Thank you so much.
I'd like to begin by thanking the chair and the members of this committee for agreeing to have us here to talk about my latest annual report, which includes a systemic investigation of the state of indigenous people in the federal correctional system.
I am accompanied by Hazel Miron. She's my deputy director for the indigenous portfolio. She has a lot of experience and has been one of four key members of my investigative team, which produced this document following the largest systemic investigation conducted by my office. It is in this context that I am appearing today.
I would like to start by providing a bit of a historical context and a chronology, which I hope will resonate with you.
My office was established back in 1973, so we're just a little over 50 years old. It was established pursuant to the Inquiries Act. Interestingly, in the very first annual report by my office, the correctional investigator at the time, Ingrid Hansen, highlighted some issues around poor treatment of indigenous incarcerated persons.
Between 1973 and now, my office has issued more than 80 recommendations dealing specifically with indigenous corrections. Unfortunately, only a handful of those have been followed up on by Correctional Service Canada.
In 1992 the role of my office was entrenched in legislation, and the Mulroney government enacted the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. That was a wonderful piece of legislation, very progressive, which spoke to charter rights and administrative law principles, and it included two very progressive provisions—sections 81 and 84. Those sections enabled the Minister of Public Safety—which at that time was the Solicitor General—to enter into agreements with indigenous communities for the care, custody or supervision of indigenous incarcerated persons.
As you well know, in 1999, which was 25 years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada released its historic judgment on the Queen versus Gladue. It stated at the time that by 1997 aboriginal people constituted close to 3% of the population of Canada and made up 12% of all federal inmates. It further stated, “The figures are stark and reflect what may fairly be termed a crisis in the Canadian criminal justice system.” Remember that number—12%.
In 2001, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien stated in his Speech from the Throne:
Canada must take the measures needed to significantly reduce the percentage of Aboriginal people entering the criminal justice system, so that within a generation it is no higher than the Canadian average.
Of course that time frame has long passed.
In 2013, my office issued a special report on indigenous corrections. It found that Correctional Service Canada had moved away from implementing section 81 in the early 2000s, favouring instead investments inside penitentiaries, under its Pathways initiative. Today Correctional Service still operates four healing lodges; they have not been transferred to indigenous communities as originally planned. My office reported a significant funding disparity between CSC-operated healing lodges and section 81 healing lodges, basically 62 cents on the dollar.
In 2015, one of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action recommended that the government commit to eliminating the overrepresentation of aboriginal people in custody over the next decade. We are one year away from that deadline. It's not going to happen.
In fact, in 2015, the percentage of indigenous persons in federal custody was 25%. It now stands at.... I'm afraid I made a mistake in my opening remarks, as it's not 32%; it's 33% as of today. This is a new, shameful and historic milestone. In our penitentiaries, one-third are indigenous.
For indigenous federally sentenced women, the situation is even more critical. It moved from 37% in 2015 to 50% today. In 2019, the calls for justice of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls made 17 recommendations related to federal corrections, including increasing the use of section 81 and section 84. They also made some comments with respect to enhancing the role of elders and implementing consistent application of Gladue factors in decision-making.
Let me skip now to 2021, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued new mandate letters. These included addressing the overrepresentation of indigenous people in the criminal justice system.
Over the last 20 years, Correctional Service has developed five distinct strategies on indigenous corrections. Unfortunately, and despite significant efforts and resources, my office has not observed any significant or measurable improvements on key correctional outcomes—which, by the way, Corrections has control over. If you compare indigenous versus non-indigenous prisoners, indigenous ones are overrepresented in maximum-security institutions. They're overrepresented in structured intervention units, which is the old regime of administrative segregation. They're more likely to be involved in use of force. They're more likely to self-injure. They're more likely to attempt suicide. They serve the higher proportion of their sentence, and the great majority are typically released at statutory release, which is at two-thirds of their sentence. They have a higher rate of parole suspension and revocation, and also a higher rate of recidivism.
Ten years after our initial “Spirit Matters” report, we completed an update. Part 1 and part 2 have been combined into this book. We conducted more than 223 interviews, including with 55 elders. In 10 years, overrepresentation in federal custody went from 23% to 33% overall, and from 32% to 50% for indigenous incarcerated women.
The update we concluded reviewed three key signature initiatives. I would like to highlight some of the findings in those three initiatives.
The first one is healing lodges. There are currently 10 healing lodges in federal corrections. Four are operated by Corrections and have a capacity of 250 beds, which is enough for about 4% of the indigenous in-custody population. Six of those healing lodges are operated under section 81 and are therefore community-based, but they have only 139 beds—a capacity to house only about 2% of the indigenous in-custody population. There are no healing lodges in Ontario, the Atlantic provinces or the north. In terms of funding, it's still 62 cents on the dollar. Corrections mentioned to us 10 years ago that it had increased funding to healing lodges run by indigenous communities, but it also increased funding to its own healing lodges, so the disparity has actually remained the same.
The second initiative we looked at was with respect to Pathways units. There are currently 350 Pathways beds, which represent about 8% of the total indigenous prison population if there are no vacancies. Unfortunately, there are vacancies.
These pathways are supposed to provide enhanced access to indigenous services and ceremonies, including access to cultural ceremonies and traditional healing. Unfortunately, because there are now over 4,500 indigenous people, over 90% of those indigenous prisoners are denied access to what, in my view, are constitutional rights and should not be considered privilege or program. It is very unfortunate that there is restricted access to those enhanced services.
Finally, we looked at the delivery of elder services. Our interviews overwhelmingly found that elders felt under-supported, undervalued and underappreciated by Correctional Service Canada. They do not get sick leave, paid vacation, health benefits or job security, and most felt overworked and felt a lack of influence and respect.
When my annual report was tabled on November 1, 2023, I hosted a press conference before the National Press Theatre. I was joined, and was very proud to be joined, by the ITK president, by the Métis National Council president and by the AFN regional chief for Quebec and Labrador. Those three national leaders made it quite clear that they agreed that CSC's policies and operations are not working and are unresponsive to indigenous people. They further agreed that Correctional Service Canada must divest significant control, authority and resources to indigenous communities and organizations for the care, custody and supervision of indigenous people.
Thank you. I will leave it at that, and I'm happy to respond to your questions.
