Public Safety committee  A number of years back there had been deliberations made on looking at this from a program perspective. Consultations had taken place with public health agencies. Consultations had taken place with our labour groups. Consultations had taken place with medical communities. At that time, weighing all the advantages and disadvantages, it was determined that in our environment it would not be suitable to proceed with that.

Public Safety committee  I'm aware of some outside clinics where needles are used for that purpose, yes.

Public Safety committee  It's through outside agencies. I apologize, I don't know the exact name, but it's a linen certification group. I believe it's through a community college.

Public Safety committee  It is an obstacle. Often your résumé carries with it what you were doing for the last two or three or four years. But as Mr. Wheeler and others mentioned, with some of the activities we've undertaken with community employment counsellors and some of the partnerships we've formed, people are aware of records and do take the opportunity to work with our inmates.

Public Safety committee  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.

Public Safety committee  I think you're always going to have some elements of that. Some people will take it. Our staff, our parole officer group, are highly trained at assessing levels of motivation, and have continued dialogue with inmates throughout their whole tenure of their process. To go back to the question mentioned by the honourable member about the human resource component of our correctional program people, our program delivery officers are highly trained.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely.

Public Safety committee  I'll give maybe a quick overview, as you mention. With the aboriginal population, we do find cultural and background areas that need to be contextualized and considered. For example, inmates who may have been reared in a traditional hunting and fishing type of a village, or inmates who have had a history of residential school activities with their families, or inmates who have lived on a reserve who haven't been exposed to the traditional white person's schooling, etc., need to be contextualized in their capability to respond to a type of a program and in their ability to comprehend, or there are cultural differences that we need to consider.

Public Safety committee  I don't believe that document would actually refer to those who had taken programs of substance abuse, exactly. If you're talking about general admission rates, there have been some increases and some warrant of a committal. Again, it needs to be contextualized relative to the actual numbers there.

Public Safety committee  Yes, there are a couple of things. In the earlier starts at intake, assessments are made relative to the properties that may be associated with drug use or drug activity. In our case-management processes we look at utilization of substance abuse, associates...that ties into the case-management process.

Public Safety committee  No, not at all.

Public Safety committee  Yes, there's a little bit of that, yes.

Public Safety committee  In the program area, sure we could.

Public Safety committee  I'm not sure. I've never, of course, taken it, but I would say that it lessens the addictive capability. I guess probably the example I could give is that if you take a nicotine patch, it at least reduces some of the elements of the addictive properties. You don't have inmates wandering around that would give the appearance of being high or being under the influence of drugs at all.

Public Safety committee  In the correctional environment, there is no question about looking at what contributes to public safety results, which is the second part of our mandate, of course: the rehabilitative aspects of inmates. Through the program development process, what occurred was a strong emphasis on research-based empirical evidence, material that can demonstrate a capability to show results, as was mentioned before.