Justice committee  This could be a solution, but there would need to be more discussion about how it would be worded.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  Having represented people who have been wrongfully convicted, I can say that the consequences they suffer are very significant. We're talking about psychological and financial consequences, for example. These are isolated people, cast aside, who are often shamed by society. As far as the victims are concerned, I couldn't testify to any specific factors.

Justice committee  I think Mr. Lockyer mentioned this earlier. Indeed, we saw that there were significant shortcomings in other countries' systems for reviewing miscarriages of justice. When independent commissions were set up, many eligible people did not make claims, or their claims were not dealt with in sufficient detail for miscarriages of justice to be recognized.

Justice committee  Indeed, in our brief, we did not take a position on this point specifically. That said, as Mr. Lockyer mentioned earlier, as well as other speakers, I believe, there could be an openness to the idea that the commission could conduct a review in certain cases. Should this be done automatically?

Justice committee  As I mentioned earlier, the goal is not for investigations to be mandatory in all cases. Still, the commission must have reasonable grounds to believe that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, so it must have received a minimum amount of information to enable it to conduct an investigation.

Justice committee  That's an important distinction indeed. That's actually one of the important aspects of Bill C‑40 compared to what we had before. Currently, in order for a miscarriage of justice to be recognized and for a remedy to be ordered by the Minister of Justice, there must be a certain likelihood of miscarriage of justice.

Justice committee  In Bill C‑40's current form, proposed subsection 696.5(1) states, “If the Commission has reasonable grounds to believe that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred or considers that it is in the interests of justice to do so, it may conduct an investigation in relation to an application.”

Justice committee  On the interests of justice test, the bill provides that, at the end of the application review process, the commission grants a remedy when it “has reasonable grounds to conclude that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred and considers that it is in the interests of justice to do so”.