Human Resources Committee on Oct. 26th, 2010

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Let's say a child under 18, voting age.

[Don Head]

Again, we'll have to go back and do the file review to get that, but if you're looking at dependency based on family income or financial status, I'm not going to be able to do that at all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Basically, what you're looking for, Madam Minna, is any inmate who has a spouse and any children who are living with that spouse. Or...?

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I would say, dependent spouse and children. If you want to cut it off at 18 and under, because most of us--

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Right, but you're wondering if it's a child who would be actually living at the residence with the spouse.... If we're going to ask these people to do something, I think we want to make sure it's a realistic request that we can actually expect them to complete in a time that's valid for what we're doing. I do have some concerns with what you're asking. If it's the will of the whole committee, then I would be happy to ask them to--

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Chair, I understand the timing of the bill, and I'm not trying to hold the bill up at all. I'm suggesting that even if the information came after the bill was passed, it would still give government some information of the population and sometimes things can be mitigated in other ways. I would simply like to know how many of those inmates have dependent spouses and dependent children. Potentially, there's a disabled person in that family as well as a disabled child; we don't know. I think it's worthwhile to know this, since we're making financial decisions for those families. That's all I'm asking, even if it means some information comes after the bill is passed. I'm not trying to hold up the bill. That's fine. It simply gives us information that maybe government can look at and decide to mitigate the situation or not. It's worthwhile to have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

If it's something you're able to produce for us.... Or can you look and see how long and if you're able to produce that for us? Maybe you can give the committee some information on the timeline and bring it back to us.

[Don Head]

Madam Chair, in terms of my basic definition, again, some of the qualifications that were added there, I'm not going to be able to tell you whether somebody is dependent and disabled. I'm not going to be able to talk about financial status. I can tell you marital status. I can tell you if there are children, as done by the common definition as to whether those individuals live at home with the spouse. That's pretty well as much information as I'm going to be able to provide.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

We can work with that. That's better than nothing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

It would be great if you could provide that.

[Don Head]

I'm still in my timeframe of two months.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

If you could provide that it would be appreciated.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I just have one question as a point of information, Madam Chair. Will Bill C-31 also be studied by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights or by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Sorry, Mr. Lessard, I didn't quite get the translation.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Will Bill C-31 also be studied by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights or by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, or will our committee be the only one to study it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

No.

We're the only committee that's looking at this bill.

I think we're about complete.

Mr. Comartin, you had a quick question. Three minutes.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Actually, a couple.

To be clear, in terms of any decision under section 78, that is made by the administrator of that particular institution where the inmate is incarcerated.

[Don Head]

For the waiving, yes.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

But of the seizing of the money. I know that's not the proper term that you use, but of actually attaching these funds. That decision, whether they are going to take this money for food, clothing, and board, that is made by the person who is in charge of that institution. Is that right?

[Don Head]

The way the policy is laid out, it's automatic, but the institutional head can make an exception to not collect the room and board. That is the area in which the institutional head exercises the authority: to suspend or not to collect it.

So it's done automatically.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Who would decide in the situation of...? I'll do this even though I know we're not supposed to talk about specific cases; this one has had so much notoriety in public that there's no claim for privacy here. When Olson sent to the Prime Minister to say that he's getting the old age pension, it obviously came to the attention of your department. It came to the attention of everybody in this country, I think.

Who would decide at that point, now that you have this knowledge, to exercise section 78 and seize some funds from the old age pension? Who would make that decision?

[Don Head]

If the moneys are actually being deposited into his account there, there would be the automatic deduction occurring for the room and board.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

That's the problem that I keep having, Mr. Head. I don't know how many times I've read section 78 in the last week or so. You have placed a limit here such that the money has to be flowing into the account before you can take it. Subsection 78(2) in particular doesn't say that, in my opinion, but that's one of the policies you follow.

[Don Head]

Yes. Otherwise, we'd have to be chasing bank accounts out in the community, and to be honest, sir, I'd rather be a correctional service agency than a collection agency.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Yes. That's related to the other question I'm going to go to: the real issue here around the use of section 78 is a matter of resources. You don't have the accountants, the bookkeepers, the debt collectors on staff to really be able to use section 78 effectively.