Public Accounts Committee on March 12th, 2009

[Don Head]

Kingston Penitentiary is that old, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Have there been any studies, either in this country or maybe in the United States, as to the costs when you have a facility that old? There must be tremendous efficiencies when you build a new facility.

At what point in time does it become non-economical to operate out of a 165-year-old facility, rather than spend the $15 million or $12 million, or whatever it costs, to go to a modern facility with modern standards, modern requirements, and make it more efficient and safer for your employees? It is penny-wise and pound foolish to continue to operate that way.

Dorchester Penitentiary itself is an old facility in our area.

There must be some studies to indicate at what point in time it is no longer economical or efficient to operate in these facilities.

[Don Head]

The short answer is that a place like Kingston Penitentiary is not an ideal setting, from many different perspectives. It's not conducive to delivering modern correctional practices. It was built in a different era, under a different philosophy, which was basically to lock up prisoners, with very, very limited programming or interventions. So its time has come and gone many, many, many years ago.

There is no question that as part of our transformation agenda this is one of the items that was identified in the independent review panel report. It's one of the items that we are pursuing right now. What designs, what approaches, can we take in terms of modern infrastructure that will allow us to deliver the most effective correctional practices, but also in the most effective and economical way? We can build new institutions now that would be tremendously less costly than a place like Kingston Penitentiary.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Madame Faille, do you have a question?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I've almost forgotten the question I wanted to ask you. I deplore the fact that correctional officers continue to be the target of assaults and that nothing is being done because of a legislative matter. This situation does nothing to improve workplace safety. Moreover, the knowledge that the workplace is not safe is in no way an incentive for people to apply for work as correctional officers.

Perhaps you could submit to the committee the exact wording of the legislative changes you are seeking, especially in the area of privacy protection, and identify for the committee the legislative changes that are needed in order to rectify the situation. In my opinion, this is important.

You also alluded to the Kingston Penitentiary. I visited this institution on two or three occasions. I toured G wing where I saw some inmates. I was also the target of numerous insults because I was a woman. I would not want to qualify the experience. Suffice to say that it was rather unpleasant.

Given the new realities of the fight against terrorism and national security issues, you are confronted with new challenges. You have a mandate to manage inmates as well as persons who are in custody but have yet to be formally charged.

Explain to me if you will what goes on at Kingston Penitentiary, the so called Guantanamo North, where people were held in custody under security certificates and treated as prisoners, even though they had not yet been formally charged? Who is responsible for these matters today and what has become of this wing?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Before we go ahead, Mr. Head, you can answer the question if you want to, but it really has nothing to do with this report. But if you want to respond, I'll let you.

[Don Head]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The short answer to the second question is that the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre, although it's on our property and our staff work there, is actually under the banner of the Canada Border Services Agency. So the operations and decisions having anything to do with the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre are not a CSC responsibility; they belong to CBSA.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I asked the question, Mr. Chair, because the witness stated that investments were being made in infrastructures. When we visited the centre in Kingston, we were told that improvements would be made to the Kingston Penitentiary and to this wing. That is the only reason I asked the question.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Do you have anything to add on that particular issue? We have addressed it before—the facility at Kingston--renovations or replacement.

[Don Head]

At this point we continue to operate it until future decisions are made. We try to make the best of an old facility. I tip my hat to my staff who work in that environment, because it's a challenging environment to work in. We hope, with the planning going forward, that we're able to address the infrastructure issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci beaucoup, madame Faille.

That, colleagues, concludes the first and second round.

I will adjourn, but first of all, I want to point out to Mr. Head that this committee follows a very extensive follow-up program on your departmental report on plans and priorities and your departmental performance report. So we invite you to be very diligent in addressing the Auditor General's report on both of these reports, as to exactly what is being done, because we will be following it very closely.

There is a possibility that you may be invited back in the future, as one of the members has indicated, but if not, we're certainly going to be following it extremely closely with your reports to Parliament.

Now I'm going to invite the witnesses to make any closing comments, if they have any.

Mr. McRoberts, on behalf of the Office of the Auditor General, do you have any closing remarks?

[Hugh McRoberts]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This audit was all about balance, the balance that Corrections Canada establishes among its three major roles: custody, rehabilitation, and operating an efficient and economical organization. We were concerned in the audit to find that we felt things were out of balance.

It's important to realize that to the extent that funds are spent in an economically inefficient way, those are funds that are ultimately not available in support of custody and rehabilitation; it's not just efficiency and economy for their own sake.

I think we're encouraged by the quite detailed and time-specific responses that management has given to our recommendations and by their and Mr. Head's clear commitment to re-establish the balance that needs to be there in terms of attention to the economy and efficiency of operations.

We look forward to coming back in the future and reporting on the progress they have made.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Head, are there any final comments you want to make to the committee?

[Don Head]

Just very quickly, Mr. Chair, Correctional Service Canada and I personally have found the report to be extremely useful in pointing to areas to which we need to give a lot of time and attention. We clearly understand the need for the three-part balance reported on by the Auditor General, and we're committed to moving forward.

We also are committed to using our transformation agenda as a vehicle for looking at further economies and efficiencies as we move into the future, and I look forward at any point in the future to coming back and reporting to this committee the progress we've made against our plans.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

On behalf of everyone on the committee, I want to thank you all for attending today, and in particular you, Mr. Head. The people who work under you have an extremely important job. It's a challenging job and a job that is not without risk and danger. On behalf of all members of Parliament, I want to express our thanks. Continue to do the good work. And again, follow up with the Auditor General's report.

Again, we thank you for your appearance here today.

The meeting is adjourned.