Public Safety committee  Under the Bill C-93, as drafted and with the amendment, if an applicant is seeking a record suspension, they would be providing supporting documents including the court document if it were necessary to ascertain the nature of the convictions. If the court document outlines that this was an offence that involved a synthetic cannabinoid, then that would be found in the court document.

Public Safety committee  Sure, I can respond to that. As the motion is drafted without the subamendment, it would mean it would be a little difficult to implement, given that the Criminal Records Act and the PBC operations hinge on actions with the entire record of conviction. The challenge would be that if the amendment stood, the subamendment would narrow it to an impact only of convictions for simple possession of cannabis.

Public Safety committee  Currently, we do not.

Public Safety committee  What I could speak to is the operational aspect of this proposed amendment. There are two elements here. The first is the ability to receive electronic applications, and that could include the supporting documents that would be used to determine eligibility for whatever scheme—in this case, the streamlined record suspension process for simple possession of cannabis convictions.

Public Safety committee  Sure, I can weigh in. Thank you very much. Under this amendment, from the Parole Board of Canada's perspective, we don't currently have the technological capacity to implement what is outlined in this motion. We'd need to consult with partners. We would want to verify some of the privacy and consent implications that could be involved in automatically ordering a records suspension.

Public Safety committee  No. The no-fee is the application fee that is collected by the Parole Board of Canada.

Public Safety committee  I think the costs vary quite a bit, depending on which police service or which court. I don't have any hard and fast estimates with me to provide right now. I do believe that the department maybe had a cursory examination on this issue. But again, you'd be talking.... I would hesitate to give an estimate right now.

Public Safety committee  I might turn the answer to this question over to my colleague Brigitte.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely. That's definitely part of our overall strategy: leveraging social media.

Public Safety committee  As part of the Parole Board's communication and outreach strategy associated with the expedited pardon approach proposed under Bill C-93, yes, there would be Internet resources available. However, as you point out, it might be somewhat difficult to get those in some cases. They would include a step-by-step guide—a simplified application guide—in terms of the outreach to get the word out.

Public Safety committee  I'm not sure I follow the question.

Public Safety committee  If an applicant submits the required documents that demonstrate that they've satisfied—

Public Safety committee  We would then issue the record suspension and we would contact the RCMP, and then the RCMP would remove it from the CPIC record. My colleague could confirm—

Public Safety committee  As the minister alluded to earlier, if it were possible to do that, that would be fantastic. I think the issue we're faced with is not having a particular offence that's simple possession of cannabis. For example, we need to have the CPIC record, which is verified by fingerprints, so we know the right person is applying.

Public Safety committee  Broadly speaking, I am reluctant to give a particular amount of time. Again, I think we would have to assess the volumes we have. There are thousands of applications that come in each year, but certainly it would fall well below the accepted service standards that are put in place for the summary and indictment schemes.