An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (disclosure of information to victims)

Bill C-221 makes a narrow change to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, which governs what information federal correctional authorities and the Parole Board must share with victims of crime. Currently, victims can be told the eligibility and review dates for an offender's temporary absences, work release, parole, or statutory release. This bill adds a requirement that, whenever those dates are disclosed to a victim, the authorities must also explain how those dates were calculated or determined.

This requirement applies in two places in the law: one dealing with information provided by the Correctional Service of Canada generally, and one dealing with information provided in relation to the National Parole Board's processes. In both cases, the change is the same — victims are entitled not just to the dates themselves, but to an explanation of the reasoning or method behind how those dates were set.

The bill also includes technical "coordinating" provisions to handle a situation where this bill and another piece of legislation (the Act to Bring Fairness for the Victims of Violent Offenders) might both amend the same section of the law around the same time. These provisions simply ensure the two laws work together properly and don't conflict, regardless of which one comes into force first. They don't change the substantive effect described above.

This bill amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to require that when victims are given eligibility and review dates for an offender's temporary absences, releases, or parole, they must also receive an explanation of how those dates were calculated.

• Obligation created — Correctional Service Canada and the Parole Board of Canada must include an explanation of how eligibility/review dates and release dates were determined whenever this information is disclosed to a victim, under both section 26 (Correctional Service disclosures) and section 142 (Parole Board disclosures) of the Act.
• Scope of disclosure — covers dates for temporary absences (escorted and unescorted), work release, parole, and statutory release.
• No new body or discretionary power — the bill does not create any new office, appointment, or decision-making authority; it only expands the content of information that must already be disclosed to victims.
• Coordinating provisions — sections 3(1)-(4) set out technical rules for how this bill's wording interacts with a separate bill (the Act to Bring Fairness for the Victims of Violent Offenders) depending on which comes into force first, ensuring the two amendments do not conflict.
• Oversight — the bill contains no reporting, review, or sunset mechanism; the added disclosure duty simply becomes part of the ongoing statutory obligations under the Act.