Bill C-12 (Historical)

Drug-Free Prisons Act

An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act

This enactment amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to require the Parole Board of Canada (or a provincial parole board, if applicable) to cancel parole granted to an offender if, before the offender’s release, the offender tests positive in a urinalysis, or fails or refuses to provide a urine sample, and the Board considers that the criteria for granting parole are no longer met. It also amends that Act to clarify that any conditions set by a releasing authority on an offender’s parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence may include conditions regarding the offender’s use of drugs or alcohol, including in cases when that use has been identified as a risk factor in the offender’s criminal behaviour.

Drug-Free Prisons Act

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. I thank the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca for his intervention. Indeed, when we characterize other commentary in the House as being untruthful, or as I think the parliamentary secretary referenced, not completely the truth, it gets into an area of speech that is really considered unparliamentary. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary might wish to rephrase her comments in that respect.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will retract that particular comment and rephrase it slightly differently.

The member seemed to imply that double-bunking was somewhat responsible for violent acts occurring in prisons. That is absolutely not the case. Don Head, the commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, has stated that. There was a thorough study on it. There is absolutely no correlation between double-bunking and violence in prisons. That just goes to speak to the fact that the NDP fails to recognize that federal penitentiaries do not make offenders violent, but certainly violent criminals do end up in them.

The member opposite talked specifically about the question I asked the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. He seemed to imply that when I talked about turning a blind eye to drug problems within our prisons I was somehow inferring that the opposition does that, and that is not the case.

It is interesting to note that the member opposite and the opposition parties voted against investments of over $100 million to beef up detection measures in our institutions. The member opposite said that those investments have done absolutely no good, or similar terms. Can I say that this is not the truth? In 2013 and 2014 we saw over 2,400 drug-related seizures in our federal prisons. That number has gone up and continues to grow under our Conservative government. We are stopping the illicit drugs from getting into our prisons.

The member also mentioned that certain family members may choose not to visit their incarcerated family members for fear of being searched. I take the plane quite often to come to Ottawa. I have to put my bags through the scanner. Sometimes I have had to go into the X-ray machine. I do that, because I have nothing to hide. I am not quite sure why the member thinks we should simply turn a blind eye to family members who refuse to have that type of search done before entering the prison system.

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

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I disagree with the hon. member on double-bunking. If she looked at any of the independent evidence, not the government's own evaluations of itself on double-bunking but those from experts in corrections, it will show that double-bunking has a negative impact on levels of violence and conflict in prisons. That is 100% without dispute, except for the government's own reports on itself. It is the same thing if one talks to corrections officers. If one actually talks to the people who work in the institutions, they will talk very clearly about the impact of double-bunking.

When the member talks about families not wanting to come in because of the interdiction methods and being placed under severe pressure by those outside, she should talk to the families of inmates. They will tell her how they feel. It is not about how she feels about flying. It is about how they feel about the obstacles that are being set up and the pressure they are under that sometimes interferes with their family visits.

I will tell members another story. I met with an aboriginal elder who travelled several hundred miles to appear at a federal prison and was turned away because of a lockdown over a prison search because of the interdiction measures that were going on. He was unable to provide the counselling he wished to provide because of the interdiction lockdown. He was not compensated in any way for the hundreds of miles he travelled or for his time. He was unable to make his positive contribution within the institution specifically because of the increased interdiction measures.

The member talked about the great success and how many people they find and how many things they seize. What I was talking about, which she calls untrue, is the fact that the rate of positive tests and refusals has not changed since the beginning of the interdiction program.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca on his remarks. I think they were honest and to the point. One thing I have found about the member is that his research is good. It is evidence-based research, not the kind of lines we get from the government. There is good research there.

There are many concerns. I hear them too. They are about double bunking and about families fearful of the kind of search they may have to go through when visiting prisons. There are lots of problems the government fails to recognize, so I appreciate it when the member puts those concerns forward. A government that was doing its job instead of attacking those with concerns would try to learn from them.

The bill is called the drug-free prisons act. What would the member recommend we do to make prisons drug free? What needs to be done? We know this act will not do it. It is an act of deception. What really needs to happen to assist inmates to become more drug free?

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

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy sitting parallel with the hon. member as the Liberal critic at the public safety committee. I think he is as committed as I am to looking at the actual evidence when it comes to the problem of drug addition within prisons.

As I said in my remarks and will say again, the first thing that has to happen is that there has to be a recognition of addiction as a health problem and not a moral failing. Once we recognize addiction as a health problem, we have to provide people with the opportunities to get treatment for that addiction problem. What we have now is an increasing prison population, a shrinking budget, and extremely narrow opportunities being presented to people to actually deal with their addictions while they are in prison. Unfortunately, too many return to the community without adequate supports and end up in their old lifestyles, where addiction drove their criminal behaviour.

How do we do it? It is a health problem. We provide adequate treatment and support when people return to the community so that they can once again become productive members of society.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is often said that prisons are like universities where you could go and get a master's degree or a doctorate in crime and where you become an even worse criminal. Why send people to prison if they are becoming even worse offenders?

The goal is to reintegrate these people into society once they are released. However, achieving this requires certain conditions. It is not enough to lock people up and pay for guards or big machines to detect drugs. Are there really educators who will take charge of these people to help them enjoy life again and help them understand that they can become useful members of society? Will there be the resources required to allow social services to treat addiction as an illness and to help these people really get their lives in order and become productive members of society again?

If the only thing we do is set up controls to see if drugs are being smuggled into prison, we are not really doing a proper job. In fact, on the inside, they are still going to use drugs; they are going to manage one way or another.

What we are not doing here, but what is being done in Quebec, is reintegrating people and giving them a chance to return to the workforce after five or seven years in prison. They need to be able to say that they have a trade, that they are going to be able to work and that they can become good citizens.

I do not know whether my colleague agrees with that.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question reminds me of two things I need to say. One is that nothing in our remarks about family visits and the addiction problem was meant to imply that families are the main source of drugs in prison. They are not. The second is the question of mandatory minimum sentences, which the government has pursued with a vengeance.

We on this side support mandatory minimums only for the most severe crimes. They are appropriate for those, but the result has been that many more people whose basic problem was addiction end up with a long prison sentence, and as the member said, they become perhaps better criminals as a result of that rather than having their addiction treated while they are in custody.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-12, the drug-free prisons act. The place to begin is to acknowledge a straightforward fact, which is that the bill will have hardly any consequence in ensuring that prisons are drug free. It is a much bigger issue than that. Even one of the members, one of the backbench Conservative members who was there for one meeting, in discussing the bill at committee, indicated as much himself. It is a name; it is not action in terms of this particular bill.

I am always amazed, and I have said this before, at the deception of the government. They think that if it can name a bill a certain way, it will happen. It will leave the perception in the public that the Conservatives are actually doing something, but they are not. What is really required is action.

The government somehow believes that if we can treat addictions by threatening those who suffer from addiction we are actually doing something. Research has shown that on the drug issue, threats alone are not enough.

The previous member who spoke talked about drug addiction as being a health problem. Somewhere around 75% to 80% of the people who go into prison actually go in with either a drug or alcohol addiction, and many of them have mental issues as well, so there has to be treatment beyond the penalties the government is talking about imposing.

The government somehow believes that it will achieve drug-free prisons if it coerces even further those offenders about to qualify for parole. There will be some people who do not achieve parole as a result of this decision. Is that the right thing to do? Is there a better way of handling that? Those are issues that need to be looked at.

Somehow the public is to believe that this legislation will actually accomplish something new. It really will not, and that became clear from the evidence presented at committee.

The title of the bill is misleading in the extreme, while the contents of the legislation actually add little, if anything, to the situation relative to those inmates on parole. I will come to that in a little bit.

Bill C-12 is another in a long line of government legislation, some of it private members' bills from the Conservative side as well, that use victims and offenders for their ideological ends.

The first point is this: Does the bill actually bring forward new policy related to the issue of drug use and those applying for parole? The answer is a simple no. Bill C-12 actually adds nothing to the parole process that does not already exist.

In direct answer to a question I posed to the chair of the Parole Board with respect to the Parole Board being able to exercise its full discretion as it has so far, the chair responded, “That is right”. Let me rephrase that. What I was really asking the chair of the Parole Board was whether this bill would take discretion away from the chair, and it does not. The Parole Board would still have the discretion it has always had, although the bill tries to make it look otherwise.

The Conservatives have said that there was a substantial change in that regard. The fact is, Bill C-12 does not alter the ability of the Parole Board to do the job it has been doing all along. The chair of the Parole Board actually went even further when asked whether any new requirements in this legislation will add anything to the current practices of the board.

I will quote his answer. He stated:

The new information that will be provided with the legislation will trigger a review by the board, as is currently the case when any new information regarding an offender is provided to the Parole Board of Canada prior to an offender's release, which we obtain from CSC.

Again, what is contained in Bill C-12 is already in practice. It has been the practice of the Parole Board.

That is why the bill is more perception. In my view, it is not just perception, but the way the government named this bill, the drug-free prisons act, is deception to the very core when it has very little to do with that and does not deal with the real issue of drugs in prisons.

If we are to stop drugs in prisons, we have to stop the market. If we are to get people off drugs, penalties are will not do it alone. It requires programming, treatment and constant follow up. That is the only way to get people off these addictions. There is no question that people face drug and alcohol addictions. Some people do small break and enters and some get into greater crimes as they get hooked on drugs. It is a serious problem and we have to reduce the market both in prisons and in Canadian society.

I will tell a story about the correctional system. I will give the government some credit for maintaining some of the programs that were started years ago to get people off drugs.

A constituent of mine had a son who was terribly addicted to drugs, got caught doing a small crime, and was going to be sentenced to two years less a day. That parent came to me to see if I could advise her in any way on how to get her son committed to a federal institution, which is a very tough place to spend time. Of course, there was nothing I could do.

Her concern was that her son would go into a provincial institution for a small crime. Because he was so addicted to drugs, he would commit bigger crimes over time. She felt if she could get him committed to a federal institution for two years or more, maybe her son would be able to take part in the programming to get him off drugs and become a better contributor to Canadian society.

I raise that point to indicate how serious the drug issue is and just imposing penalties, as this bill would try to do based on a urine sample, is certainly not in any way going to make prisons drug free.

When the Correctional Investigator testified before the committee, he too expressed his observation that Bill C-12 added nothing to the process and procedures currently in use with respect to the parole of offenders. He stated:

The window of opportunity targeted by this bill is very narrow....As members might be aware, the parole board already takes into consideration positive urinalysis results or refusal to provide a sample when making parole eligibility decisions. The board also frequently imposes a “do not consume” or “abstain from drugs and alcohol” prohibition on those on parole or statutory release and temporary absences. Bill C-12 would simply put these practices into legislation.

The Office of the Correctional Investigator, whose specific role is the environment within which federal offenders are maintained and hopefully rehabilitated, has issued report after report with direct reference to the issue of drug use within our federal institutions.

Again, with respect to Bill C-12, the Correctional Investigator was clear about the obvious intent motivating the legislation. He said:

—Bill C-12 contemplates cancelling a parole grant on the basis of a positive drug test regardless of when the drug was ingested. Without condoning drug use, we should be clear-sighted about the consequences of proposed legal measures. This is not about making federal prisons drug-free or treating substance abuse. It is about punishing illicit drug use in prison.

That is a pretty serious charge from the Correctional Investigator. It is about punishment; it is not about cure. We will not make prisons drug-free unless we find ways to establish a cure.

I would remind the government that the objective of drug-free prisons is not something that the legislation before us would even faintly achieve.

In its 2011-12 annual report, the Office of the Correctional Investigator made the following observation with respect to the prevalence of drugs within our federal prisons. It reads:

A “zerotolerance” stance to drugs in prison, while perhaps serving as an effective deterrent posted at the entry point of a penitentiary, simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world.

According to that same annual report of the Correctional Investigator, “Almost two-thirds of federal offenders report being under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants when they committed the offence that led to their incarceration”. The current population is about 15,000, so that would mean about 10,000 people. However, what is more disturbing is that a very high percentage of the offender population that abuses drugs is also concurrently struggling with mental illness.

My point in raising these facts is that it is a much bigger issue than urine testing. As the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca said earlier, it is a health issue. It is a huge issue in our society and in our prisons. We have to use programming that actually deals with the addiction problem to get to the bottom of this issue.

Yes, these people in prison have committed a crime, but in most cases, they will come out and be on our streets again. How do we give them the best opportunity to become good citizens and contribute to our economy, raise families and live in communities? That is what we should focus on here and not just the punishment aspect that the bill tries to portray.

The Correctional Investigator in his 2013-14 annual report was critical of the government's continued refusal to develop a comprehensive program to respond to continued drug use in penitentiaries and to undermining a key program within Correctional Services Canada, CSC, to address the addiction program

With respect to the former, the report found that:

Interdiction and suppression in the absence of a more comprehensive range of treatment, prevention and harm reduction measures will not eliminate the demand (or supply) of contraband drugs or alcohol.

According to the evidence provided to the public safety committee by the commissioner for CSC, upon admission, “about 80% of offenders arrive with a serious substance abuse problem”. He went on to inform the committee that anywhere up to 90% of a standing prison population would have a lifetime problem of substance misuse or dependence and that “this dependency does not magically disappear when they arrive at our gates”, meaning the prison gates.

Members can see how big the issue really is.

The critical issue then is that of therapy for those incarcerated with substance abuse problems. On this point, the record is clear. Again, the Correctional Investigator confirmed in his testimony before the committee that “We've seen a decrease in the actual dollars being spent on substance abuse programming this year over last year”. I want to emphasize that quote because it is something the parliamentary secretary earlier indicated might have been untruthful.

Let us call the bill for what it is. Unless the addiction issue is addressed, a problem acknowledged by public safety itself, titling a bill a drug-free prison act is really an act of fraud. It is deception, deception to the core. A drug-free prison act means nothing. The only way to get drug-free prisons is if we do the programming inside prisons. CSC admits 80% of the people have a drug or alcohol addiction before they come into the prison. That may have been part of the reason why they did the crime that put them there in the first place, or there may have been other background issues.

Yes, they have to do their time and pay the penalty and pay the price to society for the crime that they undertook, but if we are to have a better society as a country, we have to make prisons places of rehabilitation, not universities for crime. Make them places of rehabilitation that these individuals can come out, be gainfully employed and contribute to our society.

I am running out of time, but let me make one last point. I want to emphasize the fact that we will support the bill. The bill will not do any harm because the Parole Board still has discretion at the end of the day, although there will be some pressure on the Parole Board as a result of the legislation maybe to deny parole where it otherwise might not have. However, the bill will not do a whole lot of harm, but it sure as heck will not do a whole lot of good either.

I would encourage the government to do this. Instead of giving bills fancy titles and taking up House and committee time with a bill that really would do very little, it would be better off to come in with rehabilitation programs for individuals, stronger programs, to get off drug and alcohol addiction so when they have done their time, they can contribute to society in a way that will help our economy and communities. The objective ought to be that.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, through Corrections Canada, exactly $9 million were spent on addiction treatment programs in 2014 alone. When I hear the member opposite say that we have not spent money in this area, that is absolutely false.

Also the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, who delivered remarks earlier, talked about the government's three-tier approach that included: limiting access to drugs or stopping it from getting into prisons; deterrence for offenders and making them be accountable for their actions; and also prevention and treatment. I would like to have that figure on the record.

At committee and in debate now, we have heard that the reasons why offenders were committing crimes may be related to serious drug addictions. It is the Conservative government that passed laws against selling marijuana near schools and moved to end grow ops in residential neighbourhoods. Yet the leader of the Liberal Party wants to make smoking marijuana a normal, everyday activity for Canadians.

Does the Liberal member believe that only law-abiding Canadians outside of the penitentiary system should be able to smoke marijuana, or should we also give it to offenders?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, is the parliamentary secretary ever into deception today. We hear that all the time from government backbench members. I make the mistake of calling them “government backbenchers”; the government is really those members who sit in the front row. The others are members of the governing party, but they seem to take their direction from the front row, if we could say that, and their talking points from the PMO.

In any event, the leader of the Liberal Party is not, absolutely not, promoting marijuana. He is not promoting that at all. That is the deception they try to go with over there.

The fact of the matter is that our current drug laws is working in this country. Are marijuana laws is working in this country. Does it make sense to arrest somebody who smokes one toke and then cannot cross the border to the United States? Are police authorities today arresting people they find with marijuana? No, they are not, because they know the current law does not make any sense.

In my view, we should legalize the product, as was done with alcohol; put in place programming to keep people from consuming too much alcohol, drugs, and marijuana; and establish a program whereby marijuana is sold legally and appropriately, rather than, as the current government is doing, ensuring that all the profits go to the criminal trade and not doing anything about addictions.

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

Mr. Speaker, this last exchange really illustrates to me the problem with these wild titles that are assigned for essentially propagandistic purposes and lead us to debate a topic that is really irrelevant to what is before us in the House today instead of talking about what is actually in the bill.

I was pleased to hear the member point out that while the government likes to cite large numbers like $9 million and get us to agree that it is a big number, in fact it does not tell us anything about what has happened with drug programming. The Correctional Investigator pointed out that because of the change in programming, it is very difficult to see whether there has been an increase or a decrease, but his conclusion was that there has been a decrease both in the amount being spent and in the availability of drug treatment programs.

I would like to know if that is also the conclusion of the member for Malpeque.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the $9 million figure that the parliamentary secretary indicated they are spending on these issues is, I would expect, correct, but $9 million of what? How does it relate to the year before?

We cannot get any real numbers from the government, no matter how hard we try. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer cannot get the numbers from the current government, because if there is anything it does not want to believe, whether it is about marijuana or prisons or anything else, it does not want to get into evidence-based research that might tell the real facts. I will re-quote what the Correctional Investigator said in his testimony:

We've seen a decrease in the actual dollars being spent on substance abuse programming this year over last year.

That is what is important. The Correctional Investigator is telling us that the Conservative government is not spending the dollars it ought to be in dealing with the drug addiction problems within our prison system.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the core of all this is the refusal by the government to accept scientific evidence.

We all witnessed, over the years, how the current government got rid of the long form census, despite the fact that hundreds of organizations have said this census provides useful scientific evidence upon which to base policy. We have seen how the current government muzzles scientists when they may say something the government does not want to listen to. We have seen the current government get rid of its responsibility with respect to the Experimental Lakes Area. We have seen the current government get rid of the PEARL facility in the high Arctic, which is responsible for doing research, among other things, on the depleting ozone layer above our country.

In the case of this particular bill, we are talking about the fact that the current government, because of its ideology, does not want to recognize that treating the addiction while the person is serving his or her sentence is an essential element in trying to reduce the incidence of drug addiction.

I would like to hear my colleague on that particular subject.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. He made the point himself that in so many areas that the government operates in, it really does not look at evidence-based research in its approach to policy. It has an ideology and goes with that. It will cost us substantially down the road.

In fact, when we compare the Conservatives' tough-on-crime agenda with being smart on crime, we are seeing them going in the opposite direction from some of the states in the United States. They realized that punishment and penalties alone are not the answer and that they have to get offenders into rehabilitation.

In direct answer to the member's question, the Correctional Investigator has said time and time again that there needs to be money for programming, but the money has been reduced. Research shows that it is programming, not penalties, that actually gets people off their addictions and makes the prison population safer as a result. It also gives those people a better opportunity to become contributors to Canadian society when they get out of prison.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. However, I clearly heard him state that the title of the bill had nothing to do with its content and that it was misleading Canadians.

Everyone agrees that this bill is a step in the right direction. However, it has a fundamental flaw: it does not provide for care for people with mental health issues. This problem, which was brought to my attention in committee, also existed when the member was in government.

Why is it so difficult to deal with this issue?