weigh whether or not those grounds and reasons provided were sufficient to allow for a prolongation of the delay. Then the chief justice might say “Okay, I give you 15 more days” or “I give you 30 more days”. But in any case, the maximum that the chief justice or his or her designate would grant under this amendment would be 180 days, which means he or she would only be able to extend the 90-day deadline by a further 90 days maximum.
We believe that this is perfectly reasonable. We hope the government would support this. It is based on evidence that we heard, and as I've said, it would apply only if a judge was convinced that there were circumstances beyond the control of the inmate, and then that chief justice or his or her designate would determine by how much time that deadline should be extended.