This amendment is that Bill C-93 in clause 5 be amended by replacing line 3 on page 3 with the following:
pended, without taking into account any offence referred to in Schedule 3, if the Board is satisfied that
Basically, the purpose of this amendment is so that, for those with criminal offences who are seeking a pardon for their other criminal offences—I'm not talking about cannabis—and have a cannabis possession on their record, that cannabis possession is not taken into account as “bad conduct”. That basically would go against the purpose of our saying that cannabis is now legalized and trying to remove those simple cannabis possessions to begin with.
It would be very harmful for that to be taken into account when individuals are dealing with their other convictions and are trying to seek pardons for those other convictions. They've met the time and they're paying the fees—all of those things—but then there is this cannabis possession charge from maybe a few years back. That is then considered to be bad conduct and they can't even get those other convictions pardoned because of it.
That's my justification for this.