2021-22 Departmental Results Report – Operating context

From: Parole Board of Canada

The Parole Board of Canada (PBC) works in a challenging environment that demands effective alignment with the Government of Canada’s outcome of a safe and secure Canada, and careful assessment of criminal justice issues and community concerns. Public safety is the primary consideration in all decisions made by the PBC, which is reflected in its policy, training and operations. The PBC exercises legislated responsibilities for sharing appropriate information with victims of crime, offenders, applicants, other criminal justice partners, and the public. In this environment, strategic information management is crucial, requiring the PBC to have the automated systems necessary to support effective collection, storage, and sharing of information.

The PBC proactively works with its criminal justice partners to coordinate, oversee, and analyze legislative amendments and government initiatives, specifically in relation to our conditional release and record suspension programs. In addition to legislative reforms, the PBC’s operations have evolved in response to case law which has had an impact on workload and complexity of decision-making. Increased emphasis has been placed on ensuring PBC policies and procedures are culturally responsive and inclusive.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have an impact on the PBC’s operations and is an extremely challenging time for all organizations in search of technology solutions and technological capacity. To cope with the exceptional circumstances created by the pandemic, the PBC adopted additional digital tools and adapted its policies and processes to ensure victims, offender assistants, and all other observers could participate in hearings remotely. The pandemic highlighted the importance of a dependable and reliable information technology structure to provide continuing services to Canadians. It is crucial that the PBC continues to update and maintain its Information Management/Information Technology (IM/IT) strategy to ensure it can meet changing requirements.