Parole Board of Canada Investments Found in the Budgets since 2015
Date: October 26, 2020
Classification: Unclassified
Branch / Agency: Parole Board of Canada
Proposed Response:
- In 2020, the Government provided off-cycle funding of $8.4 million over two years, starting in 2020-21, to the Parole Board of Canada to address workload capacity issues.
- In Budget 2019, the Parole Board of Canada received funding of $1 million for one year (2019-20) to support legislation to expedite access to pardons for Canadians previously convicted of simple possession of cannabis.
- In 2017, a total of $2.6 million in off-cycle funding over two years (2018-19 and 2019-20) was approved to allow the Parole Board of Canada to implement its authority to order or refuse to order expungement of a conviction.
- Over the last 5 years, Parole Board of Canada has received average authorities of $50.14 million, while actually spending an average of $48.15 million.
- On average, unused authorities represented 4.0 % of authorities.
- Spending is planned to decrease to $47.37 million by 2022-23.
Background:
Since 2015, the Parole Board of Canada (PBC) received the following investments in previous budgets:
- In 2020, the PBC received investments of $8.4M over 2 years starting in 2020-21 to support efficient operation of PBC and to address increasing complexity associated with conditional release decision-making, due to years of legislative change and court cases that have cumulatively increased the rigor and due diligence required in case preparation and decision-making.
- PBC is anticipating to increase its voted appropriations by $3.2M and its statutory appropriations by $0.7M for Employee Benefit Plan in the current 2020 Supplementary Estimates B.
- In Budget 2019 a total of $2.2M in funding over one fiscal year (2019-20) [Redacted]. The PBC's portion of the allotted amount ($1,260,000) was made available to support processing record suspension applications for simple possession of cannabis in 2019-20.
- In 2017, a total of $2.6M in off-cycle funding over two years (2018-19 and 2019-20) was approved to allow the PBC to implement its authority to order or refuse to order expungement of a conviction. This Act allows individuals convicted of having engaged in consensual sexual activity with a same sex partner that would be lawful today, to have any judicial record of the conviction to which the expungement order relates permanently destroyed.
- While developing costs for the Expungement of Historically Unjust Convictions Act, it was estimated that the PBC could receive up to 9,845 applications. This number was based on the approximate number of historical convictions for “gross indecency”, “buggery”, and “anal intercourse” contained in the RCMP’s National Repository of Criminal Records. It was unknown how many of these individuals, or their families in the case of posthumous applications, would choose to apply for an expungement.
- It was anticipated that all expungement applications would be completed within two years of the coming into force of the proposed legislative change. It was also assumed that individuals affected by this legislative change would apply for an expungement promptly, as soon as they had gathered the relevant information to support their application. Due to lower than expected uptake, the PBC has not accessed any funding for this program.
Notes
Sources:
Federal Budget: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/services/publications/federal-budget.html
Info Base: https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/ems-sgd/edb-bdd/index-eng.html#orgs/dept/227/infograph/financial
Contacts:
Prepared by: Anik Lapointe, CFO, 343-542-6115
Approved by: Daryl Churney, Executive Director General, 613-404-4344
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