Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to welcome the new minister to the public safety committee. I look forward to having the chance for more dialogue with the minister on a more regular basis perhaps than we had with the previous minister.
Obviously, public safety is a challenging portfolio, given its breadth, and I would like to thank all the officials who are with the minister today. It's a clear indication of the responsibilities that come under the minister. My sympathies are with the new minister; I think it's extra challenging given the record of the previous minister. My disappointment is that the supplemental estimates should have provided you with a chance to address some of these outstanding concerns.
My colleagues will have questions in a number of areas, but I want to start by asking about what has now become a crisis in our prison system, and this has been documented in the annual report for 2012-13 by the Correctional Investigator. In there, he makes reference to conditions in our prisons that are much like those of the late sixties and early seventies, which led to prison riots. I think this is a very serious concern.
There's a growing prison population, and despite members here today congratulating themselves on not reaching the worst predictions, we have a steady growth in the prison population. We now have the highest prison population we've had in our history at a time when crime is going down. The Correctional Investigator said very clearly that this growth is policy driven, not crime driven. It's a result of the decisions of the government to incarcerate more people, rather than to focus on rehabilitation.
The minister has had the recommendations in this annual report since June 28, so my disappointment in the supplemental estimates is that there's no response to the urgent concerns raised by the Correctional Investigator. He talks about the tensions caused by overcrowding and double bunking. I find it particularly misleading to talk about being entitled to a private room. Double bunking is placing two prisoners in a cell designed for one, and all the criminal justice literature around the world shows that this practice leads to an increase in violence and tension within prisons. If the minister actually has a study showing differently, I would invite him to table that study with this committee.
The Correctional Investigator, in particular, in his report focuses on the failures to meet the rehabilitation needs of aboriginal and visible minority offenders. Both of these are vastly overrepresented in prison custody, and he points to the lack of culturally appropriate rehabilitation programs for both aboriginal people and visible minorities.
I'm asking about these issues because the failures of the correctional system have a direct impact on public policy. If offenders leave the system without being rehabilitated, it will result in future victims of crime. My question very specifically is, why is there no response whatsoever in the supplemental estimates to the annual report of the Correctional Investigator?