Justice committee  I do not have that information available right now, no.

Justice committee  We'd have to go back and go through the files individually to find that information manually. We don't have that as an automated field that we could readily pull.

Justice committee  There were 4,474.

Justice committee  I'm sorry, there were 4,774.

Justice committee  The total number of individuals doing life was 4,774.

Justice committee  If the offender indicates the full year in advance that he or she is going to make application, there normally is enough time for that kind of work. There is absolutely no question, Madam Jennings, that for somebody who has been sitting in a penitentiary for 15 years, not all the files are readily available, and sometimes we have to go back and get them.

Justice committee  As you would know, Mr. Ménard, there's always the exceptional case, but the vast majority.... Again, it's really key, in order for us to fulfill our roles and our obligations, that the sooner the offender gives notification at the 12-month mark, the easier the process will be. There's no question that there will be the odd case that will be complicated for some reason, such as a foreign transfer in or the examples that you've used.

Justice committee  That's a possibility. One of the things we could do administratively is to start our engagement with the offender two years in advance, if there were significant issues. Administratively, we could start the engagement with the offender even earlier. Using the one-year mark is a policy we've set within the organization.

Justice committee  That's right.

Justice committee  Thank you for that question. We start the process 12 months before the eligibility date in terms of engaging with the offender. At that time, we engage them in discussion as to whether they're going to make an application for that first phase of screening. And if they indicate to us that they are, then, as I mentioned, we advise them to seek legal counsel.

Justice committee  Maybe as a point of clarification....

Justice committee  I'm sorry, I have to add some clarification, because our understanding of the 90-day window is that the period of making the application is not necessarily the period of time required to do all the case prep. That's what we've been led to believe in terms of how this legislation has been written.

Justice committee  There has been a slight difference in the numbers, but that's just a result of a one-year change in the population.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll actually try to keep my comments under the 10 minutes. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you for providing me the opportunity to come before you today to discuss Bill S-6, which will eliminate the faint hope clause. As you may recall, I appeared before you one year ago to discuss Bill C-36, which sought to achieve the same objective, and that is to eliminate early judicial review for those convicted of the most serious offences.

Human Resources committee  Thank you.