Evidence of meeting #143 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fee.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Executive Director General, Parole Board of Canada
That was a policy decision of the government of the day. I remember it well. I had a hand in drafting those amendments. It reflected the government's desire to reflect the seriousness of offences. There was a determination that the cost of the program should be borne by the record suspension applicant rather than the government, so those changes reflect the government's intent.
4 p.m.
Brampton North, Lib.
The changes to the application costs happened around the same time. Was it all within the same act?
4 p.m.
Executive Director General, Parole Board of Canada
Yes, it was all done at the same time.
As the legislative amendments were moving, we were also moving orders in council to adjust the user fee at the same time.
4 p.m.
Brampton North, Lib.
I was wondering if I could hear more about your recent consultations, and if you can also provide information as to whether you've ever thought of other models to recuperate the fee—whether it could be based on income or any other types of means or gradual fee-based models. Have you considered anything other than what we have right now, and what were those different models that were considered?
4 p.m.
Executive Director General, Parole Board of Canada
I will defer in just a moment to my colleague from Public Safety because I know that the government and Public Safety Canada had undertaken a public consultation on the Criminal Records Act. The study that I referred to was one that the Parole Board had done in 2016, and I'm happy to provide a copy to the committee, both an executive summary and the full report. I alluded to the gist of it in my opening remarks. I think it's things that all of you would be familiar with. The feedback was generally that the costs of the program are too high, the waiting periods are too long, the application process is generally too difficult for people. When you stack all of that together, some people just decide that's too much of a barrier, so they won't even bother to apply. I think that's generally borne out by the fact that you've seen the fairly precipitous drop in the number of applications that we receive.
A couple of different fee structure models were proposed in that study that we had done. We looked at a model whereby there was one fee for summary conviction offences and another fee for indictable offences. There was mixed feedback on that. Some people did have the view that this would be a better scheme. Other people held the view that any criminal conviction can have its complexities, so just dividing it on summary and indictable might not be a fair division.
The second scenario proposed was looking at, not an application fee but a....
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director General, Parole Board of Canada
A screening fee, thank you. Once the screening was completed, the person would pay the balance once they were assured that their application was complete. Then we looked at the fee structure as it is right now. Again, as I say, most people had a fairly negative view of that.
I don't know if Ms. Connidis wants to add anything with respect to the government's consultations on the act.
4:05 p.m.
Angela Connidis Director General, Crime Prevention, Corrections and Criminal Justice Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
In our consultations, which were held in November and December 2016, we surveyed a range of issues. On the payment issue, it wasn't as detailed as that of the Parole Board of Canada. However, it was very consistent with how onerous people felt the costs were to have the pardon.
4:05 p.m.
Brampton North, Lib.
The majority of the people are saying it was very onerous on them. Was there any consideration as to what the cost ought to be?
4:05 p.m.
Director General, Crime Prevention, Corrections and Criminal Justice Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
No, there were not particulars in that sense.
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director General, Parole Board of Canada
No, I don't have that level of detail, but one interesting thing that I'd just point out about the PBC report is that embedded in the report is not just the statistical analysis, but some snippets of actual feedback from record suspension applicants and people's commentary. I do think that's useful because it gives a bit of context and flavour to the commentary, so I think that might be helpful to the committee.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Pierre Paul-Hus
Thank you, Ms. Sahota.
We now start a round where everyone has five minutes.
Mr. Motz, the floor is yours.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you for being here.
I have a couple of questions. First of all, going to the fee structure, has the PBC made any money? Is there a cash-positive process since this was instituted in September or March of 2012?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director General, Parole Board of Canada
No. We run on full cost recovery but we don't make a profit on the program.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Okay. This is as best as you can figure as labour costs go up and everything else goes up. This was the cost recovery as of 2012.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
In all actuality, we may not even be covering the costs any longer as of 2018. Is that a fair guess, maybe?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director General, Parole Board of Canada
I think that's fair. I think it's fair to say the program has become more complicated to administer, partially because of all of the litigation and the fact that we're managing multiple schemes right now. It is more labour-intensive for staff at the board to administer a number of schemes rather than one scheme.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Is there any capacity inside of the PBC to review which applicants can afford to pay the fee? Let's say government decides to help those who can't pay or to adjust the fee. Would you have to stand up other employees or a separate branch to deal with that? What would that look like?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director General, Parole Board of Canada
I think certainly if the government wanted to take a look at something like that, then we would certainly be supportive and be able to provide some kind of statistical overview and data that would help inform if the government were looking at gradations of fees. I think we'd be able to support that, but it would really depend on the policy thrust of the government.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Okay, so do you ever look now? Does it matter who pays the fee? If Jim's applying for a pardon, and he doesn't have any cash to do it, and I pay for him, does it matter to you?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director General, Parole Board of Canada
No, as long as the fee is paid.