Public Safety Committee on Dec. 5th, 2012

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Wait. Let me finish.

You, in fact, have been opposing measures that will make CBSA officers more effective in stopping criminals. Instead of opposing those measures, work with us so that you can help your constituents instead of frustrating your constituents.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

This is not true.

I'll give the last question to my colleague John.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Rafferty, you have three minutes.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you.

Minister, I don't know how you can break down the supplementary estimates into dollar figures for my question or whether they even apply in this particular case. There is a policing group in Canada that is woefully inadequately taken care of. I'm talking about first nations policing right across the country.

I will use the example that is closest to me, that is in my backyard, and that is the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service, NAPS. It's woefully underfunded, for example, just in terms of communications equipment and infrastructure. There was an incident of a young officer in his twenties whose house was so mouldy that his spleen exploded. He had to get out. Officers routinely spend one or two weeks past the date they are due to come out for a break because there's no one to take their place. There are only a couple of communities in fact in the whole NAN, Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, region that have more than one police officer in the community. There's a real problem and a real concern.

I'll double my question here in order to give you a lot of time to answer, Mr. Toews.

There has been an initiative to hire more police officers, which is coming to an end. You'll remember that they managed to hire 11 officers. Now of course we think that funding is coming to an end. There has been no talk of continuing it so they can keep the numbers in their forces up. It's a real concern in NAPS, as you know, and a real concern right across the country.

How do we get these supplementary estimates to help with that, or is there a different way that first nations policing is funded? Is there money for that? Are we going to see an increase in that?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

What I can say is that first of all, we have to understand that policing, even policing in a first nations community, is an entirely provincial responsibility. However, the Government of Canada has entered into agreements with the provinces in order to fund first nations policing. We are only involved as a funding partner. We don't involve ourselves in first nations policing other than through the agreement, because it's a constitutional responsibility of the province.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

When you talk about contract policing and estimates, is that not part of the money we're talking about that eventually gets to first nations policing?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

No, that's separate and apart. That is being discussed right now. As a funding partner, the federal government has said that we should look at this particular program and see what the federal contribution should be to this provincial responsibility in terms of renewing it.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I know you are aware of these issues, and I know you're concerned about them.

Do you see a way forward for policing organizations, like NAPS and others across the country, that are really struggling to fulfill their mandate and to do the best job they possibly can? In light of, particularly, situations in the NAN communities where it is now estimated that about 70% of the population is addicted to oxycodone, and there are lots of issues there that require resources, do you as the Minister of Public Safety see a way that you could possibly move forward on this to help relieve the situation?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Please be very quick.

Mr. Rafferty, your time is just about up.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

My time is up, but I know that my officials can answer this. I think it's a good question.

Do I see a way forward? I believe I do. I believe that we have to sit down with the provinces and determine if there is a better way of delivering these services. Should it be done in different ways? Should we be giving the provinces more flexibility in terms of how they allot the money we provide to them for this? I'm open to that. Obviously we're all subject to particular financial constraints at both the provincial and the federal levels. Of course the first nations communities themselves often face strains in budgets. This is why we need to do things better with the resources that we have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister, and thank you for sticking around a little longer than you had committed to. We appreciate it.

We aren't going to suspend; we're going to continue.

We'll move to Mr. Norlock. All the officials are here for us.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and, through you, thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

My question will be for my favourite commissioner of corrections, Mr. Head.

Mr. Head, on our government's tough on crime agenda to put dangerous and repeat offenders behind bars, which is where they belong, I might add, are you able to speak to the projections for growth of the inmate population up to this point, and how this figure compares with the actual situation? I can recall that some time ago you were appearing before us and, of course, part of your mandate is to project into the future the needs that you're going to have, and your prison population, and then we come to the end of that time to the actual situation. I wonder if you can talk about those projections.

[Don Head, Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada]

I think the committee members will recall that when we talked about the projections a few years ago, we were estimating that at this time we would be close to about 18,000 offenders incarcerated in the federal system. When Bill C-25 was passed in March 2010, we started from a base of 14,027 offenders. We were basically monitoring our growth against that. Today, our count stands at 15,050, so it's significantly less than what those original projections were, which were developed in 2008 and based on 2005 data, the only data that was available from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.

We have since then re-scrubbed—for lack of a better word—our data and have revised the projections. Our projections for this year, for 2012, are for us to be at 15,050, and for next year to be at about 15,270, somewhere in that order of magnitude.

These numbers are much less than the projections that we talked about a couple of years ago. For us, that has also meant some relief in terms of some of the pressures and concerns we were worried about in relation to construction and capacity within our existing institutions, and in relation to the number of new units that were being built in existing institutions, which will actually give us, by 2014, 2,752 more cells and will definitely help us in terms of just managing the reduced population growth that we are now projecting.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much. Also, thank you for mentioning the second part, the investments in our current fleet of institutions in accommodating this, because one of the assertions—as I know, because I ran in the election—was that we were going to build these megaprisons. In actual fact, we haven't built any new prisons, nor do we intend to. Thank you for that.

Part of your projections, of course, and the actuals...would I be correct in saying they are part of the reason that you have not requested any additional funds? I wonder if you can talk about how you, being a part of the federal government, were able to adjust your projections and your budget for the deficit reduction action plan, and where you were able to find efficiencies.

[Don Head]

In terms of the deficit reduction action plan, our reduction by 2014-15 will equate to 12.58% of our starting budget, which equates to $295 million. This fiscal year, we are reducing by $85 million, next fiscal year by $170 million, and by 2014-15 by $295 million.

Those were the plans without any adjustment to the accommodation plan. In addition to the deficit reduction action plan, when we went back and revised our accommodation figures, we projected a return back to the treasury of $1.4 billion over six to seven years of moneys that are not required.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

I would like to take part of what you said and expand on it a little bit. We always talk about front-line services. Would you say that the areas of reduction—and I'm looking at the institution within my riding—that were done in the office, but not in the actual correctional officer area, would be commonplace throughout Canada? Your reductions in personnel were actually at the administrative level, rather than in the—for the sake of a better term—service delivery area.

[Don Head]

Yes. In terms of the bulk of our reductions, of the $295 million, the amount of $120 million will come as a result of the closure of three institutions, whose population we'll be able to manage with the new capacities that are being built.

The other reductions are not specifically front-line service delivery positions. There are some reductions to some areas in relation to correctional officers and parole officers, but these are as a result of efficiencies in terms of how we do business.

Some of our practices have been in place for 10, 15, 20 years. The overall transformation agenda that we've been implementing since 2008 has identified some areas for us to revitalize, re-engineer, some of those practices without jeopardizing the safety or security of the staff, citizens, or the offenders themselves.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

When you talk about the institutions that will be decommissioned, I can recall visiting the Kingston institution. For the folks at home who need to know why we do some things, would you let us know how old that institution is and describe its somewhat archaic architecture?

[Don Head]

The Kingston Penitentiary predates Canada. It was built in 1835, and it has been in operation pretty well every year since then. I mean, there have been many reconstruction projects, but as you can imagine, with a walled institution that's like a box, you can only readjust the pieces inside so many times before it's no longer viable or useful.

It's traditionally that Charles Dickens-style prison, with open-faced bars, great big gates, armed cages. If you saw Shawshank Redemption, you saw Kingston Penitentiary.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Thank you.

Mr. Scarpaleggia, please, for seven minutes.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

If my colleague, Mr. Dion, were here, he would say that it predates Confederation, not Canada.

I have some statistics in response to an order paper question on the number of staff, or the level of staffing, in different regions. These cover the period 2006 to 2012. For example, the number of inmates in Atlantic prisons declined 5%, but the number of staff rose 16%. The number of inmates in Quebec prisons rose 5%, but the number of staff rose 15%. In Ontario the inmate population rose 16%, and the staff rose 28%. In the prairie provinces, the number of inmates went up 15%, and staff rose 27%.

Is this what we're cutting back on now? Did we overspend? Did we over-hire, and if so, how did that happen? If we didn't over-hire, if this personnel is required, what is the reason for the seemingly disproportionate increase?

[Don Head]

That's a very good question, and it gives me an opportunity to explain some of the numbers.

During the last several years there have been investments into corrections in some key areas. If I go back to 2008, during the strategic review process we actually received a $47-million reinvestment back into corrections, which allowed us to strengthen our capacity to deliver various programs to offenders. There were increases in programs for offenders serving shorter sentences of two to three years, programs related to the community maintenance area, violence prevention programs, and an $11-million investment in programs specifically for aboriginal offenders.

On top of that, we received investments in the area of mental health. In the period between 2005 and 2010 we received $29 million for our community mental health initiative. That was then normalized in our budget with an ongoing $6.1-million increase.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

We're not going to roll back this increase in staffing, are we?

[Don Head]

No. These are key investments in front-line program delivery to offenders.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

You're aware that Mr. Sapers wrote to you—I suppose so, since it says here, this is to Commissioner Don Head—about double-bunking and double-bunking in segregation cells. It sounds like a fairly serious situation.

Mr. Sapers received a response from Madam Kelly, who was CSC acting commissioner. Did she precede you as this?