Evidence of meeting #47 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was plan.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Thank you very much.
Thank you to you who are presenting, as well as to all of you for coming here today to lend your viewpoints on this very serious issue. I've heard it in my community as well. With regard to the polling data, I've had people come to me on this very issue of prevention versus incarceration.
Of course, we've seen in California, in the United States, some of the ramifications of incarceration. Dan McGettigan is the founder of Turnings in my community, which runs four circles of support and accountability for ex-offenders. He talks about continuity of care, and he foresees that what will happen with this truth in sentencing is that you'll put somebody in prison, and eventually you'll let them out, but there won't be this continuity of care to ensure that they do not reoffend. There won't be the kind of care in the community to ensure that they won't reoffend--let alone the prevention, which is the beginning of this.
I have several questions, but there's one other point I'd like to make. Truth in sentencing, which I think you focused on originally as the piece of legislation that you're concerned about--not only the costs for more prisons but also the fact that it'll be driven to the provincial level--is just one bill. There are many crime bills. We've costed out, through the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the cost of that one bill. There are many that are going to drive up the costs.
You talk about modifying government's policy. What exactly would you like to see happening? If you could say today, in talking to government, “This is what is preferable to what you're doing”, what would it be?
12:30 p.m.
Community Chair of Justice, Church Council on Justice and Corrections
Well, I think we already know that we incarcerate a large number of people for non-violent offences. That is something that should be reviewed very carefully before new sentences are brought in. We think that the kinds of new policies and laws that bring in stronger, longer sentences for more people, and that make it without flexibility because it's mandatory, is very bad human decision-making.
So we would certainly like the plan to build more prisons to have a moratorium put on it for a while. We're certainly not saying that nobody should be in prison. Perhaps prisons could be much different, more preventative and less punitive, but we all know that there are people who we have reason to fear. We all want protection from that, and there isn't any one of us who doesn't. There are just many, many, many there who do not need to be there.
So we would really like to take the investment for which you clearly feel you have money and to reallocate it to the options in the community that we know about that can do a much better job at lesser cost.
Perhaps Laurent would like to answer that further.
12:35 p.m.
President, Church Council on Justice and Corrections
I would like to add that reintegration is very important. I work in that area in Montreal, and it's so important to have people working with them. It is prevention: reintegration is the best promotion of prevention in crime. It works. It's something that works. But we need more money in the community for reintegration.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
I agree with you that continuity of care, as Mr. McGettigan told me, is incredibly important to ensure that we just don't keep incarcerating the same people or the same families continuously.
You mentioned a poll. Could you--
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
On a point of order, are we going to be getting actually to the departmental budget freeze with respect to public safety, or are we just going to be talking about policy with respect to how we incarcerate people in the communities? I'm wondering if we're getting to that soon with the specific departmental budget freeze.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
These witnesses are saying what these witnesses are saying, as the question--
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
So we won't be getting to the departmental budget freeze today?
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Thank you very much.
You mentioned a poll saying that Canadians prefer prevention and education. We are dealing with increased expenses to public safety, a cost to provinces, a cost to the federal treasury, in terms of the policies we're now putting in place.
You talked about what you would prefer to see done with those moneys. I didn't get the name of the poll you mentioned.
12:35 p.m.
Community Chair of Justice, Church Council on Justice and Corrections
I'll give it to you very specifically here. It's the latest Focus Canada survey by Environics Institute. It came out last week; at least it was reported in the newspaper last week. They have been around for many, many years. They're a very credible polling—
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
They are.
And to my honourable colleague's point, one of the things we've just learned is that Corrections Canada will be hiring an additional 4,000 people for security. From a budgeting perspective, you are suggesting that money should be reallocated to other plans and priorities within that department.
12:35 p.m.
Community Chair of Justice, Church Council on Justice and Corrections
Yes, this is clearly from a budgeting perspective. For example, you asked for options, and I just read that 15 conditional sentences save the system more than $1 million per year.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for coming today.
The President of the Treasury Board, Mr. Day, was here today. He was asked if he could give us the cost for even one of the criminal law bills the government has brought forward, let alone all of them. He was unable to do that.
Can you tell us anything about what you see are the long-term financial impacts of the kind of legislation the government has been bringing forward in the criminal law area?
12:35 p.m.
Community Chair of Justice, Church Council on Justice and Corrections
We're not forensic accountants; we're citizens of Canada with a concern about the kind of community we know we need. We know the conditions of victims, offenders who are being sent to prisons, and their families.
We know from the U.S. experience that the likely estimates and projections of what this is going to cost are far higher than what we have heard quoted here to date. We know that Kevin Page has had a great deal of difficulty getting the kind of data needed to make a different assessment. We know it already costs too much. And we know, for example—and I believe you were given this information graph that gives some of these facts—that the cost of housing and supervising an offender in the community, federally, is $24,000, instead of $83,000 or $101,000, depending on the level of security.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Ms. Berzins, I'm sorry to cut you off at this point. We are running the clock very tight.
Madame Bourgeois.
12:40 p.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.
I want to start off by congratulating you for daring to stand up and talk about problems you are facing and about problems destitute people are facing. In his 2009-2010 report, the Correctional Investigator of Canada painted a rather bleak picture of what he said were over three quarters of the prison population. I don't know whether you have seen this report, but it stated that there was a very high number of incarcerated women and aboriginals. According to the investigator's study, there are women and aboriginals with mental illnesses, but there are also financially destitute aboriginals in prison.
You are the ones experiencing the poverty first hand. Financial, but also mental poverty cause people to commit acts that lead to imprisonment.
That's why I wanted to congratulate you on the stand you have adopted. The fact that you are several representatives from a number of churches adds credibility to your testimony.
Mr. Champagne, two sentences jumped out at me, but you didn't read the following one because you hurried to get through your letter:
We are called to be a people in relationship with each other through our conflicts and sins, with the ingenious creativity of God’s Spirit to find our way back into covenant community.
This is very important. We are a community that should take into consideration people who are more financially and psychologically destitute and provide them with services.
Here's what worries me about the freeze on budget envelopes. When a decision is made to freeze the Correctional Services budgets, an additional 4,400 CXs, or prison guards, must be hired. Where will the cuts be made inside prisons? Would the governments not be likely to make cuts to reintegration programs, substance abuse programs, skills-building programs?
Money is in short supply at Correctional Services. For those who are not aware of this fact, at Correctional Services, they teach women how to do needlepoint, but they don't provide them with the skills to improve their financial situation. At least they are kept busy, but even these programs will be cut.
Do you think that this is where the cuts will be made?
12:40 p.m.
President, Church Council on Justice and Corrections
I would say that Correctional Services makes the best of what it has.
12:40 p.m.
President, Church Council on Justice and Corrections
I congratulate Correctional Services on that. I am part of the system to an extent, since chaplains are contract employees. I think that a lot of effort is being made in this regard. However, we should really focus on people with mental illnesses, isolated people, battered women who at some point take revenge on their husbands and end up in prison.
So, a new community needs to be formed. When we say “covenant community,” we are referring to a community in which we live in harmony with each other.
Just appearing today before you is more intimidating for me, someone who is used to working with hardened criminals, than dealing with people behind bars.