Evidence of meeting #17 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Jasbir Sandhu NDP Surrey North, BC
Would you agree that having a record is a huge obstacle for prisoners to find employment once they get out of the prison? If they're not going through your sources, if they're trying to find jobs in other places, would that be a huge obstacle for them?
11:50 a.m.
Deputy Commissioner, Transformation and Renewal Team, Correctional Service of Canada
It is an obstacle in some circumstances, yes. I mentioned that some do hire with an awareness of the record. In many cases, I think people will look at the inmates' past as a concern. Our hope and our experience with some of the programs is that we see that many inmates do change their behaviour around and do become productive citizens.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Jasbir Sandhu NDP Surrey North, BC
If their pardon period is longer, then that obstacle will make it longer for those inmates trying to find jobs in the community, trying to become productive citizens of the community. Would you agree with that?
11:55 a.m.
Deputy Commissioner, Transformation and Renewal Team, Correctional Service of Canada
I don't have an associated number with the numbers that actually apply for pardon. In fact, for the vast majority of our inmates we want employment immediately upon release. Whatever the pardon period, if it's not one day, it will affect that.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
Jasbir Sandhu NDP Surrey North, BC
My question was about obstacles. So if you have a one-year period before you can get a pardon, it's one year. Now it's two years, so would you say that obstacle is longer for that person to get a job?
11:55 a.m.
Deputy Commissioner, Transformation and Renewal Team, Correctional Service of Canada
If the person is applying for a pardon—and it's going to take two years, of course—yes, it would be longer than one year.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
We're going to go quickly.
Mr. Harris, I know you had a question. You can have the last five minutes.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dick Harris Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Wheeler, and Mr. Toller.
Is there a measure in any given penitentiary of the percentage of prisoners who are in there because they have an addiction, because they've been mixed up in drugs, whose crimes were drug-related or drug-caused in any way?
11:55 a.m.
Deputy Commissioner, Transformation and Renewal Team, Correctional Service of Canada
Yes. Our general measure that we assess through intake is that close to 80% of our offenders report an association with substance abuse, and in close to 50% we can draw a parallel between substance abuse and their actual criminal activity that got them in there.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dick Harris Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Right.
Mr. Sorenson was asking a question earlier about the testing when they come in. At the intake level, there is not 100% compulsory testing; it's random tests. I'm curious to know why people aren't automatically tested to see whether they have drugs in their system when they come in, as a matter of procedure at the intake stage.
11:55 a.m.
Deputy Commissioner, Transformation and Renewal Team, Correctional Service of Canada
It has to be through voluntary consent. That would require legislative changes for us to require, on demand, a blood sample.
Just to make sure I haven't confused anyone, the random piece I was mentioning would be for those whose name just happens to show up on the list for random testing.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dick Harris Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Okay.
Someone who commits a crime, is convicted of that crime, who comes to a prison and there's a relatively good amount of evidence that shows that it was because of drugs that the crime or crimes happened in the first place, when they come into the prison, is it because of a rights protection that you cannot have a mandatory drug test?
11:55 a.m.
Deputy Commissioner, Transformation and Renewal Team, Correctional Service of Canada
Yes. There's no legislation in place that allows us to do that mandatorily.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dick Harris Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
I see. Okay.
Of an average population of a prison, you have an idea of how many are there because of drugs, and you know what percentage are on a treatment.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dick Harris Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
I want to talk about the others who don't have to go into treatment if they don't want to. There's an understanding that there are drugs within that population. I'm just wondering about the zero-tolerance program. If they need drugs, they're going to get drugs somehow. What's the answer to increase the effectiveness of the zero-tolerance drug program? That's what I'm looking for, I guess.
11:55 a.m.
Deputy Commissioner, Transformation and Renewal Team, Correctional Service of Canada
I wish we had more time.
11:55 a.m.
Deputy Commissioner, Transformation and Renewal Team, Correctional Service of Canada
Okay.
I'd just say that it's a phenomenon that mirrors itself in the community at large. Again, the only thing I could say to that is our approach looks to stop it from getting in, and to look at dealing with those who are motivated and have an interest to change their behaviour, educating them on the harm reduction properties and capability, and continuing with the programming that has been mentioned, to get them away from that.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you.
I'd also remind individuals that part of this thing is the fact that when someone is arrested and charged, that is where it very clearly may show up in a urinalysis or in testing. But by the time you've gone through court and you're actually incarcerated, there is such a timeline there that maybe the effectiveness of what happened the night of arrest is a little different from what it is when he's ready to enter. Anyway, we've heard that testimony before as well.
We want to thank both of you for coming here today. I know some of the questions we asked, which we were concerned about last week, you have answered, so thank you very much for doing that.
We're going to suspend for just a few moments and we're going to wait with great expectation the arrival of Mr. Sapers, again. So we'll just suspend for a few moments.
Noon
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
We'll call this meeting back to order.
To our guests, we would ask for your patience with us. One of the difficulties we sometimes have in this committee is when members are part of other committees and they run from one committee right to this one and it's over the lunch hour. I know it's sometimes difficult to speak when everyone else is partaking of their lunch. Not everyone is. Some are, but our guests aren't, and if that causes any grief or difficulty, we apologize for that.
In our second hour we have the Office of the Correctional Investigator, Mr. Howard Sapers, correctional investigator, and Ivan Zinger, executive director and general counsel. Both these individuals have appeared before our committee before and we thank you for coming back.
I know you were here for the last hour, sitting in. There were questions that came out of different committee meetings that we had last week, and some thought maybe the parole board or others thought perhaps you folks would be able to help us answer some of those questions.
Mr. Sapers, if you have an opening statement we would love to hear it, and then we'll move into the first round of questioning.