Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
I am joined today by Sylvie Blanchet, the Executive Vice-Chairperson, and Martin van Ginhoven, the Regional Director General of the Quebec Office.
I would like to start by extending my deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Marylène Levesque. What happened in Quebec on January 22, is an absolute tragedy, and something that should never happen.
We all understand why we are here today. I want to take a couple of minutes to put a frame around that.
On September 19, 2019, a parole hearing was held for this offender. Two Parole Board members reviewed his case to decide whether or not to continue his day parole. During this hearing, the parole officer presented to Parole Board members a release plan that included an element that would allow this offender to solicit women for sexual purposes. The Parole Board members categorically rejected this part of the plan. I want to be very clear about this. They ordered the offender and his parole officer to stop this activity.
The offender clearly understood this, which is confirmed in the recent court statement. The rest of the plan was approved, and a decision to continue day parole was made with a number of conditions, including to report any relationships with women, whether sexual or non-sexual.
On January 22, we were advised that this offender had been charged with the murder of Ms. Levesque. Following that, there was much misreporting and misunderstanding about the conditional release system, so I'd like to provide a few clarifications.
First, the Parole Board is an independent administrative tribunal, which means our decision-making remains free from external and/or political influence. This independence ensures that decisions made by Parole Board members are made solely on the law and the information available to them.
Second, public safety is the paramount consideration in all Parole Board decisions. That is the law.
Third, the Parole Board does not prepare offenders for release. It does not manage or supervise offenders on release. That's the responsibility of the Correctional Service of Canada. The Parole Board is a decision-making body. We conduct approximately 16,000 reviews a year which translates into about 23,000 decisions. Violent reoffending by offenders that the Parole Board has released into the community is extremely rare. About 99.9% of all offenders on day parole have not reoffended violently, and these numbers have been consistent over the past decade.
However, when an incident like this occurs in the community, we take it very seriously. A board of investigation is now under way, as is the normal practice following this kind of incident. It is being co-chaired by two independent external individuals who are criminologists. The Parole Board is fully invested in finding out what happened in this case and to see if there are things we could do better.
The motion of the House also notes concern about the appointment process of board members.
The process to become a Parole Board member is open to all Canadians. It is merit-based. There is a screening process, a written test, interviews and reference checks.
I can say with confidence that the names I forward to the minister for his consideration are all those of highly qualified individuals who could become very good board members.
The Parole Board is a community board. We are, by law, to reflect the diversity of Canadian society. Board members have diverse backgrounds spanning the fields of criminology, law, corrections, education, psychology, social work and the private sector, to name but a few.
We currently have 78 board members. Thirty-nine are full time and 39 part time. Part-time board members are appointed for three years, as prescribed by law, and full-time board members are currently appointed for five years, although the law provides for appointments of up to 10 years.
Over the past few years, the board has improved its diversity to better reflect that of the Canadian population. Fifty-three per cent are women; 7% are visible minorities and 12% are indigenous. Ninety-five per cent of board members have a university degree; 64% have direct experience in the criminal justice field and 32% have direct experience in corrections and conditional release.
Upon appointment, all board members complete an intensive 6-week training program. ln a nutshell, they receive training on relevant law, policy, risk assessment for various offender types, such as women, indigenous, lifers, sex offenders and so forth.
They are then mentored and coached by their respective regional vice-chair, other experienced board members and training staff. Absolutely no board member is assigned any decision-making responsibilities until they have completed their training and have the full confidence of their regional vice-chair. If the committee would like additional information on this training program, I would be more than pleased to provide it.
Training continues on a regular basis throughout a board member's entire mandate. Parole Board members are also supported by highly qualified public service staff. They include hearing officers, case review officers, training staff and our board member secretariat. The law and therefore Parole Board decisions are based on research that clearly shows that gradual, managed and supervised releases provide the best protection of society. The board's risk assessment model is evidence-based and has been adopted in a number of other jurisdictions.
Over the last three decades, there has been continuous improvement in the public safety results the board achieves. It achieves this in partnership with many others, including the Correctional Service of Canada and many community partners. It reflects the research that has continued to progress on risk assessment and the management of risk. In fact, when former Parole Board chairperson Fred Gibson appeared before this committee in 1990, the success rate of offenders released by the board who completed their sentence without incurring a new charge hovered around 70%. Today, it is over 98%.
As much as we strive for excellence in our decision-making, predicting human behaviour unfortunately is not and likely will never be an exact science. In the very rare instances such as this case, where an offender reoffends violently, it is devastating to me, to our board members and to our staff.
In closing, I want to extend my sympathies once again to the family and friends of Marylène Levesque.
I would like to again say to them, to members of this committee and to the Canadian public that I take these incidents very seriously, and I will review all recommendations that could help us continue to improve the board's decision-making.
Thank you.