Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Daryl Churney. I'm the director of corrections policy at Public Safety Canada. With me today is Dr. Ian Broom, senior policy analyst with corrections policy at Public Safety Canada, and Mr. Michel Laprade, general counsel with legal services at Correctional Service of Canada.
In relation to the question with respect to the government's first motion to amend and the additional nuance in that sentence, really what that's trying to do is to clarify only.
The definition of a offence involving violence can be a very complicated definition. Many federal offenders can be serving sentences of imprisonment for more than one crime. They're often serving what we call “merged” sentences. They might be serving one sentence for a violent offence and another for a non-violent offence such as fraud or something of that nature.
This clarification seeks to make it very clear that the mandatory parole review changes apply only in respect of those convictions where it's a violent offence. If somebody is serving a 10-year sentence and eight years of that sentence applies to a violent offence, for example, and two years to a drug offence, that portion would not be captured.
So it's to clarify that point.