Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2017

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Chair, I will continue on the same page.

I want to talk about Syrians. In chapter 3.35, you provide an assessment on refugees sponsored by the government and those sponsored privately, to put it that way, and I quote:

The Department determined that Syrian refugees in the privately sponsored category had more knowledge of English or French than did Syrian refugees in the government-assisted category (82 percent of the privately sponsored refugees knew some English or French on arrival, compared with 16 percent of the government-assisted refugees).

At first glance, I would say that this is understood in a certain way, since privately sponsored individuals have already been identified by private entities. Does that explain such a marked discrepancy? After all, privately sponsored refugees are four times more likely to be able to speak one of Canada's official languages.

[Michael Ferguson]

Yes, that was more often the case for privately sponsored refugees because they had a relationship with those who were waiting for them in Canada. Perhaps they were family members or something similar. When a family member sponsors a refugee, that may explain why the refugee has some knowledge of either of Canada's official languages. Yes, there were differences concerning that category of individuals who were sponsored by the private sector.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Based on that result, can we say that it's better to have more people through the private sector instead of through government sponsorship, because they know exactly where to go? People in Canada identify them, so it's easier for them to be integrated into this country than it is when they are being sponsored by the government.

[Michael Ferguson]

I can't say precisely which one is better or how much should be done under one avenue or another. That's something the department could explain. I think it comes down to starting out with identifying the capacity for private sector sponsors to sponsor refugees and whether that's sufficient. I think the department would have to explain to you how they manage that split between refugees that are sponsored privately and those that are sponsored by the government.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

That brings me to another question, Auditor General.

It is important to know whether Canada is welcoming more or less privately sponsored refugees or government-sponsored refugees. To my knowledge, in your report, aside from the language issue, there is no analysis on this issue—in other words, refugees' ability to work and children's ability to go to school. I know that, when it comes to Quebec, this is another kettle of fish, and that it may also come under provincial jurisdiction, but would it be a good idea to analyze privately sponsored refugees' integration compared with the integration of government-sponsored refugees?

[Michael Ferguson]

It is the department's responsibility to understand those refugees' integration. If people from the department have the data to conduct such an analysis, I believe that they could also conduct another more specific analysis on sub-populations. With that kind of data, it may be a good idea to assess the level of integration of different types of refugees.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Based on the only element you analyzed specifically from that perspective, it is clear that more emphasis should be placed on private sponsorship than on government sponsorship in order to facilitate the integration of refugees. In fact, 82% of privately sponsored refugees have knowledge of one of the two official languages, compared with 16% in the case of government-sponsored refugees.

[Michael Ferguson]

This is another question for the department. As I mentioned, there are differences between privately sponsored refugees and government-sponsored refugees. Given those differences, it is the department's job to assess all those activities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Deltell.

We'll move back to Madam Shanahan.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Auditor General, and your team.

I'd like to continue by moving on to some of the other reports. I think it's important in this initial meeting that we get a sense of where the problems are and to what degree they're present. The two reports that concern me right now are numbers 4 and 5.

Concerning the oral health problems for first nations, you made the remark that—and data collection and measurement have been an overriding theme in our work—the department couldn't tell you why fewer children were being reached. There was some success in the prevention of problems with oral health in children, but there were fewer children enrolled in the program, fewer services were provided under the initiative than in previous years, and Health Canada does not know why. I'd like to hear your remarks on that, or remarks from a member of your team.

I'd like to go to report 5 as well. If there was ever a case for gender-based analysis plus, this is certainly the poster child for that policy tool, and I'd like to hear some remarks about how we can use GBA+ to better accomplish what we're putting money out to do.

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll ask Ms. Thomas to deal with the question about the children's oral health initiative.

In terms of gender-based analysis plus, we didn't look at that specifically in terms of the audit that we had on the women offenders, but after Ms. Thomas speaks, I'll ask Ms. McCalla to deal with some of the gender-specific issues that we found in that audit.

[Casey Thomas, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

With respect to the children's oral health initiative, the program is focused on prevention. There are two elements that are important to look at: the children who are being enrolled and the services that are being provided.

With respect to the children who are being enrolled, it does appear that enrolment is going down and that their targets are not being met. Similarly, the services that are being provided, such as sealants and fluoride treatments, seem to be decreasing as well. When we asked the department why this was the case, they felt that it was a data collection and analysis issue, and they were not able to provide us with any other reasons as to why these declines had occurred. They are working on a data strategy, but it hadn't been put in place at the time of our audit.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Had there been a change in their data collection methods? Why would they not be able to explain the difference?

[Casey Thomas]

From our perspective, we looked at a specific period of time, and that had occurred over time. It didn't seem as if they had made any changes in how they were processing or how they were managing. They hadn't done the work themselves to assess why the declines had occurred.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

This is something we can question them on when they appear before us.

Thank you very much.

[Carol McCalla, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

For our audit of women offenders, we looked to see how well the Correctional Service was meeting the unique needs of women offenders.

It's been 25 years since the government closed the Kingston Prison for Women, so we looked to see the extent to which the Correctional Service of Canada now provides programs and services that are responsive to the unique needs of women, as it's required to do in its legislation.

Primarily we found that they have not yet developed a security classification tool that's appropriate for women offenders as women enter the system. It still uses the security classification tool it developed 25 years ago for male offenders. As well, it uses this tool to determine rehabilitation needs, which is problematic, because the tool wasn't designed for this purpose. More problematic for us is that it has developed a tool to determine program needs that would be more appropriate for women offenders, but it hasn't yet put that into use.

We did see that it had developed correctional programs specifically for women offenders and for indigenous women offenders. The problem was that it was unable to deliver these programs to women before they were first eligible for parole. As a result, women offenders stayed in custody past their day parole eligibility dates and thus served more of their sentences in custody, rather than in the community setting that is much more effective for long-term successful reintegration.

In the Correctional Service, most of the women offenders are serving short-term sentences, which means they're eligible for parole within a year of entry, yet CSC is unable to deliver the programs by this time. We made recommendations that they improve the delivery of these correctional programs to the women offenders.

Finally, we looked at the delivery of mental health services, because a significant portion of women offenders have mental health issues. We found that treatment plans weren't being completed for women offenders in a timely manner. They weren't systematically tracking the delivery of mental health services to women offenders. There were significant shortfalls in the resources that they said they needed in terms of hospital beds in psychiatric hospitals and staff psychologists.

Finally, we looked at the number of women in segregation and the segregation of women with mental health issues, which we found problematic.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. Thank you to all.

I have one question on that. I asked our analyst to pull up the definition of segregation. I know what segregation means, but the official correctional services definition of segregation says it is “the separation of an inmate to prevent association with other inmates, when specific legal requirements are met, other than pursuant to a disciplinary decision”.

You make quite a finding. You found that CSC placed in segregation cells women offenders who were at risk of harming themselves or committing suicide, and then you make a statement that says it is not appropriate to keep women offenders with serious mental health issues in segregation cells. However, according to their definition, when specific legal requirements are met and if they're looking at suicide or hurting themselves, I guess I can understand why they may choose to protect those around them within the correctional system as well.

Then you say something that's quite problematic—not that you say it—which is that they do not get the clinical support.

I have no problem with protecting women or men from themselves or others by putting them in segregation, but why would that mean that they wouldn't get clinical support?

[Michael Ferguson]

Mr. Chair, it's because the system is not geared up to provide that support.

The problem is not necessarily that they have to find a way to help the women and protect them from harming themselves or from attempting suicide; they do need to find a way to do that, but they need to find a way to do it that is appropriate from a mental health point of view, as opposed to a correctional point of view.

They have been using the only tool available to them, or the main tool available to them, which is these cells on the segregation range, where they put these women. They don't have the same type of mental health support and clinical environment, perhaps, that a person being isolated in a mental health hospital would have, for example.

There are people who are not part of the correctional services, people who are in mental health institutions, who are also at risk of suicide or self-harm. They have to be put in an environment where they can be monitored to make sure they don't harm themselves, but they have all the other clinical support around them to try to help manage that issue, whereas in the correctional system they don't always have that. What they have is the one tool, which is to isolate the individual and put them in a segregation cell, but they don't always have all of the rest of the support that the person needs to get through that period of time when they are at risk of harming themselves or trying to commit suicide.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

That is a big problem. We understand that Correctional Service of Canada brings in people who are experts, but the majority of people are not psychologists or psychiatrists who can deal with these guys. They are very good correctional officers, but the thought that they can take them and lock them in isolation.... It's almost like locking them up and throwing away the key.

Please tell me that's not what's happening. Can't they take them out of segregation and get them the mental health help they need?

[Michael Ferguson]

No, it's not to the extent that you just described. They are using the cells on their segregation range for women with serious mental health issues who are at risk of self-harm. Even in that environment, the individual will be outside the cell for, I believe, two hours a day, so they are not just locked in there; they do have the ability to be out.

Also, they try to restrict the number of days that the women are in those cells. They do monitor it from that point of view.

The fundamental problem is that more and more, the people they are dealing with are people who have these types of mental health issues, and this is a very serious problem in the whole correctional service, not just federally. It's a problem at the provincial level as well. These institutions are being asked to deal with people with serious mental health issues, but they are correctional facilities. They are facilities that are about keeping people away from the rest of the population for a certain period of time. They are being landed with a lot of these types of cases, and they don't always have the capacity to deal with them.

We've not yet done an audit on the whole mental health issue in correctional services. I think we need to put it on our list to look at. It is a very critical issue in the correctional service world.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Christopherson, go ahead.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for putting the focus on this. It's a key area, and I'd appreciate just a moment.

I have a bit of background in this area. When I was on regional council, I chaired a task force on “people with psychiatric disabilities”, as the term then was. The whole issue was that we had people on the streets with mental health issues, and there was a revolving door when the police were asked to intervene.

Remember that it's a mental health issue. The police are asked to intervene, but they don't know what to do, so they'll often take them to the hospital. The hospital system may be able to stabilize them for a while, but then they're back on the street. If they have mental health issues, they're going to be acting out again. I don't know if that's the terminology, but there are going to be problems again. It was a revolving door.

Fast-forward a few years, and I find myself sitting at the cabinet table as the minister responsible for corrections provincially, and lo and behold, all the studies in front of me are showing the same thing.

As much as I made some attempt, I didn't change a darn thing. I'd like to say I did, but I didn't. Here we are now, pushing two and a half decades later, and we still have the same problem. Again it's that revolving door of people going from police involvement to the mental health system and ultimately ending up in the criminal justice system, and they shouldn't. They're not criminals. They have mental issues, but we don't have a system that allows us to deal with this situation.

Personally, I've seen this at the local level, the provincial level, and now at the federal level. The last thing you said, Auditor General, was about doing a massive overall look at this: Please. I implore you.

My experience is telling me that no matter how much good people are trying, we're not able to change it and we're not able to help the issue. More and more people are encountering mental health stresses. It's only going to get worse. We need a massive intervention in a way that can make a difference, and that's you and your office.

For what it's worth, I want to put as much support as I can behind you to take a look at this broader system. We need a major overhaul, and thank you, Chair, for putting a focus on this. It's a key issue no matter whom you talk to in society. We have a unique opportunity here to at least be part of changing that if we can.

Please, let's get on this, folks. Otherwise, it's just going to continue to be a revolving door, and we're not going to meet the needs of our citizens.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

I think what committee members are taking from today's meeting, where we've had a very good overview of the entire audit that has just been released by our Auditor General of Canada, is that a number of studies will be coming out of this audit. For Canadians who may be watching, we have the Phoenix pay problems, the call centres at CRA, settlement services for Syrian refugees, oral health programs for first nations and Inuit, preparing women offenders for release, the Royal Military College of Canada, the National Capital Commission, and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. I think the will of the committee is...will we do a study on each one of these? What I'm hearing back is that we need to. We will be asking you more formally.

We can all tell stories from our constituencies on many of these chapters. I asked my staff in my constituency office, and typically, in a rural riding, about 65% to 70% of what we do in that constituency office is immigration. My staff person told me this fall that she has equal files the same size on Phoenix.

I have Drumheller penitentiary in my riding. Most are coming out of there. I applaud them for getting to the members. Each one of you has stories that you can tell about people being afraid make payments, and things like that.

Starting next week, this committee will look at the Phoenix problem more carefully, and from there on we will look at all these chapters.

You've helped us today. You've helped us with the audit. We look forward to your coming when we study these chapters.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.