Public Accounts Committee on April 17th, 2018

[Anne Kelly]

Mrs. Wheatley will comment.

[Jennifer Wheatley]

Certainly, we've had challenges with recruiting and retention of health professionals over the years. That's an area on which we are placing an increased leadership focus. We have dedicated health recruiters in each region. It is a recruitment but also a retention issue, and that's the piece on which we've recently made the most progress.

It's one thing to recruit a new nurse, a new psychologist, or a new physician, but we work in a very challenging environment. We also work in an environment where, if a health professional wants to work with very vulnerable patients and very complex issues, this is really the place to be.

In addition to recruiting, we are focusing now on assisting our new staff with the transition into the correctional environment, giving them mentors they can link to outside of their chain of command and providing more orientation to the workplace, so that we can retain the staff we have recruited. We've made some pretty significant progress over the last year, in particular in the Prairies region, where recruitment tends to be one of our more pressing issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Arya, go ahead, please.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner Kelly, I'm quite impressed that the Correctional Service of Canada is recognized internationally as a leader in women's corrections. You have served CSC for 35 years, and I am sure your colleagues also have very long service records with the Correctional Service of Canada. It is because of the hard work that you and your colleagues do that CSC is internationally recognized.

What I am impressed with is that even after achieving such a good level, you're still open to the idea that better is always possible, and you're still exploring ways to improve what is already the best. That's a good job.

You have five regional institutions. If I am right, the average number of inmates in each of these institutions is about 150, and about 50 of them are indigenous offenders. Within that 50, there are some who are mentally ill.

With that small number, is it economically viable for you to offer culturally sensitive programs at all institutions?

[Anne Kelly]

This goes back to a comment I made earlier. We opened these regional facilities to keep the women in their home communities and allow them to have visits, and if they have children to allow the children to visit them. So—

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

I understand that. I'm sorry. My time is very limited. I apologize for cutting you off.

My question is this: Is it economically viable for you to offer culturally appropriate programs at all five regional institutions?

[Anne Kelly]

Yes. For example, in Quebec, we have fewer aboriginal offenders, but we still have enough that we need to do something. Some of them, obviously, want to go back to their communities, and that's why we are putting into place these aboriginal intervention centres, so that we can offer the appropriate programs and services to those aboriginal offenders. Our greatest concentration, though, is in the Prairies and the Pacific region.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Those of us sitting here, of course, want every institution to have the best we can offer, but sometimes I don't know whether it is possible to do that.

Coming back to the remaining 65% of offenders, who are not indigenous, what programs do you have for them?

[Anne Kelly]

We actually have a series of programs. Again, we have an engagement program for all women offenders. We have moderate and intensity programming, as well as community maintenance programming for offenders. I'll turn it over to Dr. Blanchette, who can elaborate.

[Dr. Kelley Blanchette]

We have two streams of correctional programs. If you picture it like building blocks, like Lego blocks, there is the engagement, as the commissioner was saying, and then we have moderate-intensity, high-intensity, and community programs.

The aboriginal stream is 80% elder-assisted. The elders are there 100% for the engagement component and 80% for the remainder, and they co-facilitate the program. There are smudging ceremonies.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

For the 65%, who are non-indigenous offenders, is there any way to further classify them?

[Dr. Kelley Blanchette]

Classify them in what way?

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

I mean classify them as to how many are visible minorities, and how many—

[Dr. Kelley Blanchette]

Yes, we do have that data.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Do you have any numbers?

[Dr. Kelley Blanchette]

I don't have them with me.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

That's okay. That's not important.

What about the young offenders? I think Commissioner Kelly mentioned that many of the women offenders tend to be young. Are there any educational programs for them to continue their education?

[Dr. Kelley Blanchette]

Yes. For any offender who comes in with less than a high school education, that would be put on their correctional plan, and they would be offered educational upgrading to get to a high school level.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

What is the size of your biggest institution, in terms of inmates?

[Dr. Kelley Blanchette]

The smallest one is the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge, with 60, but the smallest of the mainstream facilities is Nova Institution in Truro, which has 99, I believe. The largest has 215.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Arya.

Just before we go to Mr. Lefebvre, I would ask a question on behalf of the table.

Auditor General, anytime we get your report, I tend to quickly look at the problems, at when the report was undertaken, and then at the recommendations. In this report, you have 10 recommendations. We've seen reports in which there have been three, four, or maybe five recommendations, but we see a lot of recommendations in this report. I also looked at the detailed action plan of the Correctional Service of Canada. It looks as though all the recommendations are being addressed.

Are you satisfied with what you've heard today? For the recommendations you've brought forward in your report, has the response been adequate? Which ones are the most serious? Have they prioritized the response times and the responses that you believe are serious? Is there anything here that our committee should follow up on, for some of those that are most serious?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll start, and then I'll ask Ms. McCalla to fill in any details.

Perhaps one of the reasons that we have 10 recommendations in this report is that Correctional Service Canada has been the happy recipient of two other audits in similar areas recently.

We did one on offenders in general, then we did one on indigenous offenders, and then this one on women offenders. We've gotten to know their processes very well, how they assess people when they come in, so, going in, we knew where some of the recommendations were going to be, because they are the same issues we've identified before. Then, on top of that, we've added recommendations that are specific to women offenders.

For example, I would draw your attention to paragraph 5.21, where we talk about CSC essentially needing to make sure that it is getting access to the information about an offender at the time the offender comes into the institution. In the previous two audits, we found that this was not happening all the time. Offenders would come in, and CSC wouldn't have all the information. The information existed. It was sentencing reports or judges' comments, those types of things. Even in this one, we still saw situations where Correctional Service Canada was not getting all of that information when people were coming in.

We've seen improvements, but I think there are parts of this process that need to be improved. I am encouraged by some of the things they've been talking about, in terms of what they're doing with women offenders with mental health issues. I understand the challenge they have with indigenous offenders when there are very small populations of indigenous offenders. However, it is still important that indigenous offenders have the ability to maintain their culture, because if they are put into an institution away from their community, away from their culture, we can't expect them to move down the road of rehabilitation if they are also struggling with a whole new culture. I think that's important.

It was also mentioned earlier that Correctional Service Canada has put in place a new electronic medical record system. I think that's a prime flag for us for a future potential audit. We would certainly hope to see that they are maintaining data integrity in that system, and that the system is being used in the way it should be, so that it will give them the output they expect to come from it. We've seen many times departments putting in place new systems but not making sure they're used in the way they're supposed to be used. I think that would be important.

Again, I want to make sure the committee understands that the reason why it's important to reduce the amount of time an offender has within the institution is that this increases the amount of time the offender will have under supervision as he or she moves to reintegration.

The worst types of situations are when people spend a lot of time in the institution and then have a very short period of time under supervision trying to get reintegrated. If a person is prepared as quickly as possible for parole, and that person meets all the conditions for parole, then they will tend to have a longer period of time under supervision and their reintegration is more likely to be successful.

I've said a lot of things. I don't know whether Ms. McCalla—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

On that, with offenders, we still expect the protection of society to be a guiding principle. There has to be that balance as well, as much as we're trying to move them through the system, from maximum security down to medium and minimum.

Even with the daily passes for work permits, where they can gain experience, is that part of it? As you say, they haven't been out of the prison. We want to move them out as quickly as possible into their communities, but we still have to have that balance. I think the balance has to be especially around day passes for work. It would seem to me that they would gain more experience on a job site than they would just sitting with a book, learning about something.

I don't know if that's what you're referring to.

[Michael Ferguson]

Certainly, nothing that we have recommended is in any way intended to compromise protection. I think we have to consider this. If a person ends up spending more time in the institution, and let's say they don't get the programming they need as soon as they need it, then what are they doing in the institution while they're waiting around for that programming? That's why it's important to get them quickly the programming they need, to get them through that programming, and then to assess them to determine whether they are ready to move out into the community. Once it's been determined that they are ready to move out—and it could be day parole or those other things—then we can start that reintegration.

To me, the worst-case scenario is if people in maximum security are not successful at getting out on parole and then get out at the time when they have to get out. Then the amount of time they have to reintegrate is very short. That's when you end up with the situations that are perhaps the most dangerous in terms of protection to the community. It's not just about keeping them within the institution; it's about making sure that these people are not going to be dangerous to the community once they get out of the institution. Making sure they have enough time and enough supervision at that end is influenced by what happens to them in the institution.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Obviously, rehabilitation, not necessarily reintegration, is the goal. They are rehabilitated so that, when they are reintegrated, they can hopefully be productive citizens and escape the cycle that they are sometimes caught up in.

Ms. McCalla, were you going to add to that?