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

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I think “turn the other cheek” is an interesting current phrase, Mr. Speaker. We were told to turn the other cheek by a source of advice that some of us accept.

In any event, regarding what the parliamentary secretary put forward, it is clear from the evidence given at committee. I look at the evidence of Catherine Latimer from the John Howard Society. She pointed to the risk of keeping people with addiction problems in custody until their warrant expiry without benefit of the graduated and supported release programs that offenders get with parole programs and supported re-entry programs. She pointed out the following:

If you have someone with an addiction, and if the response to that is simply punitive and you're keeping them in correctional facilities until the end of their sentences, they may not get the support they would need, which might ultimately reduce community risk.

As I said before, from the evidence given before committee, urine analysis is completely ineffective. It does not help someone who has an alcohol addiction problem. It does not help people who are using drugs such as crack cocaine, which is associated with more violent behaviour than, say, the THC that stays longer in the system of someone within the prison walls who smokes marijuana.

Addiction problems are serious and when combined with mental health issues, they are even more serious. In this case, deciding not to grant someone parole because of residual THC in their system is one factor among many for consideration. The important thing is to reintegrate people who have served their time and to help them, through support programs, to be accepted in Canadian society as contributing citizens.

In answer to the member's question, under certain circumstances people should absolutely still get parole even if they have residuals of some substances in their system. The urine analysis is irrelevant to determining far more dangerous substances.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her remarks on Bill C-12, a Conservative government bill.

The parliamentary secretary indicated that 95% of inmates complete at least one program during their time in prison. That is what we heard at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. However, I want to pick up on that, because she forgot to mention that these were general programs, not drug treatment programs, a subject that Bill C-12 does not really address. I hope that she will set the record straight when she has the opportunity to speak again in the House. I will come back to this point, when I have the opportunity to give a speech.

I would just like to make an observation regarding the speech given by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. I really appreciated her speech since I share many of her views. As she said, as a society, we do not want people to be constantly returning to prison and reoffending. I agree. That is why we need to give them the right tools.

Could my colleague give a few examples of the right tools that we could provide to our correctional system in order to help drug addicts and people struggling with mental health problems successfully reintegrate and become good citizens, and put a stop to this cycle of returning to the prison system?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for giving me the opportunity to provide examples of other programs that work for the common good.

One thing I wish we had not lost was the prison farm system. It made a real difference for offenders, and helped them restore—and not just restore, but for some offenders, made them feel for the first time in their lives—the belief that they could perform a meaningful role in society and gave them a sense of well-being and value.

In the fight to keep the prison farm in Kingston, Ontario, I became much better acquainted with how many offenders for the first time were working outdoors, planting something and letting it grow. A lot of my friends on the Conservative benches have experience as farmers. There are some things that actually change lives in a meaningful way.

We know that a lot of people who were offenders sometimes found religion within the prison walls, but anything that allows an individual who has never felt worthy in their whole life to find a reason to believe that they can contribute to society is useful, and one of the most proven beneficial programs Canada had, which this Conservative administration killed, was the prison farm system. I wish we would bring it back.

We need drug addiction counselling, yes. We need mental health programs, yes, but people who are lost to us in society, everyone who is lost, must have a chance to be found. I will not break into Amazing Grace, Mr. Speaker, but I think you see where I am going.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know the exact percentage, but I understand that somewhere just over 50% of individuals going into our federal penitentiaries have serious addiction issues. It begs the question of how important it is that we have effective programs.

Often, when we hear about these effective programs, people instantly think of the prisoner, quite understandably. I would think of the prisoner too, but there are also safety elements that are a part of having good, solid, effective programs. One only needs to talk to some of our correctional officers. They have a much better understanding of the need for solid programs that will assist our prisoners to have the opportunity to stay away from the medications or the drugs.

The hon. member might want to provide some comment on our making sure that we have the resources necessary to support effective programs that would make a difference.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the cost of the prison system for Canada is not cheap. It is up to about $3 billion a year. It has been going up for the last number of years. We are now seeing overcrowding in prisons and problems with double bunking. The tendency of the current Conservative administration to pass legislation that includes mandatory minimums is creating some overcrowding problems.

The advice from the Canadian Criminal Justice Association to the committee is worth referencing. It said that when an offender has a mental health issue combined with a drug addiction issue, it is primarily a public health issue. The criminal response, of course, is that people who commit crimes should be punished, but in some cases the Canadian Criminal Justice Association suggests there would be better protection for public safety in providing addiction counselling right away, putting people into programs where they could get off drugs and immediately become more useful members of society.

Parole helps do that. Getting people into parole helps them begin to get back on that road. Each case is going to be different. Although the bill, I have to admit, does not tie the hands of the Parole Board, it would require it to take a second look at someone who is about to be released on parole.

If we want to find solutions, we have to look at the fact that 80% of the inmate population enters prison with addiction problems. There is no evidence that the use of drugs in Canadian prisons is going up. That is also in committee evidence. We need to address problems where they exist and be much more creative in allocating funds. Since we are spending $3 billion on prisons, would it not be a good idea to spend it on keeping people out of prison?

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. I find the short title of the bill slightly more interesting. The Conservative government chose to call it the drug-free prisons act.

Clearly, when we saw that title, we were very curious to find out what this promised drug-free prisons act was going to contain.

I was relatively surprised in one sense, but not in another, to see that the bill had nothing to do with drug-free prisons. Bill C-12 adds a provision to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act that makes clear that, when deciding whether someone is eligible for parole, the Parole Board can take into account the fact that the offender tested positive for drugs in a urinalysis or refused to provide a urine sample for a drug test. That is already happening. The Parole Board has already been using this practice for quite some time.

We support this provision, but we realize that it has to do with the Parole Board. It has nothing to do with the inmates in our federal prisons right now.

Therefore, this title is unfortunately a bit flawed. It is sad that the government is trying to make Canadians believe that it wants to address the drug addiction problem in our federal prisons, when it is actually trying to use this bill to simply say that what the Parole Board is doing is fine and that it needs to keep doing it.

Bill C-12 therefore has a relatively misleading title. We tried to amend it at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The NDP introduced an amendment to change the short title to better describe Bill C-12. The title we proposed was the drug test failures and parole act, which I think better reflects the bill.

I point this out because many witnesses said that Bill C-12 was not really doing what the short title suggested. The bill is not bad. I would like to tell that to everyone in the House. In committee, we all agreed that this is not a bad bill as such. However, the title was really an irritant whenever we had to discuss this bill. The short title has nothing to do with the bill. The bill is not bad, but it will not lead to drug-free prisons.

I would like to quote the member for Yukon. Replacing the parliamentary secretary, he attended the meetings of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Bill C-12. He himself admitted that the short title was probably going a bit too far. We were able to see that, even among the Conservatives, not everyone was really comfortable with the short title of this bill.

I hope that the Conservatives will do their homework next time and present us with a bill whose short title will actually reflect its content.

That being said, I will not dwell on the fact that the Conservatives often play politics with their short titles or bills. The titles do not always reflect the bills they go with, but they seem very nice when they are presented to the public and Canadians see them without reading the actual bills.

We in the NDP have very clear positions when it comes to the prison population, prisons and the eradication of drug addiction. We have always supported measures that seek to make our prisons safer. However, the Conservative government continues to ignore the recommendations of correctional staff and the Correctional Investigator, in particular, that would help reduce violence, street gang activities and drug use in our prisons. Virtually all stakeholders agree that this bill will have little impact on drug use in our prisons. Almost all of us agree that there will be no impact on drug use in our prisons.

Once again, the government is going to use this bill as an opportunity to cater to the wishes of its base, without actually proposing real solutions to the problems of drugs and gangs in prisons. I am enormously disappointed in this aspect of the Conservative government's strategy on such an important issue.

As I said, Bill C-12 is not necessarily a solution to a real problem and we are all—especially the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security—aware of that. Members of the House, who have examined a number of bills, are at least partly aware of the situation in our prisons. We know that there are mental health, addiction and gang-related problems. There are therefore a number of problems and things to fix in our correctional system. Again, this bill could have been a good example of the sort of work we can do together as parliamentarians, but unfortunately we were not able to do it.

I would like to talk about what the bill should perhaps have included and about the eradication of addiction in our prisons. In 2012, a Public Safety Canada study confirmed that it is not very realistic to think that drug-free prisons can be created. I know that may be a shocking thing to hear, but the problem of eliminating drugs in prisons is extremely complex, for a number of reasons. The government should take a leadership role in this matter but, as parliamentarians, our work is to ensure that drugs are reduced as much as possible and to take steps in that direction.

The government, however, is reacting to sensational headlines in the media and trying to say that such a thing is possible. Correctional Service Canada has invested a great deal of money. Since 2008 the Conservatives have spent, for example, $112 million on purchasing technology to stop the entry of drugs into prisons. Nevertheless, this has not reduced drug use in prison. Therefore, the Conservatives' approach is not working at all.

First, the government has a clearly unrealistic goal, but one we all strive toward—we can agree on that—and second, it is not using its money appropriately. It has invested in technology and not solved the problem at all. I have some details and figures to give you later, but I can say that the Conservative government has made deep cuts to the budgets of many departments. It has reduced Correctional Service Canada's budget by 10% and made cuts in many programs, although the prison population is currently growing. It has reduced the money set aside for programming, particularly addiction programs. The government's explanation is all doublespeak.

Correctional Service Canada's funding for basic correctional programs such as addiction treatment has been reduced. Moreover, the Conservative government has closed the treatment centres for inmates with serious mental health problems. We cannot ignore the fact that mental health issues are very common in our prisons. That is one of the main points to keep in mind. Many witnesses told us that people who have addiction problems often have mental health issues as well, and we must not forget that.

In order to really tackle the addiction problem in our prisons, we believe that Correctional Service Canada must create an initial assessment system that would make it possible to correctly measure an inmate's degree of addiction so that suitable programs could be offered to the offenders who need them. If the addiction is not treated, it is more difficult to educate and return the individual to society, which is what our society chooses to do with inmates. At Correctional Service Canada, the system works in levels. An offender comes into the system at the maximum or medium level and makes his way down through the levels as part of the prison population until, at the end of his sentence, he is in a minimum security institution. Still within the correctional system, he will have contact with the general public. The offender will begin working and visiting outside the prison, and will begin his return to society.

If we do not want prisons to have revolving doors, we must provide good programs for education and social rehabilitation. That is a societal choice we have made and we must take it seriously.

Taking this choice seriously will be much less costly to taxpayers in the end, in terms of public safety, hospitals and society in general.

Inmates who are neglected in terms of education and social reinsertion are liable to reoffend and fall back into a life of crime. Many studies have proven this. The correctional investigator has mentioned it often in his reports and appearances before the committee. The experts know what is happening on the ground. They include the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies and the John Howard Society of Canada. I should also mention the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers whose members see former inmates returning to prison. I talked with Mr. Grabowsky, the union's national president, last week. I will not mention his age, but he has over 35 years of experience at Correctional Service Canada. He told me that during his career he has seen many former inmates return, as if prisons had revolving doors, because there are no social reintegration programs or other suitable programs for inmates. That is a sad state of affairs.

As a society, seeking to make our communities extremely safe is a wise choice. When I am walking down the street, I want to be safe, I want my daughter to be safe, and I want my friends and colleagues to be safe. For that to happen, we have to make sure that these offenders do not fall back into the cycle of crime. We must try to eradicate as much crime as possible from our society. Both sides of the House would probably agree that that is a very difficult thing to do. However, we have radically differing visions of how to do it. I will have more to say about that later in my speech.

A number of stakeholders support our position. One of them is the Correctional Investigator, who stated in numerous reports that the corrections system could face unintended consequences when simplistic solutions are applied to complex problems, such as addiction, in our penitentiaries. He suggested measures such as assessment of prisoners at intake into correctional programs to identify their addiction problems. The NDP fully supports that. He also suggested giving prisoners better access to rehabilitation programs, which would help reduce drug use and gang activity in prison.

When I was asking my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands a question earlier, I said that I would come back to what the parliamentary secretary said. She quoted something that, if I am not mistaken, was said by Don Head, the Commissioner of Correctional Service Canada, before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, and that is that 95% of offenders complete at least one program while they are in prison. It is true that 95% of offenders participate in a program at some point in their correctional plan. What the Conservatives failed to mention—and we have spoken about this at length during the debate on Bill C-12—is that this percentage pertains to all programs in general. It could be an anger management program, a program to deal with aggression, Alcoholics Anonymous or a drug treatment program. A variety of programs are offered to inmates. The government seems to be lumping all of these programs together and saying that 95% of inmates participate in a program, implying that these inmates are participating in a drug treatment program. Unfortunately, that is not the case. I want members of the House to be aware of this in the coming debates.

It would be a good idea to give all offenders who need it access to a drug treatment program while they are in prison. That is not currently the case. Four out of five offenders arrive at a federal institution with a past history of substance abuse. As of July 2011, there were 775 inmates enrolled in opiate substitute treatment, representing approximately 5.4% of the total inmate population. That means that only 5.4% of the total inmate population is receiving treatment, when four out of five inmates have a substance abuse problem when they enter the prison system. Unfortunately, a balance has not been reached. That is rather sad.

In the 2012 federal budget, the government made $295 million in cuts to Correctional Service Canada over two years, which represents about 10% of its budget.

Correctional Service Canada currently spends 2% to 2.7% of its operating budget on basic correctional programs. This includes substance abuse programs, but they do not receive all of that funding.

According to the Office of the Correctional Investigator—I always look forward to its annual reports—the CSC budget for substance abuse programming dropped from $11 million in 2008-09 to $9 million in 2010-11, even though the prisoner population continues to grow. Thus, funding for substance abuse programs and access to them is decreasing while the inmate population is increasing. That is sad.

That brings me to the position of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, which works directly in our prisons to ensure our safety. It does fantastic work. I visited a number of prisons in several provinces and we were always well received. The correctional officers clearly explained the work that they do, and they work miracles with very few resources.

Their budgets are cut every year and because of Conservative bills that amended the Canada Labour Code, their safety has also been affected. Take for example the bill that amended the definition of danger, which directly affects correctional officers working on the ground. That is extremely serious for them.

The Conservatives do not have the same vision. I would not say that their policies are harmful, but they are not the right policies for our penitentiaries. For example, as a result of cuts, the Conservatives promised to increase the number of beds and inmates in our prisons. I think it was 2,700 new beds, which is a net addition of about 1,655 beds.

At the same time, the Conservatives closed two extremely important penitentiaries—one in Kingston, Ontario, and the other in Leclerc, Quebec. The latter is in my riding and is now a provincial penitentiary. As a result of these closures, a cell designed for a single person often holds two or three inmates.

According to their assessment on the ground, despite a decrease in double bunking, corrections officers are currently seeing the potential for an increase in double bunking, which creates a serious problem in terms of drug addiction and the safety of corrections officers. These officers never know what will happen when there are several inmates in a single cell. Furthermore, it can be dangerous for the prison population, not to mention the fact that problems with street gangs and drug addiction can get worse if strict corrections plans are not followed.

The Conservatives should have a look at the studies that show what happens when you put several people in a cell designed for a single person. We often hear that it helps save money, but it creates many more problems in the long term.

The NDP wants to ensure that prisons are safe working environments for our corrections officers. That is extremely important. We will not make these workplaces safer by merely giving fancy titles, like the title of Bill C-12, to relatively simple measures without directly addressing the problem of drug addiction. This will only guarantee that inmates will end up back in the prison system.

I hope that the Conservatives will take note of all of this and of what the witnesses told the committee, so that the next time they introduce a bill called the drug-free prisons act, it will actually address the problem it claims to fix.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member across the way who sits on the public safety committee, as I do, gave some reports as to what was said at committee. Without going line by line as to where she was wrong and turning it in the opposite direction from where it was, I am going to ask the people out there who count, the people of Canada, to go to the blues of the public safety committee and read what was actually said. It will be remarkably different from what the member said.

The member also says she does not like the title. They wanted to change the title, and that was ruled out of order, just as in the House when something is ruled out of order. They think, if we cannot play the game their way, it is all bad.

She says some of the drug addiction programming was cut back. The evidence was that it was not cut from $11 million to $9 million, but that there is actually some $20 million. We are verifying that. Therefore, Canadians out there should go to the blues. They should not believe any of the talking-head politicians in here. They should go to the blues and read what the witnesses actually said.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands was mentioning it. In a previous Parliament, the public safety committee went to other countries. They said Canada has some of the best programs available. We went to Norway. Sixty per cent of the programming in its prisons is from Canada. I ask the hon. member from across the way to read the study into drug addiction and mental illness in our prisons, and she will find some of that evidence.

The member went on and on about the short title. She mentioned double bunking. Actually, the evidence before our committee was that the additional beds going in were reducing the amount of double bunking. She needs to get her story straight.

Therefore, I am just going to suggest to Canadians out there that they go to the blues and actually read them. They will be remarkably different from what she said.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that my hon. colleague attended the same committee meetings as I did. I would also suggest that people go check the blues to see what happened in committee.

Sadly, they realize that sometimes the Conservatives are trying to mislead the House and maybe the public at the same time. Therefore, yes, they should go and read the blues. It would actually be a really good thing.

With respect to the reports I mentioned, many of them are directly from the Department of Public Safety. If my colleague wants, he can go read them now. I will give him the titles. The things I mentioned are in the “2011-12 Annual Report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator”, “Drugs and Alcohol in Federal Penitentiaries: an Alarming Problem”, and “Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol Addiction in the Federal Correctional System”, which was published in 2010. I also have here another report by the Correctional Investigator, as well as a report by Public Safety Canada and Correctional Service Canada.

All of these reports, these facts and these numbers are real, but the government would have me believe that closing prisons and adding beds will not result in double bunking.

There is a penitentiary in my hon. colleague's riding. I think he should go for a visit and have a chat with the corrections officers who work there. They will tell him about double bunking.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate my colleague. I know she works very hard and is doing great work on the public safety file, so I commend her. She has my full confidence, when it comes to public safety studies.

The Conservatives often present us with nice, shiny solutions that apply to all kinds of situations. However, the situation in the correctional setting is extremely complex. Everyone knows this.

In fact, the Correctional Investigator has said in numerous reports that a simplistic solution would never work, because the problem is so complex.

Some of the reports my colleague mentioned indicate that the best system would have nothing to do with parole—since parole has nothing to do with the inmate population, and my colleague mentioned that—but rather an intake assessment system that would help ensure that programs were adapted to the needs of the people incarcerated in federal institutions.

Could my colleague talk about those kinds of customized solutions, rather than the Conservative solutions—

[An hon. member]

One size fits all.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Yes, the Conservatives' one-size-fits-all solutions.

Would she like to comment on this kind of customized solution, rather than the one-size-fits-all solutions that are supposedly going to solve all the problems in our penitentiaries? That kind of solution does not work.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île for her question.

If only it was a one-size-fits-all solution, it would already at least be something. However, the solution that Bill C-12 proposes does not even directly affect the drug addiction problem in our current prison populations. It is quite simply something that already exists and is already being applied by the Parole Board of Canada.

I would even have been happier if we were trying to apply a one-size-fits-all solution to see what the Conservative government would have proposed to really tackle this problem, instead of pretending to addressing the problem and simply telling the Parole Board of Canada that what it is doing is very good and giving the board the opportunity to continue doing the same thing. It is relatively good because the Parole Board of Canada is doing very good work. What is interesting about what was proposed in this bill, and what has already been proposed, is that we are not giving the Parole Board the benefit of the doubt, but rather the choice of whether or not to apply the measures.

At least the Parole Board is not necessarily being required to apply the measures that are presented here, depending on the results of the urinalyses, but they have the possibility of playing with them. It is good that the Parole Board is already doing this. Still, we should not kid ourselves. This is a bill aimed at eradicating drugs in prisons, but nothing here covers that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to join the hon. member for La Pointe-de-l'Île in congratulating my colleague.

We can see that she is well-versed in this subject and very comfortable with it. She is very thorough. Honestly, I must also say that I very much appreciate her optimism in wanting to co-operate with the government on this bill. There must be a true desire to work together in order to be so positive about this bill, which does not have any real substance but is more about the title and the effect of the first page.

I heard my colleague opposite show utter bad faith when he said that the issue with the title being inappropriate was ruled out of order. That does not make the title an appropriate one. That is the truth. This may have been ruled out of order, but that does not mean that the title is acceptable. It is unacceptable.

Unfortunately, I know the reality of partisan politics, which is to constantly point out what this government has done and the laws it has passed, not to mention this famous drug-free prison act, which is going to work wonders for our prisons.

I am wondering how my colleague can be so optimistic about working with these people when the introduction of this bill once again demonstrates how narrow-minded they are.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, who also speaks very eloquently in the House.

I would like to come back to something mentioned by my colleague on the other side of the House who, like me, is also a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I must say that, as parliamentarians, it is truly a privilege for us to sit in the House, but it is also a privilege to sit on a committee.

Although we do not always agree on everything, there is nevertheless some degree of collegiality. One might expect the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to be extremely rigorous, but we are all human beings. We have extremely different views on some topics, and that is normal. That is the beauty of Parliament.

This brings me to co-operation. I will always believe that co-operation is possible with this government, no matter what bill we are talking about. I will never give up on that. It is my job as a parliamentarian to present my views and those of the experts we try to meet, the people who appear before committees and the people I represent. It is our job as parliamentarians to try to work together. I am trying to play along, and I wish the Conservatives would try it more often.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before I recognize the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in resuming debate, I will let her know that there about seven minutes remaining in the time provided for government orders this afternoon. We will get started with her seven minutes, but of course, she will have the remaining time when the House next resumes debate on the question, the remaining 13 minutes or so, to take her up to her full time allocation.

Resuming debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.