Evidence of meeting #49 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was offenders.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
At this point, as I said, we're discussing it.
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
As a result of COVID, though, there is training happening in the Prairie region.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I have a couple of quick questions for you.
Since 2017 staffing levels for CSC have increased by 9%. Overall, the public service has had an almost 30% increase.
Are you getting the resources you need? We're hiring everywhere in the public service overwhelmingly, but CSC has barely budged.
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
Again, we have a staff complement of approximately 18,000. Obviously, COVID has been really hard on everyone.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
COVID hasn't stopped the government from hiring 30% more people.
Do you have the resources? Have you been given the marching orders from government to address any staffing issues?
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
We have the resources. Actually, with Bill C-83, we got resources for structured intervention units and also for enhanced health care.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
How many of the SIUs were built, say, at the women's institution in Edmonton?
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
We have one in every women's facility.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
There's one. Okay.
I have just a really quick last question, and this is for the AG as well, maybe.
Mr. Brock was getting at how the inflow of indigenous and other communities in the prison system is very heavily weighted, it seems, with more violent offenders. Are we adjusting for that or are we continuing on, as Mr. Dong brought up, the system that you have to allocate prisoners to maximum or minimum security?
It hasn't been updated for years. Are we going down the wrong path when we need to address this influx of perhaps overly violent offenders? Is your system preparing for that, or are you preparing to make changes for yesterday's problems?
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
No. Every year we do an environmental scan. We look at what's coming. It's Dr. Motiuk who does that with his team. We look at the population profile and the forecast. Obviously, then, we prepare for that. As I said, the main other thing is that there's going to be an indigenous-informed gender-informed security classification process for indigenous offenders.
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
We're in the third year. It's a five-year MOU with the University of Regina.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you. That is your time.
Ms. Bradford, you have the floor for five minutes, please.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
MP Desjarlais, I hear your pain and I share your concern.
I'm from Kitchener South—Hespeler. We have the Grand Valley Institution for Women there. I had the opportunity to visit it last June. I'm very concerned about the plight of the indigenous women there. The vast majority of the population in that prison is indigenous women from out west. Would you happen to know the figures on that? What percentage...?
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
The percentage at Grand Valley...?
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
It is the only federal prison for women in Ontario. Many of these offenders originate from out west because there aren't enough facilities there for them. They're uprooted from their communities, where they would have their support. Many of them are mothers. They come all the way to Ontario, three or four provinces away, to serve their sentences.
Can you talk about the mother-child program there, and what efforts are made to allow them to keep their children? These of course are people who have a sentence of at least two years.
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
We have a mother-child program. It has been in existence for quite some time. We work with family services, first of all, and children can stay with their mothers at the institution when they're preschool age. Once they reach school age, it can be a on part-time basis. It's a program that we promote, obviously. I think it's good for mothers if they are able to keep their child with them until school age.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Is it offered to every mother who has a preschool child? Is this program made available to every mother? Is there the capacity for that?
4:50 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
First of all, they need to meet certain criteria. It depends on the offence. If it's an offence against a child, they wouldn't meet the criteria. Again, we work very closely with child services.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
My concern is with the scoop and the history in this country of separating indigenous children from their families of origin. This is a concern.
What I've learned is that the Kitchener community is quite supportive of the female prisoners we have there. A number of employers offer them employment opportunities. Some of the women are able to go out to work in the community. In particular, there's a very lovely restaurant that supports them, and the Elizabeth Fry Society does as well, but what happens when they're released is that there are no halfway houses in our area, so they get uprooted again and moved even further east, over to Kingston.
They're moved even further away from all the support services that were there supporting them during their four years or whatever. They're uprooted again and moved even further away. Not only that, but in order to get their children back, they have to prove that they can provide a home—accommodation—and of course we know that these days hardly anybody can afford to do that, let alone someone who's just coming out of a penitentiary system.
It's a heartbreaking thing here. I mean, these people obviously made a bad choice at some point, you know, but they could end up losing their children forever because of a mistake they made when they were younger. We keep moving them further and further away from their supports, both their original ones and then the ones they established in our community. What can be done to address this? It just seems that we're making a problem worse.