Thank you for the question.
It really is a historical issue, one that predates the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and goes back to the old penitentiary and parole acts when they were in place.
There's nothing magical about three years. I think, as was pointed out by the witnesses today, three years was a decision that was made, approved, and passed by Parliament with the understanding that as individuals get closer to the parole eligibility date, there may be the need to look at opportunities to gradually prepare them for release back into the community, particularly for somebody who served a lengthy period of time in incarceration. If you look at an individual who may have gone into the system 22 years ago, many of the pieces of technology you have on the table here are totally foreign to those individuals. I remember talking to an individual who had committed robbery who had never even seen an ATM machine until going out.
That period of time was meant to find opportunities for gradual release, leading into those longer-term releases, which we call day parole and full parole. There is some history behind it, but there is nothing magical about the three-year window.