Public Safety committee  Thank you. I too would like to thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before this committee. CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, is the largest mental health and addictions facility in Canada. We're a teaching hospital fully affiliated with the Universit

Public Safety committee  I don't work in prisons, and I can't really comment on that. I think what we know is that people who are in prisons and have mental illnesses identified, have addiction problems identified, not all of them are getting the help they need. From my reading of some of the testimony b

Public Safety committee  I would just address that, and since we are the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, say that they are intertwined. We serve many people with concurrent disorders. They're not always seen together. The key is to have the most appropriate services for people, so you have to hav

Public Safety committee  My understanding is the 12% to 20% estimate is for people who've been diagnosed with a serious mental illness at intake, and it doesn't take into account people who might have a more moderate problem and it doesn't take into account people who become ill while they're in prison.

Public Safety committee  I'm not aware of the literature either, but I think the question you're trying to get at is whether the kind of environment provided in a correctional facility is amenable to helping people with their mental health and addiction problems, and whether that's the appropriate place

Public Safety committee  My understanding is the Correctional Service already employs a number of psychologists and people with psychological training, but doesn't have many vacancies in those positions--trainers in assessment and testing, who assist people with their counselling and other kinds of progr

Public Safety committee  Certainly the evidence is clear that people with mental health problems are not more violent than the general population in general. It is important to remember that, because while we are talking about great need in the correctional system for services for people with mental illn

Public Safety committee  I read in some of the previous hearings an example where someone was being paid, I think, $88,000 and was hired by another organization that was paying them $118,000. I am not sure if my math exactly adds up, but it's almost that.

Public Safety committee  No, those are not my figures. Those are the figures that I believe were presented here by previous witnesses. So I don't have any source for that, but I have read some of the previous testimony.

Public Safety committee  I think a serious mental illness, a psychosis, in the general population is 1% to 3%. Depression is much broader. The figures generally are that one in five people in Canada will have a mental illness or substance abuse problem in their lifetime. That's a fairly well-accepted f

Public Safety committee  I feel very honoured, but I am not a doctor. I just want to be clear. I am a lawyer and a psychologist. I would say it's very important to treat addictions and mental illness together. The addiction is frequently a kind of symptom of the illness, so expecting someone to get the

Public Safety committee  I didn't hear you mention treatment in the facilities--

Public Safety committee  Okay. I think that's extremely important. You mentioned diversion, but we haven't really talked about this very much. Diversion, prior to people getting into any involvement with the criminal justice system, is obviously what we would be most concerned with, because as soon as

Public Safety committee  Oh. Well, maybe I'll start, but I'm sure my colleagues have something to say about this. You're contrasting a reward and punishment system with mandatory...?

Public Safety committee  You're talking about compulsory treatment?