Evidence of meeting #48 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I have a brief question and another one that is longer.
First, Mr. Head, let me tell you that under your leadership and the leadership of the people around you, the Correctional Service of Canada has effectively accomplished many things. I realize that there has been a change.
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
The Correctional Service of Canada offers services in Haiti. You are aware of this. Are the costs of those services included in your budget? Are you paying a part of the services offered by Canada to Haiti?
11:50 a.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
A very good question.
For any of the initiatives we were involved in overseas, such as Haiti and Afghanistan, we're compensated through funds through DFAIT for that. I don't have to reduce my base budget to cover the costs of the 25 staff that we have in Haiti or the five in Afghanistan.
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Now let me put the longer question.
You said that 10% of the budget of the Correctional Service of Canada allow you to have some latitude in your operations. I suppose that the costs of these programs are covered by this 10% of the budget. The Correctional Investigator tells us on page 26 of his report that “programming is key to safe reintegration”. The Correctional Service of Canada recognized in January 2009 “that it needs to augment program capacity in a number of areas.” And you just indicated these areas, which include “programs and interventions for offenders with education and learning deficits, for those with mental health needs, and for those serving short sentences in higher security facilities.” Now, you have a great challenge ahead of you, given the fact that 80% of offenders have not finished high school.
If these programs are essential to social reintegration, how can you carry out your mission, given the very small financial resources that you have, namely 10% of your budget? It can hardly make a dent in all those needs. What are you going to do?
11:50 a.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
Another very good question, and it gives me an opportunity to clarify.
Most of our program costs are deemed to be statutory or quasi-statutory, so they're actually in the 90%. This isn't an area we would be reducing. That money is basically enveloped or guarded.
As well, we have over the last couple of years received additional moneys as a result of strategic reinvestment to the tune of $48 million. That has allowed me to increase my programs in areas such as violence prevention, our community maintenance program, our aboriginal programming, and our introduction of Pathways units for aboriginal offenders at Stony Mountain. This would also allow for enhancements to our high-offender intake assessment process.
Not only have we guarded the money that we already had for programs, but we've also had an increase over the last couple of years that's allowed me to move forward.
11:55 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
I would like to understand this clearly. Over the past years, you have broadened certain services. However, at this time, you only have 10% of your budget left and you have to cut some expenditures. Which expenses will you cut? This is what I want to know.
11:55 a.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
I'm sorry, madam, I may not be explaining it clearly. The programs part is not in the 10%, it's in the 90% that's protected.
11:55 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
All right, that is what I wanted to know.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
I'd like to thank our guests for coming today to provide really important testimony.
I had a series of questions that I was going to go through, but I guess I want to divert myself. I was struck by something that came up when Mr. Martin was asking some thoughtful questions of you with respect to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
My sense is that the Parliamentary Budget Officer was somewhat critical of the CSC for not providing information on a timely basis and for having, as Mr. Martin said, a heck of a time getting this information. Actually, I share Mr. Martin's surprise that Mr. Page was as critical as he was when.... I always hate to quote my opposition colleagues, and certainly my table colleagues, but I think Mr. Martin was right when he said that all you had to do was press a button to get that information. My first reaction is “sham wow”.
11:55 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I'm not sure where the “sham” is, because I find your testimony extremely credible. I'm just really surprised; “wow” is probably the other part of it.
But I want to thank you for your comments. I think that's important.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Well, “sham wow”,
in French and in English, it is the same thing.
To come back to Madame Bourgeois's important comment, 90% of your budget, as you've indicated, is non-discretionary and quasi-statutory. I've read in your comments here that your budget is $2.46 billion for 2010-11. By my math, 10% of that--the amount that is neither non-discretionary nor quasi-statutory--is some $246 million.
I think by any account that's a fair amount of money. But what makes me very impressed is what you've already done in terms of your savings as it relates to overtime and scheduling and the like. I think you deserve compliments--your department does--because I think that's really quite critical.
On the other side of that is I think a key question. In light of the budget freeze, the freeze that Canadians have to do in their own households right across this country, because that's financial reality.... We all have to be mindful. All departments have been asked to provide freezes in their departments. Do you believe, and are you concerned, that CSC employees will be able to maintain high-quality correctional service in light of this department freeze? I think that's the key question for all Canadians in terms of their safety and our concerns for them.
11:55 a.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
Yes, and it's a very good question.
I just want to go back to one point, partly in defence of Mr. Page. In fairness to him, we never did tell him to go to this page and push this button. I don't want to make it sound like it was just there and that's why we ignored him.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
11:55 a.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
Yes. At any rate, I just wanted to clarify that.
In terms of the balancing piece, which I think is really what you're talking about, that is one of the things that are of concern to me. I think we're walking a very narrow path, one where, if we teeter the wrong way, we could see a diminution in terms of public safety results.
Although it does sound rather cliché, I am extremely, extremely confident in and proud of my staff, because they are very focused on their role, on their responsibilities, on their responsibilities for Canadians overall. I know that they are extremely focused on trying to find the right answers.
Having said that, are there areas where we can still find some efficiencies without affecting negatively the public safety results? I believe there are. Some of those things are, I guess in layman's terms, “nice to haves” within a correctional organization, but they're not necessarily considered to be value-added from providing public safety results.
Those are things that we are going to have weigh. There's a lot of emotion and passion and ownership around some of those things, but those are the discussions that we're going to be having in the coming months.
Noon
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Head.
Mr. Calandra would like to make a comment.
Noon
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
I just wanted to reiterate a thank you, because it seems that you're doing a lot of very good work.
I was surprised that computerizing the schedule has taken so long. You're in a place where the buildings are crumbling after years of neglect. Back to when this government was elected, the military called it the ten dark years of neglect, and now we're seeing a system of restoring balance to the justice system. I'm quite happy that we're putting the investments in, that we're hiring the 4,000 people, and that our communities can be safe.
