Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, before I start, I'd like to remind elected officials of the purpose of conditional release itself. It is to “contribute to the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society by means of decisions on the timing and conditions of release that will best facilitate the r

Public Safety committee  The vast majority of the files we've had have been for summary convictions, for things like impaired driving, thefts, and drug offences. The indictable offences obviously include things that are much more serious: major frauds, serious assaults, sexual assaults, and even.... Som

Public Safety committee  For the backlog we aren't, because we're not governed by the legislation regarding the pardon backlog, which were the old cases prior to the change in legislation in 2012.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much for the question. There was a drop in the number of record suspensions that individuals applied for. However, that also has to do with the fact that, under the new legislation, the timing has gone from three years to five years for summary conviction offences

Public Safety committee  I can't give you a timeline, but I can tell you that we will work on it as resources permit, because the record suspension staff will continue to work on the record suspensions. We are governed by statute and timelines on record suspension. For a summary conviction offence, we ha

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chair. The numbers as of Tuesday, as of two days ago, we have decreased that pardon backlog from 22,320 files to 12,066. So over the next year our goal is to reduce that right down to zero, obviously. However, we have funding in place no

Public Safety committee  No, the files are provided to the board by Correctional Service Canada, which, of course, is looking after them. So we have the whole file, which includes the court documents, the judge's comments, the police reports, all of the psychological reports, psychiatric reports. All of

Public Safety committee  In an office review, it would be two hours and then writing up a decision. Attending a hearing, you would review, study the file, and then prepare yourself for the interview the next day, go to the institution, have the hearing, which could take up to two hours, and interview t

Public Safety committee  They're denied.

Public Safety committee  Exactly, and I can't answer on behalf of CSC. However, I can say that any pre-release of an offender is one of the most important releases we're going to look at, because you have to measure and take everything into account—their whole lifestyle, all the issues in relation to soc

Public Safety committee  It's the legislation. That's truly what it is.

Public Safety committee  Yes, they are.

Public Safety committee  Each review is approximately two hours. Each board member is allotted approximately two hours to go through the offender's file. Now, depending on the seriousness of the file—and in this case we're talking about indeterminate life sentences, first-degree murder, second-degree mur

Public Safety committee  Yes, we would do all those. Now, let's remember that these are offenders with indeterminate life sentences who were convicted of first-degree or second-degree murder. The CSC would continue to do the escorted and unescorted in relation to robberies and in relation to other offenc

Public Safety committee  It's the law—