Government Operations Committee on Feb. 10th, 2011

[Don Head]

Well, this is travel by public servants, primarily across the country. We do not have as much international travel as we had in the past. That was one of the reduction measures. We've driven those costs down. But we try to find the right balance in terms of learning and development opportunities for the staff. In some cases there still is international travel because some of the best events occur outside of Canada.

In terms of our hospitality, it's just been a very focused effort to say that in these events or these certain types of activities we're not going to fund hospitality using taxpayers' money. This has allowed us to take a much more rigorous approach in managing that and exercising the authorities that managers have in making decisions around hospitality.

This is very much in line with the direction that's been given to most government departments, when their hospitality and travel budgets were frozen at the 2009 levels. We made an internal decision that we're not just going to accept the freeze; we're actually going to reduce the costs, both to help out with any reduction initiatives we have to put in place, and potentially, when we've met those, if there are any additional moneys left over, looking at investing them into some of our other priorities or high-risk areas.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Head, you also succeeded in cutting the costs of certain programs. You have set up or tested a new model of an integral correctional plan? What does this mean?

[Don Head]

Yes. One of the things that we are piloting right now in the Pacific region, just as you pointed out, is the integrated correctional program model. This approach is allowing us to do several things. It's allowing us to eliminate the duplication that occurred among several types of programs that we were offering. We found in some of our programs that the kinds of materials that were delivered in one program versus another were identical. We would have offenders who may have to go to a violence program, an anger program, and a cognitive skills program, and they kept getting that same piece over and over again. That would cause some of them to think about dropping out of those programs because they felt they were taking the same thing over again. We've taken an approach now where those common elements in the programs are being delivered at the time that they're being admitted to the federal correctional system. They're getting those common pieces up front so that after they've gone through the assessment units and have been placed into the penitentiary where they will be for a while, they can start the more specific components of the programs.

This has allowed us to do a couple of things. One is to get offenders engaged in programs much earlier than before. What we had found is that the offenders were not starting their first program for as long as 150-plus days after their time of admission. Right now we've dropped that down to where they're starting these program primers within the first 30 to 45 days of coming into the federal system. So this is achieving some efficiencies for us. As well, it's getting the offenders more engaged in their programs, because we can take a modular approach to programs, where before they used to have a fixed start date and a fixed end date, and if you miss the start date you may have to wait several months before you're on the next list to start that program. The approach that we put in place is a modular one, so people can be plugged into the programs regardless of what time, and we can keep it flowing. This way we get more offenders engaged in programs quicker and in a more effective and efficient way.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

I have barely a minute left.

Have you succeeded in applying any other cost-cutting measures besides the ones that you mentioned?

[Don Head]

Some of them are linked to the work we're doing on the human resource side. There are significant costs that are associated with staffing a position. With some of the streamlined processes that we've put in place for initiating staffing, particularly for jobs that are more common across the organization, we have a process that's allowing us to get those positions filled quicker, and in some cases it also allows us to reduce overtime costs associated with backfilling for that position that is vacant until it's staffed. And the tools that we've put in place on the human resource side are giving us much better information in terms of projecting where our needs are going to be and initiating our staffing processes well in advance, as opposed to waiting until the position becomes vacant.

So the initiatives under Mr. Macaulay's leadership in my human resources area are positioning us much better to have timely, effective, and cost-saving human resource measures in place.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Gourde and Mr. Head.

Mr. Martin, eight minutes, please.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's nice to see you again, Mr. Head.

I'll pick up where my colleague Madame Bourgeois left off. In response to a question from her you indicated that the prison population is in fact up. I think you said by 400 to 500?

[Don Head]

By 400, yes, sir.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Is this in the last year?

[Don Head]

Yes.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

What do you attribute that to?

[Don Head]

We're trying to analyze the data. Some of it is associated to normal growth and some of it is associated to what we anticipated was the growth that would come from the “credit for time served” bill that was passed and came into effect last February. So we're starting to see the impacts of that. We've had to refine our databases so we can capture more information to determine actually what stream these people are coming from, but the early indications are it's a combination of both a normal growth and the legislation.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Could you define “normal growth”? How do you categorize a normal growth?

[Don Head]

If we put aside the individuals who weren't being categorized, so just the normal crime rate processes and flow through that--

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But if all the statistics show our crime rate going down, would it be normal that the prison population would be going up?

[Don Head]

It has been traditionally. As for the time, although crime rates may be going down, as you know, in terms of people moving through the system, it takes a while, so we see sort of an echo effect down the road.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's an interesting point.

In your opening remarks you said it was more or less a clerical error that denied the statistics to the Parliamentary Budget Officer in a timely fashion. His testimony to us was that it was like pulling teeth to get the information he wanted. I think he had targeted ten departments, and only two.... Unless I'm reading things into his testimony, he made it sound as though he was having a heck of a time getting the information he needed, especially from Corrections and the RCMP. They were the last ones to cooperate.

Did I understand you to say that the information he wanted was up on your website anyway?

[Don Head]

That's right. I'm actually meeting with the Parliamentary Budget Officer on Friday to have a discussion. When his report came out and we were cited as “no response”, I was away that day, but my second in command immediately phoned him on my behalf to express apologies and to clarify what had happened. He was quite understanding of that. Subsequent to that, he and I both agreed that we would meet--and as I say, we're meeting on Friday--just to talk about some of the engagements in the past.

But yes, the material was on our website. It was a clerical error, and to be honest, as leader of the organization, I accept responsibility for that.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Do you mean that while he was asking for that information, all along it was on your website? He didn't need to come to you at all? He just had to click on your website—

[Don Head]

That's right.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

—and he would have found the information he was after?

[Don Head]

Yes. The document he asked for was on our website.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I have another question. Has your department done research to measure the impact or the effect on your population of the truth in sentencing legislation that's currently working its way through the system? What do you anticipate the impact of that single piece of legislation might be?

[Don Head]

We're working through that right now. I put together a small team to assess the impact of that, but also to assess the cumulative impact of all the bills, because I need to not only respond to whatever the outcome of those is but also make sure, in an integrated way, that I'm still meeting the intent, the spirit, and the specific mandate as described in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. So I've put together a team that's helping me make sure we are weighing all the elements of this and making sure they are reflected in our plans going forward.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I don't envy the position you're in. It's difficult, because you really don't even know if these bills will ultimately pass, but if they do, you have to be ready to respond to them.

Our side of the table is quite interested in a movement that's going on in the United States on prison reform. It is being spearheaded in part or championed in part by Newt Gingrich, who has clearly said that 30 years of tough-on-crime, lock-'em-up reasoning has been a catastrophic failure in the United States. Not only are they going bankrupt trying to build enough prisons, but the reform is not having the desired effect of safer streets.

This is something that's obviously.... You're not in charge of this kind of policy, but you are in charge of coping with the predictable consequences of this, we think, reckless policy. But the more people we stack up in prison without services and without drug rehabilitation.... It does worry me that people are put back out on the streets sooner or later with the same social problems or lack of social skills they had when they went in.

One of the things they're doing in the United States now is drug rehabilitation. It's a big issue. They're starting to look at drug addiction as an illness and substance abuse as a sickness, not a crime, although it may lead to crime and has to be stemmed for that good reason. I know in the United States there's very little drug rehabilitation or opportunity, other than abstinence from the drug that was your problem. They're not solving the root causes of your substance abuse problems.

What kinds of programs still exist in Canadian penitentiaries to do with substance abuse? Are there mandatory programs that people go into, or are they optional? Do you find funding is adequate in that regard in your system?