Evidence of meeting #5 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was c-10.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Are you able to put a price on that, or give me an approximate dollar figure?
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
And that would be a one-time capital addition to deal with the effects of Bill C-10?
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
And I notice that in your submission you've referred to $34 million to manage impacts, and you mention that as operational costs. So would that be in addition to the $25 million you've just mentioned?
10:15 a.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
All the costs are rolled up there, so our annual operating costs, for example, for the piece relating to sex offences and Bill C-10 are around $6.4 million each to manage the operating costs.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
My question specifically was whether or not the $25 million capital costs that you told me about a moment ago are in any way amortized into that $34 million.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
They are, so that does take account of both capital and operational costs?
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
10:20 a.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
No, that's over a five-year period.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Over five years. All right.
So when the minister told us that the total cost would be $78.6 million, can you help me understand, if your cost is $34 million over five years, what other money the minister was talking about?
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I wanted to go to the issue of overcrowding.
Ms. Latimer, you mentioned that the present legislation would exacerbate that problem. Arguments have been made that before the bill was tabled, there were serious problems of overcrowding--for example, 200% in British Columbia, where a threshold of 137%, as the U.S. Supreme Court said, is a threshold regarding cruel and unusual punishment.
Is it possible that the discrepancy between what you have been saying and what Mr. Head has said is due to the fact that you're dealing with provincial as well as federal systems?
10:20 a.m.
Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada
I think there's something to be said for that. You're quite right, we first saw a benchmark by the Supreme Court of the United States in May indicating in the case of Brown v. Plata that 137.5% of overcapacity violated cruel and unusual standards there.
In our provincial systems many are reporting capacity problems at 200%, double the number of inmates being placed in facilities based over what their initial intention was. The correctional investigator of Saskatchewan has pointed out that they are closely approaching 200%. The unions have raised this as a serious concern in many jurisdictions, including British Columbia, where it's 175% to 200% of custodial capacity now, and in Ontario. So many people have raised this as a significant concern.
I don't want to speak for Commissioner Head, but good corrections policy really takes place at about 90% to 95% of occupation of capacity of the prisons, because that allows you to manage the inmates, move people, facilitate programs, and have better corrections applications.
So even at the levels of crowding that the federal government is starting to experience, we're starting to see some problems with Mr. Head being able to deliver the continuing good services that the Correctional Service of Canada has been known for. Women's prisons were particularly poorly hit by the more recent expansion of inmates, and that's before we get into this omnibus bill.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Just as a follow-up, a minister of justice in any government is constantly obliged to ensure that legislation complies with the charter. If there's a serious risk of overcrowding, that raises a question of charter compliance. Does the Minister of Justice have to take into account the fall-off in the legislation for what might happen in provincial prisons as well as in federal prisons?
10:20 a.m.
Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada
It would be my sense that if the legislation violated rights through the administration of this legislation in the provinces and the charter problems were arising in the provinces, the Minister of Justice would need to take that into account when looking at his certification. Yes, I would think so.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Commissioner Head, were your remarks related to a situation within federal jurisdiction on matters of overcrowding, and not within provincial jurisdiction?
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Okay. I would like to pursue this further then and ask Ms. Latimer, on issues of charter compliance, can you very quickly identify some of the concerns this legislation may raise?
10:20 a.m.
Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada
I think there are concerns about vagueness in some of the definitions. For example, the definition of violence in young people is not clear enough. There's no definition of bestiality, which can attract mandatory minimum penalties. There are section 7 problems associated with the dropping of the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard, and there are section 11 problems in connection with pre-trial detention issues.
