Justice Committee on Nov. 8th, 2006

[Ian McCowan]

I'm not completely comfortable in terms of responding to the question for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I'm not sure of the projections you're referring to. There are a couple of different variables that kick in when you're looking at analyzing any given legislative change. What levels of security are you going to require space for? How much? Depending on the numbers, it could be cleaner to have the whole institution or part of an institution.... It's the sort of thing where a great deal of expertise has to be brought to bear by our planning folks.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Well, your number varies. One witness said 5,000; you're projecting 256. So either this is 256 people or this is 5,000 people. If it's 256 people, it's not a very significant impact.

[Ian McCowan]

We're projecting an additional 270 people per year, starting in year five.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

But what does that mean over the course of a lifetime? Are we talking about 25 years? Are we talking about 10 years? Is it a compounding number?

[Ian McCowan]

We're talking about an increase of 270 offenders starting in year five.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So every year you increase by that?

[Ian McCowan]

No, every year it's 270 more than what we have right now.

[Ross Toller]

That's where it levels out to--270. No more than 270 would be the projections, unless new legislation comes in and changes it. But it wouldn't be five times 270; it would be 270, 270...because those who are coming in will eventually be going out as well.

So in a very quick summary, if you take, on average, a person, for argument's sake, serving a four-year sentence today for a weapons-related offence, and new legislation comes in and makes it seven years, for argument's sake, then the differential is really three years of that. So eventually those numbers will catch up, but those others will be released as we go through.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

What I'm not understanding is, does this become a wash at the end of the day?

[Ian McCowan]

It's an additional expense, because you're requiring additional beds that you don't require right now, which require additional staff.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So your testimony is a little less than 300 folks, on an annual basis, and that's each and every year. So presumably your cost would be 300 times $260 or $240, times 365 days.

[Ian McCowan]

It doesn't quite work out that way because it depends on how many offenders you are adding, and does that mean you have to add a whole new institution or just a wing? It all depends on the specifics around the number at security levels. But that's an estimate.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

But your numbers don't include capital costs.

[Ian McCowan]

Yes, they do. The numbers per day do not, but the number you got yesterday from Minister Toews does include the capital costs. The $246 million over the first five years is operating and capital.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So that's your ceiling cost. That's your position, that effectively $250 times roughly 300, times 365 should be your ceiling cost.

[Ian McCowan]

I apologize. I'm not sure I'm following your question, sir.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I'm just trying to round out the numbers so that the committee has some feel for what this actually is going to cost.

[Ian McCowan]

What it's going to cost is the estimate that Minister Toews gave you, which is $246 million over five years in terms of operating capital and approximately $40 million ongoing thereafter.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I'm puzzled as to how to get to that number from your other numbers.

[Ian McCowan]

The other numbers, as you just pointed out to me a minute ago, do not include the capital component. Additionally, there's a complexity that goes with whether you are adding a wing or adding a full institution.

I appreciate your question. You want to know how much this is going to cost. The bottom line is what Minister Toews gave to you yesterday in terms of the number.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

You'll understand that we might, on this side of the table, approach Minister Toews' numbers with some skepticism. So I keep going back to this.

If you have, say, 300 offenders and 365 days, what am I supposed to multiply that number by--$250, $241, $216?

[Ian McCowan]

You're confusing a couple of items here.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

You're right, but I've been listening to your testimony for going on an hour now and I'm still confused. Either I'm pretty slow at getting it, which my colleagues would probably agree with, or your numbers are confusing, one or the other.

[Ian McCowan]

Let me have another go, and I apologize if I haven't been very clear in the way I've put it forward. What I've been trying to indicate is that the numbers you received yesterday from Minister Toews are from our cost projections. They're exactly what we had projected in terms of costs. What we're discussing is $246 million over five years in terms of operating and capital and approximately $40 million ongoing thereafter. That is the total cost associated with adding 270 offenders, starting in year five, which is what we project the impact will be.

If you want to come at this from the other way, in terms of looking at the daily costs--and I appreciate that's where you're headed--what I'm trying to indicate is that those costs have a slightly different flavour to them, and they don't capture, for example, the capital component, which is captured in the earlier figure that I had referenced from Minister Toews.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. McKay.

Mr. Brown.