Evidence of meeting #93 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was illness.
A recording is available from Parliament.
National Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mental Health Association
I hear you now. I now have audio.
Conservative
Rob Nicholson Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
Good.
Thank you, Doctor. That's important in these hearings.
You said you were confident that there would be less of a burden on the criminal justice system if we pass this bill requiring mental health analysis to be a part of every pre-sentence report. It may be less of a burden in the long term when dealing with people, but it seems to me that it would increase the level of work and the resources necessary to be able to produce these reports. While this may be a worthwhile increase in the burden, it seems to me that it would be more of a burden on the criminal justice system to determine this in every case. There may be good reasons for it, but in your opinion you believe that overall this would be less of a burden. I wonder if you could perhaps explain that a little bit more.
National Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mental Health Association
Yes. I've worked as a forensic psychologist throughout part of my career, and I know that probation officers and others spend a lot of time putting these pre-sentence reports together. It's just about having standards of what they bring into that. It's not a lot of extra work, if I'm doing the report, to make sure that I'm including that pertinent information. It's more a matter of making sure that they, in all pre-sentence reports, know it's something they need to cover. Often, a probation officer is already going to know all the information that's there to put in; it's just a matter of actually conveying that information.
I don't think it's a lot of additional investigative work on their part. If they're a probation officer for a client, they often know about their mental health challenges. All we're asking with this bill, as I understand it, is to make sure that it's consistently brought forward.
If there is a slight amount of increased activity that would be involved in that, I think the evidence is pretty clear in other jurisdictions, and in the jurisdictions within Canada where it is part of the work, that it pays dividends. That ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, especially because, in my understanding, it's not a huge additional burden on these people, but an approach to how they write the pre-sentencing report.
Conservative
Rob Nicholson Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
Okay, that's fair enough. Thank you.
My colleague Mr. Cooper has a question on this as well.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the witness.
First of all, you would agree that mental health is an evolving area. We're learning more every day about mental health. Would you agree?
National Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mental Health Association
That's correct, yes.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
You would agree with that.
You would agree that there's some debate about what constitutes a disorder or a mental health illness. You'd agree with that? And there's disagreement as we learn more as this area evolves. Would you agree?
Conservative
National Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mental Health Association
Absolutely, yes. There's a bit of a gap in what you're saying, and that's why. Yes, I get it.
National Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mental Health Association
That there is variability, yes.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
But at the same time, you're saying that this could be done very easily when we're talking in this bill about “any mental health disorder”. Explain why it would be so simple in that context, given that there's disagreement, that it's evolving, and that probation officers may have very little information before them about the history of the individual, how this would be so easy. I would question, how is it even doable?
National Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mental Health Association
In my experience, it's more likely that they have the information. I've been in the field for a number of years, and the nuances about what we call “mental illness” or “mental disorder” have been here for the last 20 to 30 years. However, it doesn't change the way we work on the ground. My understanding is that probation officers often do have that information. We're not talking about their becoming specialized diagnosticians. But if it's a standard that they're at least supposed to include this information in the scope of their own ability, they often have that information. You can just look at different jurisdictions' practices. For example, as I understand, in B.C. and Nova Scotia where it's much more of a practice, I don't think it's an extra burden; it's just a mindset of, if they have the information they're going to share it in this report. Again, my understanding is that 95% of judges who were surveyed said this is extremely helpful in their sentencing.
If we had a robust mental health system and you were convinced that someone who was coming on probation did not have his or her mental health needs met in the correctional system, I think you would have greater confidence that people weren't accidentally getting diverted into the criminal justice system as a result of their mental illness. But because they are, it's highly important to make sure that's tracked and measured, because you don't want it to be cluttering up, if you will, the criminal justice system.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
But in every case, even though there might not be one shred of evidence that there's a mental health issue with the individual...?
National Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mental Health Association
It would very simply not be applicable. The probation officer would say if it's not an applicable field. We're just asking them to—
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
How do you know if it's applicable or not unless you undertake some sort of assessment of the individual?
National Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mental Health Association
Because this isn't a new practice, my understanding of jurisdictions where they do it is that it's based on the evidence available. The probation officers already have to make those decisions every day when they're writing pre-sentence reports about what is pertinent information. All you're saying is that you are to include anything you know about mental illness for this individual, and if the individual has no mental illness, it's not applicable. It's not difficult.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you, doctor, for your testimony today.
I want to start by continuing along the line of questioning of my colleague Mr. Cooper. How do you verify whether somebody has a mental illness or not when you include it in that pre-sentence report? Would there be, and is there currently, some kind of relationship between an inmate's physician who would keep these medical records and the probation officer? Are there not some issues of privacy and breach of confidence of that doctor-patient privilege in sharing that information? How would that impact these pre-sentencing reports?
National Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mental Health Association
My understanding is that if it's at pre-sentencing, they haven't met with a physician within the correctional facility yet. These pre-sentencing reports would be based on information the probation officers have, and the diagnosis or the background information they have could come from hospitalization, from their own physician, or from a community-based program. Any information they would have available would already be part of the chart, and this is just passing it on to the people who are making sentencing decisions so they can make informed decisions. If we don't have good information, we can't make well-informed decisions.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Right, and I want to talk a bit on a broader basis. In our committee here, we've talked about access to justice. We've learned about the disproportional numbers of indigenous people in penitentiaries and prisons. How would this bill impact those marginalized communities? Would they benefit? If so, how?
National Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mental Health Association
I think it's our understanding that it would positively impact marginalized communities more than anyone else, because I think they are also disproportionately experiencing many negative outcomes because of social and health inequities. For example, in B.C., while only 3.4% of the population is indigenous, over 10% of the overdoses from opiates are in that community. I think being able to ensure a standard across Canada would say that we're going to be including this important information.
It's especially important in Canada. Because of a lack of mental health services, we probably have more people showing up in jails and prisons and for sentencing due to mental health challenges, and they're disproportionately from marginalized communities. Understanding that there might have been some other issues going on that were related to the disturbance of the peace—or whatever they're being charged with—could give the people making the sentencing decisions the information to help them triage it into something that's much more effective, much less costly, and much less of a burden on not only the criminal justice system but also Canadian citizens.
