Justice committee  With respect to your question in terms of how many people made application, we do have some data, which is current as of April 2009, indicating that out of the 265 applications made over the time it was possible to make faint hope applications, 140 obtained reductions in their pa

Justice committee  Yes, the Correctional Service of Canada does track them quite rigorously. Ultimately the parole board granted parole to 127 of the group I referred to. Of that group, 13 were later returned to custody, 11 died, three were deported, one was on bail, another on temporary detention,

Justice committee  I will answer in English, if you do not mind. I think your question relates to the notion that the test is moved to the very first stage, a higher test at the first stage, and if you're successful at the first stage, you're more likely to be successful with a jury. Is that wha

Justice committee  The current situation seems to support that those who do make a successful faint hope application do succeed in having some of the years reduced from parole once they get to the parole board, most likely because they have been able to make the case at that first stage. Although t

Justice committee  I don't have that breakdown of why they were returned to custody. There were a variety of reasons why a parolee would be returned to custody. They are very closely supervised and sometimes certain things are done that are not as serious as others, and they are still returned to c

Justice committee  That is accurate as far as we're aware.

Justice committee  Yes. There's no obligation on a person to apply for parole, even at their eligibility date, if it is 25 years. Some get to that point and wait until they think they will have a more successful application. It's difficult to speculate on why people apply when they do and why other

Justice committee  The only data I have is what I already quoted to you, that out of 265 faint hope applications, 127 people were ultimately granted parole. According to our statistics, which are from April 2009, 13 were later returned to custody, but I don't know specifically for what reason they

Justice committee  We can't speak in terms of today, but if that case were to arise after this law comes into effect—if this law is passed and is proclaimed into force and if the crime were committed after that time—anybody convicted of murder would not have an ability to rely on the faint hope cla

Justice committee  The statistics we referred to were for what had happened to the group of those who had first applied under “faint hope”. There would also be the case of those persons who were serving a life sentence and who waited until their parole eligibility date and then applied for parole.

Justice committee  No. The minister did indicate that those procedural changes were regarded as constitutionally feasible. They are procedural. We're changing it for those who are still subject to the faint hope clause in some respect--that is, for crimes committed before the law changes. There a

Justice committee  Those are regarded as procedural changes to tighten the regime that's currently available to those currently eligible for faint hope.

Justice committee  Yes, certainly. As Mr. Moore indicated, this is simply an amendment to clarify the language. The English and French basically convey the same notion, and that is to explain that once this act comes into force, the provision that it refers to in subsection (1) is not applicable

Justice committee  That's correct. We're just making the English more--

Justice committee  Yes. It's not a translation, but a better interpretation of the French.