Government Operations Committee on Oct. 5th, 2010

[Kevin Page]

We'd be happy again, as we do with all our information, including our models, to share them with the government. Actually, on this particular file on infrastructure, we've had some pretty good collaboration with department officials. It's not the same kind of story with some of the other files.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you.

I'd like to turn it over to my colleague, if I may.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

It's for a short question.

Mr. Page, let's talk about the impact on provincial governments. I'm thinking about the correctional facility close to my riding in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, where we've already seen problems. We hear about attacks, murders, and protests inside the correctional facility and all kinds of challenges that the provincial government is facing managing that facility. In fact, the director of corrections for the province has now moved his office right to the facility to try to manage these problems. It seems to me, from what you're saying, that the provinces are going to see increased pressures in this regard on their correctional services across each province.

First of all, the Truth in Sentencing Act would move people off into the federal system because they'll get more than two-year sentences, but are you saying that because of the increased number of people being remanded before trial, that will cause a big increase at the provincial level? You're certainly indicating a large increase in cost to the provinces, and in fact that the share in corrections costs across Canada that the provinces bear will rise considerably over the next while.

[Kevin Page]

Yes. Again, what we're talking about at the federal level is an increased head count, an average daily head count of about 3,800 people. Again, we assume occupancy when we do these cost calculations of 90%. The government may choose to double-bunk, and that can reduce the costs, which we highlight in our report.

There are a couple of general points about the size, the relative weight to the provinces and territories versus the federal government. For the provinces and territories, the annual flow is about 30 times bigger. So we're talking about 260,000 people versus 9,000 people entering the system. That's about ten times bigger if you exclude the remanded people. The average head counts in the provinces and territories are almost twice as big, 23,000 versus 13,000. The number of remands at provincial head counts are greater than provincial sentenced people. You've got 27,000 beds in the provinces and territories and you have 15,000 cells. So, to put that into perspective-

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

This is an important subject matter and I hope colleagues will come back to it, but we are over Mr. Regan's time.

Monsieur Laforest.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Page and the entire team. I am pleased to see you.

Mr. Page, you are saying that this act will have a significant impact on the provincial and territorial governments. But do your calculations take into account the fact that the crime rate is lower in Quebec? We have statistics to prove it. Crime has been lower for a number of years because the system developed in Quebec—more or less in line with Mr. Martin's comments—focuses on prevention and rehabilitation. As a result, there are also fewer criminals out in the streets. That's another way to reduce the number of criminals—a far more effective way.

Have you taken those calculations into account when you did the budget forecasts, the fact that eventually there will be more people in prison for a longer time?

[Kevin Page]

Yes, that's true. We have determined the crime rate for each province separately. It is part of our analysis.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Does your analysis on Quebec show that the crime rate is actually lower based on the population?

[Sahir Khan, Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Expenditure and Revenue Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament]

The idea behind our approach was not to comment on crime rates, but simply to recognize the data based on Quebec's status quo and to use our model to work out the costs at the federal and provincial levels.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

But I still go back to the statistics showing that the crime rate is lower in Quebec. If passing the Truth in Sentencing Act means increasing costs for the provinces, do you think that the federal government is going to transfer federal funds to the provinces to help them deal with the consequences of passing it?

As a Quebecker—and the people in my constituency tell me the same thing—I am not in favour of federal measures that increase our costs to pay for the spike in crime elsewhere, whereas our crime rate is lower.

[Kevin Page]

We're not aware of any transfer program that would deal with this specific act, the Truth In Sentencing Act, to transfer funds to provinces and territories.

We have not heard any data from the government other than.... When we put our data out on additional head counts, it was the first data we were aware of concerning the increased pressure on the federal system. We also put numbers out for the provinces. We've subsequently seen some information from the federal government, after we released our report, on their head counts. They seem to be moving their head count numbers very close to our statistics overall for Canada.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Based on your report, do you get the impression that the federal government will hold consultations with the provinces and territories to adapt their previous measures to the negative impacts they will be experiencing after the bill is passed?

[Kevin Page]

It is hard for us to indicate the level of consultations before Bill C-25, the Truth in Sentencing Act, is passed.

Since we produced our report, we have been in contact with the provinces. They've asked specifics about our data. When we prepared our data, we had consultations with all the provinces in the country to prepare our report.

I'm not really in a position to talk about the level of consultations. I was actually surprised that the provinces weren't greatly aware of the fiscal impacts.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

You said: “In our view, Parliament needs information and analysis in a structured and timely fashion in order to examine the risks and impacts of restraint measures”, but the government has not necessarily provided for restraint measures. That is in keeping with what you were telling us earlier: parliamentarians should ask for a complete analysis. What if we ask you?

What do you mean when you say “analysis in a structured and timely fashion”?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Laforest, your time is up.

You'll have to respond to that in some other fashion, Mr. Page.

Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's certainly a pleasure, Mr. Page. I think the last time we met was when I was co-chair of the Joint Standing Committee on the Library of Parliament, during the vetting process. It's nice to see you at committee again.

I'm going to follow up a little bit on what my colleague Mr. Woodworth said. I want to know first and foremost, however, what in your analysis the cost is of dealing with the Truth In Sentencing Act. There's a base amount of money that it costs to run any facility, whether it's the Parliament buildings or a business or whatever. I'm talking about baseline operation costs: keeping the lights on, keeping the heat going, paying the associated costs. Do the numbers you gave us on the cost of incarceration per inmate reflect those costs as an actual, true, per-inmate cost? Or are the costs simply the total expenditures by Correction Services divided by the number of inmates who have been incarcerated? Could you give me some information on that?

I think it would be quite helpful for me as a parliamentarian to know what the true cost is. If we added one more person to the prison, is it actually going to be the $150,000 or $147,000 that your report indicates, or is it going to be somewhat less, given the fact that there are more inmates being incarcerated at this point in time? The base costs shouldn't really change all that much.

[Sahir Khan]

When we look at the annual appropriation relative to the inmate population, one of the things we note is that if you look at the proportion of the labour force relative to inmate count, you're looking at a one-to-one relationship. If you consider that those costs are largely human-resource-based and rooted in a collective agreement, you can get a sense that many of these costs are in fact variable over a relatively short term. So as this piece of legislation goes through, one would expect that the labour costs would increase in proportion to that population, at least directionally.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I take it, then, that the answer to my question is that no, you didn't parse out the actual baseline operation costs versus the true operational costs.

[Sahir Khan]

The information we had available to us was what was available in the RPP documents from the department.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Further to that, there is some frustration. If I can speak in a very non-partisan fashion, I think all members of Parliament are sometimes frustrated with the information we receive. I don't know whether it's a lack of the information's availability, but do you, Mr. Page, believe, on the information you have access to, that given the fact that your job is Parliamentary Budget Officer and that you report to Parliament you should have privileged access to information that a member of Parliament shouldn't have? In your requests to the department, do you think, if you phone a department or do an access to information request, that you should have a different, elevated status for accessing that information from what a member of Parliament has? Or do you believe that when you ask a department for this information or make an access to information request on behalf of a parliamentarian who provides you instructions, you'd get the information that I would get if I made the same request as a member of Parliament?

[Kevin Page]

I had the privilege of being a public servant for some 27 years, working in three central agencies for about 25 years and in other years working in some line departments. I have a pretty good sense of what information is and is not available and what is and is not a cabinet confidence. You do become concerned from time to time when you see the line moving respecting what is a cabinet confidence or not.

Our authority to get information is basically outlined in the act of Parliament, as you know, sir. We get free and timely access. We don't get access to cabinet confidence information or personal information.

Other than that, we need to have a very professional relationship. And we do at times, with certain departments, have a very professional relationship in terms of information exchange. As I highlighted, with Infrastructure Canada we've had a nice, free flow of information.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Let me ask you a question about how you determine your independent peer-review panel. As I look through the list, it is very heavy with British Columbians, and there are a couple of people from universities in eastern Canada.

Can I ask you what criteria you use? It doesn't look as though anybody in Alberta was consulted or used in any way, shape, or form, as far as peer review is concerned; I don't see any references from Saskatchewan, from Manitoba, and so on. I see a lot of information here from B.C. Housing, the John Howard Society, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, but I only see a few references here to people who are actually involved in the day-to-day operations of correctional services.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Page.

[Kevin Page]

If you look at this particular report, you're right. We have nine people on our peer-review panel. It's not probably as regionally diverse as one might like. If you look in our past reports, sir.... For example, when we costed Afghanistan, we had somebody there from Saskatchewan, somebody from Ontario. When we costed aboriginal education infrastructure, we had somebody on our panel from Alberta. So it varies from time to time, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

Madame Bourgeois.