Public Safety committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you for inviting me to address you today on the subject of Bill C-93. First, let's start with the positive. The philosophy behind this proposed legislation is sound. It is fundamentally unjust for individuals to suffer unde

Public Safety committee  Absolutely.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely.

Public Safety committee  I was speaking this morning to one of my colleagues who used to work at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. She said they had people all the time saying they were in communication with Pardons Canada and were told to spend $2,000. There's a serious information gap. My best

Public Safety committee  I suspect tens of thousands of people don't even know if they have a criminal conviction for the possession of cannabis, who don't understand the implications of it. Colour me extremely skeptical that the Government of Canada can't do a search through their own conviction databas

Public Safety committee  It does not. I think that's a flaw that should be addressed, automatic and expungement.

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  I'm a little agnostic about that. If you're going to the Parole Board anyway and they have the specialty in processing pardons...but then again, I've heard about the backlog for pardons. If you're not going to do it automatically, if you have some administrative process that can

Public Safety committee  Yes, I tend to agree with that. My frame of reference here is having seen hundreds or thousands of criminal record printouts from some of my clients. The nature of the offence is very clearly delineated. That's why I said if you can go one way, that is, put a person's name to get

Public Safety committee  Good for you.

Public Safety committee  Well, if they have received a record suspension, that removes any effects of conviction. My view would actually be that an effective conviction is having to answer yes to the fact that you've been convicted. The vulnerable sector is different. I direct your attention to section

Public Safety committee  I think 10,000 is extremely optimistic. Remember, when it comes to this category of convictions, we're dealing with a disproportionate population in terms of marginalization. We're talking about individuals with mental health or educational deficits. I think you're going to have

Public Safety committee  San Francisco; snap of the fingers.

Public Safety committee  I don't know. Do they have much better computers than the Government of Canada? We're talking about the City of San Francisco there. Surely this can be done.

Public Safety committee  That might be a little outside of my can. I'm a lawyer without an opinion on something. I'll say this. You're doing a lot of good work here and when it comes to the private member's bill, Bill C-415, I hope that the work and the research this committee does, if this bill doesn't