Justice committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of this committee, for inviting the National Parole Board to appear before you as you examine the state of organized crime in Canada. I'm Harvey Cenaiko. I was appointed chairperson of the National Parole Board last July. Prior to this,

Justice committee  I apologize. I can't answer that question. As an independent agency of government, free of political will--

Justice committee  --we're here to respond to and work with the government on the legislation that we have imposed upon us. I can't answer that. Maybe one of the other panel members can.

Justice committee  From a risk assessment point of view, as I mentioned earlier, in assessing each individual, their backgrounds, and their criminal activity, and then moving into the institution and assessing their institutional behaviour and the programs they've taken within the institution, for

Justice committee  Mr. Chair, I'll just add one comment. The National Parole Board has elders on contract across the country who work with us in elder-assisted hearings, the vast majority of which are done in the prairie and Pacific regions. Having been a board member in the prairie region and hav

Justice committee  No, there haven't been any from the board. Again, as I mentioned earlier, if the minister or the government asks us for our advice to them on legislation, we'll respond. We don't go to government and say to change the laws for us to do this or that. We basically follow the laws t

Public Safety committee  With the changes in the legislation, they now are called record suspensions instead of pardons. There were basically two areas in that process. June 29, 2010 was when the major legislation changed and new decision processes came into place for record suspensions. It really talks

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Garrison, there are approximately 21,500 pardon applications currently in our backlog. Of course, you're all aware that the legislative changes over the last few years have increased the fee from $50 to $150, and the user fee to $631, under the User Fee

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much. That's a very good question. In the deficit reduction action plan, we've developed 14 projects or strategies in relation to providing our 10% reduction, of which 9.8%, I believe, was accepted by Treasury Board. This year it will represent the 5.5% reduction

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. It's a privilege to appear today before this committee to speak to Bill C-483, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. I'll briefly provide an opening statement and an overview of the bill's effects on Parole Board of Canada oper

Public Safety committee  That's the success rate. I can give you the statistics in relation to—

Public Safety committee  It's just for the Parole Board of Canada.

Public Safety committee  Only 63% of them are put forward for release, so 63% is the approval rate for the first time they've had a hearing; so 37% don't. But of those 63%, there's a 99% success rate that they won't reoffend, or they don't commit a breach of their conditions while they're out on an escor

Public Safety committee  Wardens have no ability to have a—

Public Safety committee  Right. At present we conduct approximately 120-ish ETA hearings each year. If it's a hearing, which would always be pre-release of an offender out of an institution, two board members—it's a hearing at the institution, normally—and the victims would be invited to attend, if they