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Bill C-45

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SUMMARY

This enactment amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Criminal Code, the Criminal Records Act, the Prisons and Reformatories Act and the Transfer of Offenders Act. The amendments concern the following four subjects:

The present detention scheme in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act permits the National Parole Board to detain, until the end of their sentence, high-risk sex offenders who have been determined likely to commit an offence causing death or serious harm before the expiration of their sentence. Serious harm is defined as severe physical injury or severe pyschological damage. The enactment modifies the detention provisions by eliminating the serious harm criterion for a sexual offence involving a child, authorizing the National Parole Board to detain an offender where it is satisfied that an offender is likely to commit a sexual offence involving a child before the expiration of the sentence.

The present sentence calculation provisions of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act result in some offenders being immediately eligible for parole after being sentenced for new offences committed while on conditional release. The amendments provide that these offenders be automatically returned to custody, and require that an offender who receives an additional consecutive sentence serve at least one third of the new sentence before being eligible for parole.

The enactment authorizes the Chairperson of the National Parole Board to recommend to the Minister that an inquiry be conducted by a federal court judge to determine whether a Board member should be subject to disciplinary measures.

The enactment makes a number of minor technical amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, including removing discrepancies between the English and French texts, clarifying the relationship between federal and provincial statutory release and earned remission systems for certain offenders and clarifying the process for application of accelerated parole review and judicial determination of parole eligibility.