Justice committee  So I'd rather focus on what's proposed in Bill C-54 with respect to the mental disorder regime. I think the specific question you had was, why possibly up to three years—

Justice committee  —while currently one year is the standard. It was in 2005 and in that set of reforms, if I'm not mistaken, that it was made possible to extend that period to two years in cases of a serious personal injury offence. With the high-risk designation, for an individual who is found to be high risk, it can be extended to three years.

Justice committee  I'm glad you asked the question. It's actually not going to be a redesignation by the review board. The court, in this bill, is empowered to make the high-risk designation, and the court is empowered to revoke the high-risk designation. After someone is designated as high risk and they're supervised and managed by the review boards, they will have reviews—whether annually or every two or three years—and the review board will look at their progress and how they're doing.

Justice committee  The bill proposes a number of things. One of its parts deals with the new designation of “high risk”. The threshold has been moved up. In other words, it is more difficult for a prosecutor to show that a person meets the criteria for a high-risk designation. However, other elements of the bill deal with accused found not criminally responsible or unfit to stand trial.

Justice committee  The National Defence Act has a parallel regime for accused who appear before the military justice system. In Canada, as a general rule, people appear before provincial or superior courts when they are accused of a crime under the Criminal Code. But members of the Canadian Forces stand trial before a court martial.

Justice committee  To my knowledge, yes, but I am not very familiar with the courts before which RCMP members appear. I seem to recall that they are criminal courts, just like for everyone else.

Justice committee  It happens when a person's file is sent to the review board. When the criminal court has finished the trial, with a verdict of not criminally responsible or unfit to stand trial, the individual's file is sent to the review board. At that point, the board takes over the individual's file and checks whether a victim wants to be made aware of the hearings that will take place in subsequent years.

Justice committee  Each review board is responsible for its own registry of victims, the procedures to contact the victims and to notify them of upcoming hearings, and so on.

Justice committee  Yes, it does. The bill proposes new measures so that review boards give consideration to any safety concerns victims may have. If you read the new provisions 672.541 and 672.542 under clause 10 of the bill, you will see that those are the key provisions that remind review boards to specifically take into consideration the safety concerns of victims.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  That's what's provided in the bill.

Justice committee  Bill C-54 provides a coming-into-force date of three months after royal assent.

Justice committee  A new designation process is proposed in the bill for certain individuals to be determined to be high risk. The minister mentioned it's not expected that a large number of individuals will be affected, because this is a smaller subset of the already small group of individuals who are found not criminally responsible.

Justice committee  I think the minister explained that he was not going to opine on any specific cases and on how the court would handle those cases. The legislation is intended to provide quite a bit of guidance on certain tests and thresholds for the new designation of high risk, or whether it's not in that designation but just in the paramountcy of public safety.

Justice committee  I can speak to some consultations that we held with our provincial and territorial counterparts. There is an FPT forum of senior officials, the Coordinating Committee of Senior Officials. Some of you may be familiar with that committee. It is represented by attorney general officials from the various jurisdictions.