Public Accounts Committee on April 17th, 2018

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Unfortunately, your time is up, Mr. Deltell.

Ms. Kelly, did you have a comment on that question as well? Can we get that in another round?

[Anne Kelly]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right.

Mr. Blaikie, welcome to our committee. You have seven minutes.

[Daniel Blaikie, Elmwood—Transcona, NDP]

Thank you very much for having me.

Thank you for being here today to present.

Building on that same theme, Ms. Kelly, if you want to speak to anything that was brought up in Mr. Deltell's remarks, you are welcome to do that as well.

In your remarks, you talked about the implementation of aboriginal intervention centres this summer. One of the things highlighted in the Auditor General's report was the lack of healing centres outside the one region where they are offered. I'm wondering if you could speak about the difference between aboriginal intervention centres and the healing centres. Would they amount to the same thing or is there a difference, and if so, what progress do you anticipate on the healing-centre front?

[Anne Kelly]

I think what you're talking about is a healing lodge. We have one for women, and that is a culturally appropriate environment where they can practise their culture and their teachings, and where there are ceremonies. It is steeped in aboriginal culture.

Aboriginal intervention centres are a little different. We've implemented them at seven of the men's sites, and now we will be implementing one at the women's site. Basically, we're going to have a group of staff and provide them with specialized training in aboriginal social history, in section 84 releases, in how to translate elder services and participation in pathways into the report that they prepare. Aboriginal intervention centres are going to be mostly for women offenders serving relatively short sentences. At intake, we're going to ask them whether or not they want to follow an aboriginal stream. If they agree to it, then we're going to provide them, right at intake, with aboriginal-specific programming.

The other thing is that at these aboriginal intervention centres we're going to have aboriginal community development officers who basically work with the women and the community if the women want to go back to their aboriginal communities. Instead of starting the release process six months prior to their release, we're going to start right at intake, which is going to give us a couple of years to work with the aboriginal community.

With the aboriginal intervention centres, something we have put in policy is that once an offender has successfully completed a program, we will immediately, or within 30 days, reassess their security classification. So far, with our men's sites, preliminary findings are good. We find that once they've completed a program and we reassess their security classification, either they're going to minimum—if they're not quite ready, we place them into a pathways unit so they can continue to work with the elder—or their case is prepared for presentation to the Parole Board of Canada. We're hoping to see similar results for the women, especially aboriginal women.

[Daniel Blaikie]

One of the themes of the Auditor General's report is delay, whether with respect to inmates accessing appropriate programming in a timely way, or with respect to mental health treatment plans. In ensuring that plans are devised for those who need them, there are also issues about meeting those timelines. I hear in your discussion of the aboriginal intervention centres that things are going to be happening right away and there's going to be an assessment after 30 days. What are you doing to ensure that you don't encounter the same problems?

It seems to me that what is coming out of this report is not that Correctional Services doesn't have the right kinds of programming or hasn't done the upfront policy work, but the problem is in the timely delivery of those services. What are you doing within the aboriginal intervention program to ensure that you don't encounter the same kinds of delays, especially for inmates who are there short-term? Obviously, it's important that they access those services quickly. There are some things in the report suggesting that CSC seems to have the right policy. How do you move from saying it to ensuring that it's actually happening in a timely way?

[Anne Kelly]

I would say it's focus. For us, this is really important. What's happening in the aboriginal intervention centres is that we are tracking. We're tracking when they're coming in, when they're being assessed, when they're being placed in the program, how long the program is, and, when the program is completed, how long it takes before they're reassessed. Also, we are ensuring that we are aligning our programs to the offender population's needs. That's important.

We're also ensuring we have the right number of aboriginal program officers. We're also going to have increased elder services in our aboriginal intervention centres. As I said, preliminary findings with the aboriginal intervention centres for men are good. There's room for improvement, but this is something we monitor, and we'll be doing the same for the women offenders.

[Daniel Blaikie]

In terms of the tracking of information on people moving through that program—entry date, exit date, outcomes—is there any particular tool you're using, software or whatever else, to implement that tracking? If so, could that not be applied to other types of inmates, whether it's inmates with mental health needs or whatever else? Can the success you're seeing in that area be rolled out across the system? Are there tools that you're not using in the rest of the system that you could be using in order to have the same amount of information and be able to make the same kind of assessment as to whether new policies are actually having the desired effect?

[Anne Kelly]

We certainly have a lot of tools. We track our progress in a number of areas, actually.

You mentioned mental health more specifically. I'll turn it over to Jennifer, because we do track that as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mrs. Wheatley, go ahead.

[Jennifer Wheatley]

When the Office of the Auditor General came in to look at how we prepare women for release, we were just finalizing the rollout of our first-ever electronic medical record. Until 2016-17, we were a purely paper-based system. The electronic medical record is now fully rolled out at all institutions. Certainly, from a dashboard data collection follow-up perspective, that's facilitating really good management decision-making and information gathering in a way we weren't able to do it before.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

We'll now move to Ms. Yip, please. I think we're still in the seven-minute round.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you for coming.

I read with sadness that the number of women offenders serving federal sentences is up 38% over the last decade. Why is that? Also, indigenous women account for 33% of all women incarcerated. What has happened that there's such an increase?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Ms. Kelly, go ahead.

[Anne Kelly]

You're right. There has been an increase. Actually, I have the warrant of committal admissions for the last 10 years. Between 2006-07 and 2016-17, for all women, there was an increase of 30%. This is, again, warrant of committal admissions. For aboriginal women, the increase was 37%.

Now, in terms of admissions, we can't control that. CSC administers the sentence, so I can't really speak to why they are coming in. What CSC can do, though, is impact the length of time they serve. Some of the initiatives we're discussing today are actually to reduce the amount of time they spend with us. That's why we want to ensure that they have access to programming in a timely way, and that we also do case preparation in a timely manner, so that they can be presented to the Parole Board for a release decision.

In terms of results, and I'd like to share that with you, the percentage of women being released on day parole at the end of 2015-16 was approximately 61%. As of December 31, 2017, we were at 79%. A lot of progress has been achieved, and we are very proud of that. The other statistic I would like to share with you is the percentage of women who have reached their expiration of sentence without readmission to custody. At the end of fiscal year 2015-16, we were at 61%, and now we're at 70%, which is also progress. There's always room for improvement, but in answer to your question, in terms of warrant of committal admissions, that's not something we control.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you. That is indeed improvement.

It's been said that healing lodges offer a softer form of incarceration. Have there been studies showing that they have been effective for the women who go there?

[Anne Kelly]

We have a healing lodge for women in Maple Creek. The women who go to the healing lodge have to be medium- or minimum-security women. Again, the healing lodge is where they can practice their aboriginal culture. I'm not sure I would say that it's softer. Certainly, it's also because the security classification of the women is lower.

I believe there have been studies done, and I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Blanchette.

[Dr. Kelley Blanchette]

I can't speak to whether studies have been done, certainly not with respect to federally sentenced women specifically. There might be studies on the effectiveness of healing lodges for men. I can look into that question, but I don't have the answer.

I want to add that we have a great partnership. In addition to our own Correctional Service of Canada healing lodge, we have a partnership with Buffalo Sage Wellness through Native Counselling Services of Alberta. In Edmonton, we have a contract for section 81 and section 84 beds with Native Counselling Services of Alberta. It was 16 beds up until late fall, when we expanded to 28 beds. We have 28 beds for women, who are classified mostly as minimum, but on a case-by-case basis they will take medium-security women as well. We continue to explore those kinds of partnerships so that we can broaden the accessibility for indigenous women.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I'm wondering when CSC will develop a new and revised mental health needs scale. I find it important to assess them properly, especially with respect to mental health issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mrs. Wheatley, go ahead.

[Jennifer Wheatley]

We're just finishing up research on the mental health needs scale. An early review of the research shows that the mental health needs scale has both really good inter-rater reliability and also good convergent validity to other more broadly available scales in the community. Based on that research with our population, and comparing it with scales that are used in the community, we're showing really good validity for this scale.

In addition to it, the computerized mental health scale that we use on intake to screen all offenders has shown above 70% sensitivity in validity. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in the U.K. says that 70% is what you need to be clinically appropriate.

Both the mental health needs scale and the computerized mental health needs scale are shown to be valid, with research done on our population.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Ms. Yip.

We'll now move back to Mr. Deltell.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Kelly. I will continue the conversation we started earlier.

Let's review the facts. The report says that 36% of female inmates are indigenous and that the success rate is higher when communities are close to centres and are involved in reintegration programs. However, very remote detention centres do not all provide services to indigenous inmates. So the question is whether it would be feasible to concentrate indigenous inmates in one place to provide them with all possible services. I repeat that this is a question and not a wish, a desire or a position.

Ms. Kelly, based on your 35 years' experience in the system, what is your opinion on this?

[Anne Kelly]

I will begin by saying that the lone prison for women, which was in Kingston, was closed precisely so that we could have establishments in all the regions, thus enabling the women to remain close to their family and see their children. It is clear that the highest proportion of indigenous offenders is in the Prairie and Pacific regions.

I don't think it is absolutely necessary for establishments to be very close to the community, since aboriginal community development officers work with female inmates and aboriginal communities to facilitate the social reintegration of those women, which is important.

That is why we will establish aboriginal intervention centres in all the institutions, even those with fewer indigenous female offenders, in order to take care of their needs. We will provide those women with programs, and community liaison officers and elders could also help them.

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

Thank you for your answer, Ms. Kelly.

A question comes to mind, but I will first tell you about something that happened in my riding some 10 years ago. There is an aboriginal community called Wendake in my riding, Louis-Saint-Laurent. Konrad Sioui had just been elected grand chief by the members of his community. In the months following his appointment, a major police operation was conducted to close smoke shacks selling tobacco.

That police operation was successful because the police officers who intervened in the targeted locations were aboriginals. Of course, they had the support of Sûreté du Québec and the RCMP, but those organizations were not on the ground, since they remained behind. Those who made the arrests were aboriginals. So aboriginals arrested aboriginals.

I am telling you this story as a lead-up to the following question. Do you think prison life would be positively impacted if the correctional officers, who are in direct contact with the inmates, were aboriginal women?