Public Safety Committee on Jan. 27th, 2015

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to put a question to Mr. Cenaiko.

Much has been said about the percentage of people who participate in a prison program. I don't know what the recidivism rate is among people who receive treatment and are released on parole. Are urine tests administered? What is the success rate of programs parolees participate in? I assume that they also participate in substance abuse programs once they leave prison.

What does the big picture look like?

[Harvey Cenaiko]

That's a very good question, Mr. Chair.

The Correctional Service of Canada supervises the offender. If there was an issue in relation to a breach of a condition or abstaining from drugs and/or alcohol, the parole officer who was supervising the offender would make note of it. They can cancel the parole at that point. The offender could go back into the institution, and then the board would have to convene another board to decide whether to cancel the suspension of that offender's parole, or they could revoke the original decision. Depending on the seriousness of the offence, if it was a minor breach, the board could make the decision to cancel the suspension and the offender would remain in the community, obviously under close supervision by the CSC official.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Do parolees often fail their drug test and have to be sent back to prison?

[Harvey Cenaiko]

No, as I mentioned in the statistics I provided, those are where parole was successfully completed. It doesn't happen a lot. I don't have the exact numbers. However, I can tell you that I think the programming regime that CSC has changed within the past four or five years has done a tremendous job in relation to providing offenders with treatment and with programs preparing them to be law-abiding citizens in the community. I think the regimes we've taken at the board in relation to assessing a risk truly can determine whether the individual will. Now, it's not in every case; we don't have a crystal ball. However, from the risk assessment and the scientific tools we use, you can see the results over the past 15 years, and we truly have seen some remarkable successes, especially in these last two years.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Head, about 3% of the Correctional Service Canada budget is earmarked for prison programs. What proportion of that 3% is allocated to substance abuse programs for inmates? Do you have those figures?

[Don Head]

Yes, as I said, the problem with trying to break out the numbers specifically to drugs, with the implementation of the integrated correctional program model, which has early components of the program, it's hard to give you that precise percentage. I can give you very quickly a breakdown of the substance abuse programming in relation to the overall programs.

In terms of our overall programming initiative, as I mentioned, we spend almost $9 million on substance abuse, about $9.8 million on violence prevention, $2.2 million on family violence, $4.5 million on sex offenders, $7 million on maintenance programming, approximately $60 million on social programs, and $14 million on integrated correctional program models. In addition to that, we spend approximately $25 million on education, and then about $42 million on CORCAN employment skills, employability activities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Commissioner Head. We're well over time on this one.

Thank you, Madam Doré Lefebvre.

We'll now go to Mr. Norlock, for five minutes.

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

Once again, thank you to the witnesses for appearing.

My friend Mr. Payne asked you whether it is world-class. Perhaps I can help him out.

Having been on this committee since 2006 I can say that when we were a minority government and we were travelling around Canada and to Great Britain and Norway, the opposition required us to go to Norway because it was considered to be the country with the best programming. I can recall that in response to one of the last questions I asked, one of the officials who might be in the same capacity as you are, Mr. Head, said that 60% of their programming came from Canada. So indeed it's world-class.

I notice, Mr. Cenaiko—and you can confirm this, if you don't mind—you said that because of the programming that CSC is providing and some of the requirements that the Parole Board has made on the parolees, somewhere in the vicinity of 98% are completing their parole successfully.

Am I pretty close to being correct there?

[Harvey Cenaiko]

It's 97%.

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

It's 97%. Wow. So we have to worry and flagellate ourselves over 3%. That's what you'll hear from the opposition, that the government never spends enough; there's not enough of this; there's not enough of that. I agree with them, by the way. When you have 3% of people who are recidivist, we need to do something about the 3%. But we can't discard the 97%. So I want to thank Mr. Head, Mr. Cenaiko, and Ms. Thompson for their work. But it's not done, and that's what we as legislators are trying to do.

You've just responded, Mr. Cenaiko, to whether this piece of legislation is going to force the Parole Board to mandatorily do something, and you said no, that you still have discretionary powers, and that all this legislation does is put into a regulatory regime that which is already being done. I really don't see a problem there, and I don't think the average Canadian does.

Mr. Head, would you agree with me that the average Canadian, the moms and dads and young folks out there, have a hard time getting their heads around the fact that someone who's placed in a prison, with all the things we do to make sure that society is kept safe, that the men and women who work there are kept safe, and that there's programming...they just say, how in the heck do people get drugs into prison? Thank you for explaining to the folks out there.

One thing we have in our society—and I'm very glad we live in a free, democratic society—is that even if you are in prison, you have certain rights. Having spoken of some of the men and women who work in our prisons, saying how drugs are getting in, you left out one that really bothered me for a while. Then you get your head around it, and you think: it's in the diapers of babies sometimes.

Have you heard of that, Mr. Head, as a way of getting drugs in?

[Don Head]

Yes, not only have I heard of it, but when I worked the front line a number of years ago I actually made a seizure with the drugs in diapers, as well as drugs in body cavities of children. When these kinds of situations occur, they're desperate acts by desperate people for whatever reasons. Unfortunately, not only are they ruining their lives, they're ruining their children's lives and the lives of everybody in their families.

One of the things we do now is that when a new visitor is coming to the institution, they have to watch a video about being approached to bring drugs into the institutions, and the consequences that occur when they're caught.

It is disheartening. It's a challenge. It's illegal. We need to continue to do everything we can to prevent it.

If I don't prevent it, I don't have a safe environment in my institutions. If I don't have a safe environment in my institutions, my staff won't do their jobs. If my staff don't do their jobs, the offenders will not participate in the programs that they need in order to get back out into the community as law-abiding citizens.

For me, this is a continuum. I need to have strong interdictions so that I can provide the right kinds of opportunities, the right kinds of programs, the right kinds of interventions so that ultimately, they return as law-abiding citizens and Canadians are safe.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Norlock. Time is up.

Mr. Garrison, you'll have the opportunity to bat cleanup today for another two or three minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We've had a very interesting discussion. When we strip away the rhetoric that came with the title of this bill, the drug-free prisons act, and get down to what's actually in it, I'm very happy to hear Mr. Cenaiko confirm what I believed to be the case, which is that this bill is actually putting into legislation things that are already happening. We're left with the rather extravagant claims by the minister, which, on examination, seem to break down somewhat differently from the way they were initially presented.

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

We're almost there, Randall.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Over the break I actually missed Mr. Norlock saying, “Would you not agree that...?” It's my favourite phrasing of questions in the committee, which we will certainly miss when he retires from this Parliament, although someone else is sure to pick it up.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Let's get back to the subject, Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you. I am on the subject.

My temptation is to ask Mr. Cenaiko if he would not agree that those who are released on parole do much better than those who are released at the end of their sentence, in terms of warrant expiry, and that we have much higher success rates, between Corrections Canada and the Parole Board, and a very successful system when it's focused on rehabilitation.

[Harvey Cenaiko]

I would agree. We've seen from our interviews of offenders who are remorseful for the actions they committed against victims that they are now trying to remain off drugs and alcohol, that they are following the correctional plan they worked on with their supervisor in the CSC's institution, and that they're taking responsibility for the criminal actions for which they were convicted. They're back in the community as law-abiding citizens. They're still under supervision, but going on beyond the warrant expiry, they are becoming productive members of society.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

That's great.

I think I could say on behalf of everyone on the committee that we certainly appreciate the work that all the corrections staff and the Parole Board do in trying to make Canada a safer place, so thanks again for appearing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Garrison.

On behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank Mr. Cenaiko, Ms. Thompson and Mr. Head. Thank you for your testimony before the committee.

I certainly thank my colleagues for their contributions to making Canada a little bit safer a place.

Thank you very much. We'll deliberate further.

The meeting is adjourned.