Government Operations Committee on Feb. 8th, 2011

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Minister.

Before I suspend, Madam Coady, did you have something you wished to say?

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

I wish to table something. When I was speaking earlier, the minister questioned where I was getting the figures from. They are from the International Monetary Fund. Page 28 of that report indicates that the budgetary balance will be in deficit in 2015-16 by $5.4 billion, which is different from what the government is saying.

So I'd like to table this report for the minister to review.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

I appreciate that. It's half of what the Parliamentary Budget Officer is saying. He's saying $10 billion.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you to both of you.

I'll suspend for a couple of minutes while our next witnesses come.

On behalf of the committee, thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Colleagues, on behalf of the committee, I'd like to welcome the Church Council on Justice and Corrections to the meeting. We have roughly 45 minutes.

Do you wish me to respond to the point of order that you raised earlier or...?

Well, we had a meeting last week in which we tried to set the agenda. We have had a very active clerk trying to fill in all the blanks in the agenda. We had four two-hour sessions to fill. There was an anticipation that we would have Madame Bourgeois' witness on corrections at this time. We were unable to fill that, and these folks became available. It seemed to be an appropriate discretion on the part of the chair to fill that particular hole.

I see Mr. Warkentin first, then Mr. Martin, and then Mr. Regan.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the fact that the clerk is doing his utmost to get the spots filled, but I think if members of this committee had been consulted about who we should bring in today, there would have been some suggestions that might have been wide-ranging in terms of the different folks. As you know, we have limited opportunities to hear from people. We obviously don't want to have witnesses who are redundant and whom other committees have already heard from. But we do want to concentrate on the issue at hand.

There are a whole lot of people I would like to have heard in this hour, had we known it was available. We didn't know, Mr. Chair, that this hour was available. We didn't have an opportunity to give suggestions as to who we would fill this hour with. We gave suggestions—apparently there were a number of suggestions or thoughts—as to who we would hear from in this hour, but the group that is presenting today wasn't included in that list. This wasn't even a suggestion.

I believe the subcommittee has a responsibility to look at and make determinations based on what is in the interest of this committee. I think it's important that all committee members have an opportunity—that every party, at least, has an opportunity—to weigh in as to who will be at these meetings and who will give testimony to this committee. It's an issue of decency and courtesy to members who are part of this committee that we be consulted when it comes to witnesses who will be heard from at this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Very briefly, it's also a matter of courtesy to hear the witnesses who are here to speak to us today.

But just for the record, I raised this organization with the chair when I learned about their work while I was researching a recent article by Newt Gingrich in The Washington Post, in which he cited a similar prison reform movement sweeping the United States with faith groups and right-wing politicians, such as New Gingrich, and a number of other leaders from that right-wing side of things. I raised this with the chair, and I was impressed when the chair, with the clerk, managed to seek them out and invite them on such short notice. So I'm partly responsible for the lack of notice in this particular case.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Is it correct, Mr. Chairman, that the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development actually refused to appear before this committee, and is that one of the reasons why we had the opening?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'll let the clerk respond to that.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Marc-Olivier Girard]

The Department of Human Resources has not refused to appear. They were unable to do so because their main public servant responsible for the file was abroad this week. They will be appearing on Tuesday of next week, February 15.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

We'll hear one final point by Mr. Calandra.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

We'll obviously be hearing from them and we obviously have no ability as a committee to influence what is going to be going on here.

We have future business. I'm not sure why we actually bother putting future business on an agenda, since you just really decide on the spur of the moment who you're going to put on as witnesses. We have nothing from the Library of Parliament with respect to who they are and what they stand for, other than a letter they sent to the Prime Minister.

As a member of the committee, I have no understanding of whether these people can effectively speak to what we're talking about, which is departmental budget freezes. I'm not really interested in their policy perspectives. I'm interested in whether, as part of this study, we can narrow down the focus to departmental budget freezes. We have a draft report, which I thought we were going to start talking about in this hour.

It strikes me that this is just a continuation of the absolutely positive lack of respect that you have for this committee. It's either yourself or the clerk.... Somebody is continuously throwing in witnesses, not allowing us to prepare. If the committee is going to continue to simply proceed on the basis of what the Liberal Party thinks might score a cheap political point, then by all means they can continue in this way, but it would certainly be nice to have the ability in advance, out of respect for the committee, to know who's coming—not at 2:30 in the afternoon the day before—and to have information from the Library of Parliament concerning who the witnesses are, why we need to sit down and hear from them, and to know in the future whether they actually can bring a perspective on the budget freeze.

I'll leave it with—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Calandra, for that observation.

We'll hear Mr. Holder very briefly; then we'll hear from the witnesses.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you very much.

This is perhaps briefly an extension of Mr. Calandra's point, but it is from the standpoint of respect for this committee, insofar as I was the person who sat in on behalf of the government side at the last steering committee. In that session we talked about a variety of witnesses. This group did not come forward, but what's really strange, Chair—I would really be grateful for your insight into this—is that at that last meeting, when we had our steering committee, I spoke very specifically on this issue, because we had another circumstance, as you'll recall, in which the chair made a determination to bring someone in without notice, although at least in that circumstance, I would say, we had a lot of background on the individual. But at the point of not being able effectively to do our research, it becomes a one-sided dialogue.

I would just come back to the chair and say to you that the reason we have a steering committee is so that we can determine our path. It feels that this has been disjointed, for whatever reasons, and it strikes me that to assist us in our planning and preparation, sufficient notice must be given. It has to be done through the steering committee. I have to say that this is now the second time I have brought this forward within what is days, in my view.

I would come back to the chair and say, please remember why we have a steering committee. It's helpful to all of us to be able to do our appropriate preparation, and, frankly, if this is an appropriate group to bring forward, it allows us all to then be thoughtful in our research, which Canadians expect and we as parliamentarians should demand.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, all, for your observations.

May I now call upon Madam Berzins or Monsieur Champagne.

Please introduce yourselves, and then go ahead.

Thank you.

[Laurent Champagne, President, Church Council on Justice and Corrections]

Good afternoon. My name is Laurent Champagne, and I am the president of the Church Council on Justice and Corrections.

I would like to begin by introducing the church representatives who are with me today: Dr. Richard Haughian, on behalf of Mgr. Gary Gordon of the Roman Catholic church; Rev. Ann Salmon, on behalf of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa; Rev. Jane Griffiths, on behalf of the United Church; and Paul Heidebrecht, on behalf of the Mennonite Central Committee Canada. There is also the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, which wrote a letter to the Prime Minister but could not be here today.

I will now read you the letter I wrote to the Prime Minister.

The Church Council on Justice and Corrections (CCJC) is most concerned that in this time of financial cuts to important services, you and the government of Canada are prepared to significantly increase investment in the building of new prisons.

Proposed new federal laws will ensure that more Canadians are sent to prison for longer periods, a strategy that has been repeatedly proven neither to reduce crime nor to assist victims. Your policy is applying a costly prison response to people involved in the courts who are non-violent offenders, or to repeat offenders who are mentally ill and/or addicted, the majority of whom are not classified as high risk. These offenders are disproportionately poor, ill-equipped to learn, from the most disadvantaged and marginalized groups. They require treatment, health services, educational, employment and housing interventions, all less expensive and more humane than incarceration.

The Canadian government has regretfully embraced a belief in punishment-for-crime that first requires us to isolate and separate the offender from the rest of us, in our minds as well as in our prisons. That separation makes what happens later easier to ignore: by increasing the number of people in jail for lengthier sentences, you are decreasing their chance of success upon release into the community.

Increasing levels of incarceration of marginalized people is counterproductive and undermines human dignity in our society. By contrast, well-supervised probation or release, bail options, reporting centres, practical assistance, supportive housing, programs that promote accountability, respect and reparation: these measures have all been well-established, but they are underfunded. Their outcomes have proven to be the same or better in terms of re-offence rates, at a fraction of the cost and with much less human damage.

Public safety is enhanced through healthy communities that support individuals and families. We, therefore, respectfully ask you to modify your government’s policy taking into consideration the impact it will have on the most disadvantaged, its lack of effectiveness, and its serious budgetary implications.

[Lorraine Berzins, Community Chair of Justice, Church Council on Justice and Corrections]

I would like to say a few words before we open it up for questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay, but I just want to point out to both of you that we did start late. We do have another committee coming in at one o'clock.

[Lorraine Berzins]

Yes. I will be brief.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay. I appreciate that accommodation.

Thank you.

[Lorraine Berzins]

First of all, we are here to talk about costs and budgets. We have sent this letter to leaders of the opposition as well, so this is not a politically partisan issue for us. It's about the general direction of all the legislation that's going in the direction of putting more people in prison, and the cost of that, which has really reached a tipping point.

We've known for a long time that this is a bad investment of public funds. I draw your attention to what we have distributed, “Towards a smarter sentencing policy”, which you should have in both languages. We've known for a long time what works better, and how it costs less, and how it helps victims better as well.

As we know from the U.S. experience, and I know that you know this, they've had a disaster down there in pursuing the same policy of more people in prison. They have found that they really have to change direction at this point.

What I think many people don't know is the very latest data that has come out through studies in the States from the Pew foundation. I would like to talk about two things related to that. They have done a very careful study of the data related to the impact of a sentence of incarceration--down the road, for generations to come--on the people who have suffered that and their communities. They have very specific data that show a number of things: that there are lifelong impacts on the economic stability of those people and their families and their children; that with their massive incarceration policy, there's a huge increase in children who have a parent behind bars; and that this affects their own economic survival during that time but also lifelong. When the father comes out of prison and cannot take care of the family--a great percentage of them were supporting the family before--who has to pay? It is the community and society who have to pay.

We also know from their data--and this is specific data, not rhetoric or ideology--that these children are significantly more likely than other children to be expelled or suspended from school. Education and parental income are well known to be strong indicators of children's future economic stability. The data show how entire communities, because often this is concentrated in some communities, are suffering the effects of this kind of policy with a lower standard of living, lower economic development, and poor education and health care services. It's creating the very conditions that breed more crime.

We know this will be true for Canada as well. We already know this from the data, but I don't think we're paying enough attention to this.

We know also that this is not just a question of federal costs. The provisions you're approving are going to lead to a great deal more cost to be carried by provinces. There will be a lot more court time, and longer trials. More personnel will have to be hired, with more people in pretrial detention. I won't go into it in detail, because you're pressed for time, but you should find out about that.

Canadians don't just care about what the federal government is going to pay; we care about what the downside effect is going to be on our provinces, on our communities, on the citizens of our cities. We care about the costs we have to bear because of all the services we need to provide around that, and about what it does to the relationships in our communities and the causes of more crime.

We know that it's affecting the most vulnerable people in our society. We know that it's affecting against certain racial groups and people with certain handicaps and difficulties. As the Ottawa Citizen recently noted in an editorial, “If any politician were to say that poor and aboriginal Canadians should spend extra time in jail when charged with crimes, that politician would be vilified.” Yet that in effect is how our system of justice works now. And if you don't know that, you should find that out, because statistically that is true in terms of pretrial detention and at many other levels as well.

We know that a majority of Canadians do not want this, contrary to what we're being told more impressionistically. The latest poll shows that 58% against 36% of Canadians prefer prevention programs and education rather than tougher punishment as a way to combat crime.

We don't understand how you can spend all this public money without regard for the costs that we're all going to pay down the line. We are informing our constituency about this, and many others are encouraging the people they're in contact with to find out more about this. We're still at a point where we could stop it, and it's a tragedy that we're not paying attention to that.

I'm finished.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madam Berzins and Monsieur Champagne.

We have a mathematical impossibility here. We have 30 minutes left, but with four parties at eight minutes each, that equals 32 minutes.

Could I perhaps cut it back to seven minutes?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.