Justice Committee on March 29th, 2010

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

I think your question relates very much to Mr. Dechert's previous question in terms of how this population is different. The fact that they come from very dysfunctional backgrounds--poverty, emotional, financial, etc.--is actually in a strange way a reason for hope in working with this population, because they aren't sophisticated, they aren't businesses, and they don't take pride in what they do.

The programs you speak of, and the programs that I think are effective with this population, are the ones that deal with the heart of the matter. The spiritual component is very important: dealing with the individuals from the point of their dysfunction rather than a cognitively based program that might only speak at them, but really engaging them from the heart.

One of the questions that I will often ask these guys is about at what age they would like their son or daughter to join the gang. That question is met with expletives directed at me, because they recognize that they don't want that. When you engage them from the heart versus just the mind, there's a tremendous amount of growth. That's what healing is really all about.

[Jan Fox]

There's not much time, but I wanted to say that I absolutely agree with what you said about how we may be underutilizing our chaplains. I'm proud that we now include our elders as part of our chaplaincy programs. It's an incredibly important thing.

But what you said that's most important to me is that we can make those linkages from the institution into the community. One of the things we do, I think very well, is to create a circle of support. You may have heard of some of these as well. I think Warkworth has a number of them. That circle of support is what helps my parole officers to do their jobs and helps people disaffiliate from the gangs and become law-abiding citizens.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dechert, you have five minutes.

Mr. Cenaiko?

[Harvey Cenaiko]

Mr. Chair, I'll just add one comment. The National Parole Board has elders on contract across the country who work with us in elder-assisted hearings, the vast majority of which are done in the prairie and Pacific regions.

Having been a board member in the prairie region and having led hearings in elder-assisted hearings, I can tell you that you can see the spirituality and culture of an aboriginal offender come forward. There's a visual difference. You can see the difference between an offender in an institution and an offender in a healing lodge.

So working with CSC on this, I think it's a tremendous opportunity. I think there is tremendous room to expand in that area as well. The success rates are very good.

As Dr. Foss mentioned, they're pulling on the cultural, the spiritual, the social, and the community to assist them to reintegrate as law-abiding citizens into their own communities.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Mr. Dechert, you have five minutes.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I wonder if, in the time available, we could go back to my earlier question.

Mr. Foss, I appreciate that you addressed it partially, but perhaps we could focus on the drug issue.

I'd like to hear from Mr. Louis and Mr. Foss on this.

What is the impact of drugs on the aboriginal street gang population? In your view, what is the better approach? Is the better approach to focus on who's supplying the drugs and perhaps come up with stronger deterrent measures focused on the suppliers of the drugs? Or is it to decriminalize or legalize marijuana or some other drugs to take money out of organized crime? That is what was suggested to us by some witnesses in Toronto.

I'd appreciate your views.

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

In terms of decriminalizing the drugs that street gangs use, I don't see how that could occur. To think that cocaine or crystal meth or pills could be decriminalized doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

In terms of what our best avenue is, certainly the suppression and the policing of the suppliers is important, but prevention for youth is absolutely critical. Once we have these individuals in the federal system and they're adults, they've already developed a dependency on or an addiction to drugs. Intervention is really the key.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Who gets them hooked on the drugs when they're young?

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

From my experience in working with them, at ages 11, 12, and 13, they start to experiment collectively. They recognize that they're having fun and that they're not having as many problems. It becomes a coping mechanism for them by the time they're adults.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Are the Hells Angels or anybody like that involved in getting the drugs to them in the first place?

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

I would assume that many of our street drugs are made available through organized crime, biker crime, yes.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Louis.

[Roy Louis]

If you were a treaty or a status Indian, you were prohibited by law from having intoxicants in our communities. That only changed in 1970. Our choice of drug is alcohol. It's like that in many first nation communities across the country.

Our people still talk about prohibition and doing away with alcohol or having a referendum to do away with it in our communities. I don't know if that's a good thing to do.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Okay.

Do I have time left?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

You have two minutes.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I want to relate a story that I heard recently. Before I joined the justice committee, I happened to be on a plane flying from Ottawa to Toronto. I was sitting beside a lady who was coming back from Pangnirtung, on Baffin Island, where she works as a nurse. She is of aboriginal or first nations heritage.

She was telling me about the drug situation in Pangnirtung, the small isolated community of 1,500 people that she serves. She said the drugs there were supplied by the Hells Angels. She started off by telling me that there were three full patch members of the Hells Angels in that community. I was really surprised and asked if they were local people. She said no, they're actually from Montreal, and they run some kind of café in Pangnirtung and supply the drugs directly to that community. They get people addicted early to all kinds of things.

At some point, the Hells Angels must have sat down in their head office in Montreal with a map of Canada and decided on where they could find some new customers. They sent these three guys there, who must stick out like sore thumbs in Pangnirtung.

I know that none of you are police officers, though we have some police officers coming here later today. Surely there must be something we can do to stop the flow of drugs into a place like Pangnirtung, where there are only three flights a week, I think. The drugs must come in via their suitcases.

Is that typical of aboriginal communities that you know of? What should we be able to do when we see these guys arriving in a community with a suitcase full of street drugs? I realize that it's a tough question--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[An hon. member]

That's for our prosecutor here.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I was just blown away by that story and I don't understand why the police can't just pull these guys aside and search their suitcases.

[An hon. member]

It's the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Does anybody want to comment on that story? No? Okay. I'm just sharing it to show that there's something we ought to work on.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Thank you.

In our rounds, the objective was for everybody to get a full five minutes. I think Mr. Woodworth was cut short a little bit by Mr. Petit.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Pardon.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

You can have two or three minutes, Mr. Woodworth.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Merci beaucoup.

No, we were sharing time, and I appreciated that opportunity, but I do have a question that has arisen since. I'll direct it to Ms. Fox if I may, because I know a little bit about the circles of support idea.

In my community of Kitchener Centre, we have the Grand Valley Institution for Women, in which there are circles of support that we try to achieve. The issue that has come to my attention is that there is a disconnect between the corrections service and the parole and supervision service, in that some of the counsellors and supports given to women and others in custody are simply discontinued when they are released. They go out and have a new supervisor and new counsellors, so all of the work that was done in custody and the relationships that were built up get lost.

I don't know if that's a problem unique to my community or if it occurs in the circles of support you were referencing. I wonder if there is any solution whereby the siloing of relationships in custody can be somehow broken down and continued under the parole and supervision process. Do you have any comments on that?