Evidence of meeting #158 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 process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Acting Director General, Policy and Operations, Parole Board of Canada
No, that's definitely the case. If we were looking at pardons that would not continue to be in place, it would either be a situation involving good conduct, but most often, it would be a new conviction.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
When someone makes an application, if they have a simple possession, is there any circumstance where the pardon would not be granted?
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
If an individual meets the requirements laid out in the act...and the Parole Board, as I understand it, is going to be publishing a how-to guide that will be available on the Internet to explain it to people. As there is now for applying for a pardon in the normal way, there will be detailed explanations and the application form.
Presuming that the applicant has submitted a complete application with all the relevant information, then it is simply an administrative decision of whether it has accomplished all the objectives of the act and there's no subjective judgment call to be made in those circumstances. That's why it's faster.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Minister Goodale, for being here today.
My colleague Ms. Sahota asked about costing and you estimated, or your official suggested—and of course, it depends on the number of people who apply, that you were anticipating about $2.5 million over the coming years to process the paperwork of several thousand individuals. That's the term that was used.
If the cost of a record suspension is around $600 now, that's fewer than 4,000 people. I'm sure your officials have an estimate of how many people you're anticipating will apply for this.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
As you know, Mr. Motz, predicting these things is difficult, because you don't know exactly what the uptake will be. That cost estimate is related to processing approximately 10,000 applications by the simplified methodology that we were just discussing.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
How do you plan to cover this cost? Will this come out of an existing budget line? Will it be added to a deficit of a department? How do you anticipate that you will be paying for this?
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
I mean the whole amount, the cost of this, whether it's $2.5 million or more.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
We anticipate the cost of the program will be $2.5 million. It will be coming through the normal estimates process, which would have to be approved by Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Will you undertake to have your officials provide a cost analysis to the committee prior to our passing this, or amending things at the committee?
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
I would think we could provide you with the analysis, Mr. Motz, to show how we arrive at the arithmetic.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Is there currently a mechanism to levy sales from the current legalization of cannabis to potentially pay for this, as opposed to this being a taxpayer expense? Is that considered, or would you consider it if it hasn't been considered?
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
Mr. Motz, in a way what you're suggesting is linking two disconnected things. First is the accumulation of old records, which are a burden and cast a stigma on people and which, I guess, now is considered to be particularly inappropriate because the whole legal regime has changed. The new regime, with its revenue-generating capacity, would have nothing to do directly with the pre-existence of those records.
They're two separate issues, but the cost of this would come out of the general revenues of the government—
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
—which will be augmented by the fact there there is now, or will be, a revenue stream flowing from....
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
But as the Minister of Public Safety you can't go to general revenues and get more money.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Not in the way you're considering, that just because your sales of marijuana go into general revenues you're now going to access that extra money to pay for this. I guess what I'm getting at is—
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
You're right. Whatever the government earns from the revenue from cannabis goes into the general revenue fund. That's correct.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
All I'm getting at is that a large portion of the Canadian population is under the impression that this should not be a taxpayer-funded process, so any mechanism that's in place to do that.... I'm also curious to know whether there's some consideration to this legislation allowing individuals to apply through this process, expediting record suspensions and jumping the queue for those who apply for the normal process. They apply, they pay their fees and they wait for that process.
Will there be any impact on the normal record suspension process that exists now? How do we guarantee that? We're using the same staff, unless we add more staff.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
The process is different in the sense that those people who have more complicated records would need to go through the normal process, which involves the engagement of a member of the Parole Board. Under Bill C-93, dealing exclusively with simple possession of cannabis is an administrative function for staff to manage and there is a separate financial allotment to make sure we have the personnel in place to handle that administrative function without impinging on the other important work that the Parole Board has to do.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To start with, I would like to turn to the minister and the officials from the department and the other agencies. The subject is the American border.
But first, let me ask this. I assume that American customs employees have access to Canadian data through the CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre.
Are they using the CPIC database to look at the cases?
