Mr. Speaker, the main objective of the parole service is rehabilitation. What is rehabilitation? An individual may have received a very heavy sentence. Of course, I am talking about life in prison, because that person has committed the worst possible crime and killed someone in cold blood. There is nothing worse. The individual has taken a life; there is no doubt. Even as a criminal lawyer, I never had an easy time defending such a person.
Let us come back to the objective of parole. The individual has to be kept away from the population for many years, after which time officials will see whether he has begun a process of rehabilitation. An inmate will never be eligible for parole if he has not begun rehabilitation or a process that will lead him to recognize the seriousness of his crime.
What some people are talking about has never happened. That is why the parole service is so important in connection with the faint hope clause, and that is also why I am very much afraid that there will be more prison violence if this bill is passed.