Public Safety Committee on Feb. 17th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

I want to thank you very much. The time is up.

We will now go to Mr. Rousseau, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

One of my first remarks would be that it's a well-known fact that there are a lot of criminals hiding in the construction business. There are very remote facilities, with prostitution, and drugs that are very easy to get. It seems kind of awkward that we would like to rehabilitate some of the ex-inmates in those crafts, even though they're in a lot of demand. You would be placing them into a very fragile environment.

Why would we do that?

[Don Head]

I don't think I would make as broad-sweeping a statement as was just made, Mr. Chair. I know that many people who work in the construction field are as law-abiding as everybody in this room. I understand the point that you're making, and one could argue that this exists in many different fields. We are obviously looking to get people actively involved in the the kinds of activities, the kinds of trades, that are needed in Canadian society, and obviously aligning with law-abiding companies that hire people, so I'm not quite prepared to accept the broad-sweeping statement that the entire construction field is corrupt.

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

Okay, I know, I know. I'm not saying they're all crooks, no, of course not.

Seriously speaking,

one of the best skills managers must look for in employees is their psychosocial ability, meaning people skills and decent behaviour. I think that is one of the first skills to hone if we want to achieve proper and effective reintegration. Behavioural skills are what first attracts employers.

What do CORCAN and other similar programs do for that?

[Don Head]

That's a very good point, a very good observation. The one thing I will say, and we actually very, very strongly believe this, is that just providing offenders with employment skills is not going to solve their problems. They're in prison and penitentiaries for other reasons, so while we work to address any employment skills gaps, we're also addressing the other criminogenic factors, those factors that led them to their criminal life. That includes the substance abuse programs, anger management programs, the cognitive skills programs, those kinds of things. Because we have an overall case management team approach to dealing with offenders, all the staff, whether they be correctional officers, parole officers, program officers, or CORCAN staff, all work to reinforce those prosocial skills, whether it be in the classroom, whether it be on the ranges, or whether it be in the shops.

It's a very good point. I could give offenders all the employment skills that could be offered in the world, but if I'm not addressing some of those basic criminogenic factors that led to them running into conflict with the law, we'd just be throwing money down the toilet.

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

Yes, because in real life they will have to have interviews, present what they did in their past, and everything, so they have to be well prepared in confronting managers and those types of....

People skills are what the program does not focus on enough. They can be meaningful for various communities, as well as for the families and the individuals themselves.

What does the program do to promote self-awareness as such?

[Don Head]

I think what we see happening in our shops, for example, is that our staff reinforce that. They reinforce that they are working in an environment with other people, reinforcing the very point you made earlier about using good prosocial skills.

We're also working with community employment coordinators and centres and other partners in the community to help reinforce those skills when the offenders come out into the street. As you can imagine, if an offender goes to an interview, and somebody asks a question they don't like, and they get angry and assault the person, then they're coming right back to me, and that's not what we want. The combination for us is working on the skills piece and that human interaction, prosocial skill piece. If I just put my time and energy on one, I'm not going to accomplish what's needed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you, Mr. Rousseau.

Now Mr. Payne, please, for five minutes.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner, for coming along with your team here.

My background is in human resources. I was quite interested in your comments regarding the oil and gas industry. Alberta has been the economic engine of Canada the last number of years. As a previous human resources manager, I know that there are a lot of potential jobs available. Power engineering, for example, is in high demand, as are millwrights, instrumentation, electricians, welding, pipefitters, machinists, and the list goes on and on. Because Alberta has been the economic engine of Canada for the last little while, obviously partly due to the oil sands, it's also created manufacturing in Ontario, Quebec, and right across Canada. I see that as a really important aspect.

I'm just wondering if you could give us a little more insight into what's going on with your discussions in the oil and gas sector.

[Don Head]

I just have a couple of comments and then I'll let Ms. Garrow talk about her recent meetings.

We're really looking at encouraging them to come inside our facilities, bring these discussions about their needs, and also to bring their money—I'm going to be quite blunt about that.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

They have a lot of money.

[Don Head]

They have a lot of money. So bring your money and come and train the offenders in whatever it is that you need in terms of the kind of work that you're doing out in the community. Our early-day discussions are as simple as that.

We have a workforce. I have a Canadian workforce. I'm not talking about temporary foreign workers, I have Canadians who need jobs, and who need jobs in order to become law-abiding citizens. So come in and help me help you help Canadians. That's where we're starting the discussions, and I hope this committee helps to open up even more doors for those kinds of dialogues and ultimate responses to that call.

I believe the vast majority of the offenders here, given the right kind of training, given the right kind of programs that address their criminogenic needs, will get jobs, go back out, and become law-abiding citizens and contributors to the tax base of this country. That's only good for all Canadians. That's where we're starting right now.

I don't know if you want to add anything?

[Lynn Garrow]

I'll just add one thing.

Currently in one of our shops in Alberta we already do some of the pipefitting pieces. We do manufacture them, so we are starting there.

When I looked at some of the opportunities in oil and gas—I'll just refer back to what the commissioner said—it is expensive training, it's not cheap training. The course at Portage College, for example, is $10,000 per individual. I've been talking to people, some of them in the aboriginal communities, who are looking at on-the-job training inside, and everything from doing it through video, so you don't have your big machinery inside. At this point I'm still in the very preliminary areas.

A lot of the jobs that you also mentioned require a lot of highly skilled individuals, so again it's very expensive training. It's not something that I'm in a position at CORCAN to offer to fund. I would love it, but we don't the money or the resources for that at this point in time.

I think partnerships are the way to go, and yes, anything you can do to help that would be really great.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Yes, and I agree that seeing these partnerships is needed. We also have some food processing in my riding and they're always looking for Canadians. They'd just as soon hire Canadians as temporary foreign workers.

[Lynn Garrow]

May I answer that?

I was actually quite surprised. I didn't realize that food processing was so big. When I was out west, I actually did meet with the CEO of a food processing company looking to partner with us. When he was talking about providing employment on the outside as well for our inmates, it is an area that I am most interested in.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

That's good to hear because—

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

That's basically your time, Mr. Payne, but thank you very much.

We will now go to Mr. Norlock, please, for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have a couple of things. I'm interested in the video that you talked about because it addresses, I think, some of my preliminary questions. How long is that video?

[Lynn Garrow]

Almost 10 minutes.

[Don Head]

Yes, it's about six or seven minutes long.

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

Okay, with the permission of the official opposition, I'm thinking that it would be of interest to us to see the video. It would be of interest to me. If it can be sent electronically, make sure that the analysts get it and we could each play it on our own personal computers or we could show it at committee. I'll ask the chair to think about it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

For clarification, Mr. Norlock, of course, it's information that's being submitted to this committee. I just want to see if it's available in both official languages.

[Don Head]

Yes, it is, most definitely.

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

Thank you very much. I'd appreciate it if you could provide that to the committee. We'll have the chair discuss with you the manner in which it can be distributed.

For first nations, of course, we have a special relationship vis-à-vis taxation, where they live, etc. The challenge, I think it was Ms. Garrow or you, Mr. Head, who said that they're going back to reserves where there's virtually no employment.... I was thinking, maybe because of the person I'm married to, that estheticians seem to get a lot of business from the Norlock side of things. I guess I'm saying that those are some of the skills....

I've lived in many areas in the province. If you go to the neighbourhoods that I've lived in, almost every other neighbourhood has someone whose secondary employment is a hairdressing or esthetician salon, and I suspect it's the same around the country. This might be an area that you might want to think of, because it's an area of high employment, and, of course, as a government, in regard to the employment benefits, we're looking at it. We've already looked at it and have made employment benefits in those areas. I see it as an opportunity. I wonder if you could ruminate on that for us.

One of the things I'd like to see done with regard to first nations is that we'll have to work with.... All parliamentarians are going to have to deal with this. We encourage people to return from whence they came. For a first nations territory, for instance, where there's no employment, maybe we need to say the same thing to our first nations communities that we say to other communities, which is that you go where the jobs are. That might be a way to alleviate a return to hopelessness and a life of crime. Once again, it's something that on this side of the fence we're going to have to work on, but work on with you.

I was very interested in what you talked about in regard to the heavy equipment; we wouldn't want a D9 going through a wall somewhere. I'm very much interested in the housing market, because it's a huge area where we can.... I'm wondering if you could suggest to the committee how we can work with Habitat for Humanity, because they have one of the best records. In my particular riding, we've used them, and we've been able to get some federal dollars into the program to help hire the difficult-to-employ people, or, in other words, people with no skills or who perhaps have been not in the federal institutions but the provincial institutions, etc.

Could you suggest to the committee some of the things we can do to help you make that function better with Habitat for Humanity, and then in the construction trades in general, and also how you see public-private partnerships? You have a budget to live by, and you did mention something about the oil and gas industry. Well, the construction industry, I think, can contribute there. As well, I think you have a good working relationship with the trade union movement, which would be of interest to my friends across the way and, quite frankly, to me.

Could you talk about how we as government and as parliamentarians could work with you to make those things happen?

[Don Head]

I have a couple of quick comments in that regard.

Habitat for Humanity is one of the projects with which we're quite proud of being involved. We're a contributor. Habitat for Humanity guides that.

The challenges they have, though, are related to money and supplies, and having something flowing consistently. I'll use Manitoba as an example because we've worked very closely with Linda Peters there. We have worked out an arrangement now whereby some of the construction is actually being done on our property out at Stony Mountain Institution. That's gone a long way toward helping them out to get some things prefabbed and prepared in order to get houses built quicker, even during the wintertime when, as you can imagine, it's a little more difficult to do some of these activities.

It's really about finding the investment to get the supplies. The Habitat for Humanity exercises we've seen are not an issue of not having available manpower. There are a lot of volunteers and our offenders are involved in that. We've helped to address, in one case, the issue of where they could do some prefab construction ahead of time by using some of our buildings and our minimum security at Stony Mountain. It's the money flow and the actual supplies that are needed.

In terms of aboriginal communities, one of the things that....As I mentioned before, the more we can tap into the economic development activities in first nations communities, the more we are able to assist them with their needs but also provide aboriginal offenders with opportunities.

There are some first nations communities that we continue to watch very closely and talk to, for example Osoyoos in British Columbia. Chief Clarence Louie is a significant leader in this area. He may be somebody you would want to talk to as well, as a committee, about moving forward. He's always been receptive to discussions with us and with provincial corrections about providing opportunities for offenders to become employed and the many different ventures his first nations community is undertaking.