Public Safety committee  I don't have an associated number with the numbers that actually apply for pardon. In fact, for the vast majority of our inmates we want employment immediately upon release. Whatever the pardon period, if it's not one day, it will affect that.

Public Safety committee  If the person is applying for a pardon—and it's going to take two years, of course—yes, it would be longer than one year.

Public Safety committee  Yes. Our general measure that we assess through intake is that close to 80% of our offenders report an association with substance abuse, and in close to 50% we can draw a parallel between substance abuse and their actual criminal activity that got them in there.

Public Safety committee  It has to be through voluntary consent. That would require legislative changes for us to require, on demand, a blood sample. Just to make sure I haven't confused anyone, the random piece I was mentioning would be for those whose name just happens to show up on the list for random testing.

Public Safety committee  Yes. There's no legislation in place that allows us to do that mandatorily.

Public Safety committee  Okay. I'd just say that it's a phenomenon that mirrors itself in the community at large. Again, the only thing I could say to that is our approach looks to stop it from getting in, and to look at dealing with those who are motivated and have an interest to change their behaviour, educating them on the harm reduction properties and capability, and continuing with the programming that has been mentioned, to get them away from that.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon to all members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss private member's Bill C-350. I would like to introduce Ms. Alexandra Budgell from the Department of Justice, who is here with me today.

Public Safety committee  They wouldn't in its purest form, unless the inmate were willing to do that.

Public Safety committee  An inmate, for example, could have a human rights complaint and receive a monetary award from a department that way. There could be claims against CSC, but you wanted a response more in terms of the ones outside the other department here.

Public Safety committee  Yes. I was trying to make the distinction that in cases where a fine has been imposed by courts, we would receive that through the system. Monetary awards that might be awarded from outside, even from the government, we would generally not be made aware of—and at this point in time we would have no kind of ability to sort through them.

Public Safety committee  The offender management system is our own internal system that we use for managing information on offenders. For example, if we receive from the courts...and I'll talk about the payments that are due that could be contained in the documentation that comes to us. There could be a victim surcharge, for example, or a fine or a restitution order.

Public Safety committee  Exactly.

Public Safety committee  Exactly.

Public Safety committee  Sure. One of the foundations of our work is to have offenders accept responsibility and become law-abiding citizens in the future. In cases where we have fines that are outstanding, we do a lot of intake at the front end and basically get material from the courts and the sentencing judges on the crime's impact on victims, for example.

Public Safety committee  We look at each case individually in terms of the development of correctional plans for each. In some cases, the control of their violence, for example, might be the activity that we would want to concentrate on first. For others who have less education, the latter might be another area where we would look at developing levels of accountability and responsibility.