Hon. Kim Pate: Welcome, minister. Recently, you reiterated your laudable support for the automatic expungement of criminal records and the implementation of such a model.

Could you please update us on the progress of your work to implement an automated pardon system, including how you’re considering: one, historical convictions, for instance soliciting, which disproportionately impacts women and which is currently missing from the list of historical convictions; and two, the impacts and contributions of records to the continued overrepresentation in our criminal, legal and prison systems of the poor, those with disabling mental health issues and racialized people, especially Indigenous women who now make up 50% of the federal prison population, many of whom have also been convicted of violent offences largely in response to their experiences of violence?