Evidence of meeting #24 for Public Safety and National Security in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was programs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Yes, and then there are the system issues, which find their way into my annual report. Progress on those issues is painfully slow. Those issues include special needs of aboriginal offenders, preventing death in custody and institutional violence, the overuse of segregation, the mental health of offenders, the general health care needs. There is a catalogue of those recommendations year after year in my report.
There is always progress, and I'm never quite satisfied.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
On a more optimistic note, could you give us an example of a systemic recommendation that has been implemented to your satisfaction.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Well, let me do my best.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Yes. For example, we have, over the last several years, been working with the Correctional Service on dealing with use of force and how use of force incidences are reported and investigated. We have made considerable progress. The investigations are more timely. They are more thorough. The information exchange is better. There is still work to be done.
We are constantly engaged with the Correctional Service in terms of systemic issues around their internal grievance process. It gets better, but the work continues.
The nature of the systemic issues makes it very difficult for me to say, “Eureka, we've achieved a success!” But in fairness to the Correctional Service of Canada, the issues that we raise, such as use of force, the investigative process, dealing with the grievance system, are issues to which they are very alive, and we do make progress.
I am optimistic, or else I couldn't be in this somewhat frustrating job.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
The same progress has been made within the police.
Thank you.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Sapers and Dr. Zinger, for being here today.
I similarly have found your information extremely helpful as we embark on our tour of certain select institutions coming up shortly.
At page 15 of your statement you say:
The Correctional Service is mandated by law to provide programs and interventions that address factors related to an offenders’ risk of reoffending. The Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA) stipulates that the Correctional Service must provide a range of programs designed to address the needs of offenders and contribute to their successful reintegration.
At page 20, your penultimate paragraph says:
The situation is becoming critical as more and more offenders are released later in their sentences, and too often having not received the necessary programs and treatment to increase their chance of success in the community.
I read that to say the government is breaking the law. I'd like your comment on that.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
The Correctional Service of Canada has an array of accredited programs, and to that extent they are compliant with their legislative requirements. Unfortunately, timely access to those programs is a challenge that's not being met, and for the majority of offenders that means more time in custody than they would otherwise serve because they have not benefited from those programs.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I'm going to press that point a little bit because what I read your comment as saying is that they are released having not received the necessary programs and treatment. If there is a statutory obligation on the state to provide these programs and people are coming out of prisons—and I believe it's a fact that prisoners are being released without ever having received the necessary programs—would you not agree with me that that must mean there is a violation of the statutory requirement to provide those very programs? It's not just a question of timely access; it's a question of no access.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
I absolutely understand your point, and I think you're going to have to permit me to answer this way: that question hasn't been tested and I can't give you a legal opinion on that. As a matter of fact, the legislation would prohibit me. It doesn't consider me to be competent. So I think it's a question that is best addressed either in Parliament or by the courts.
I can tell you that, increasingly, we're seeing offenders being released at their statutory release date and fewer and fewer being conditionally released. One of the primary reasons that more and more offenders are being released at the SR date, instead of conditionally released through a decision of the National Parole Board, is their lack of preparation for their parole hearings.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Fair enough.
I have two versions of your notes. I have the earlier one you provided in advance, and on page 4 of those notes, you had pointed out that despite these important investments—and you totalled them up at over $60 million to date—the overall situation of offenders suffering from mental health disorders has, in your view, not significantly changed since your office first reported back in 2004.
Now, I read those comments to mean that despite $60 million in investment, there's been no real difference. I'm just wondering if you could comment on why that's the case. How is it that we can have spent $60 million in recent years and not seen any improvement in the provision of mental health services?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
There are many reasons that progress is slow and hampered. A lot of it has to do with the timing of that money. A lot of it has to do with the recruitment and retention of health care professionals. A lot of it has to do with competing priorities within a prison system. Part of it has to do with that tension I talked about, when I said we're talking about a prison system and not a health system.
It would be very easy to say that the Correctional Service simply failed or mismanaged that file, but that would be easy, and it would be incorrect. The Correctional Service is very alive to this challenge. I know you're going to be meeting with the commissioner of corrections, and I would encourage you to ask him that question.
I'll tell you it's not due to a lack of good intentions, and there are some structural and operational reasons, but I'll also tell you it's a lack of a sense of urgency, immediacy, and priority.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Okay.
I don't know how much time I have, but I have two quick questions. One is that the Canadian Medical Association has repeatedly passed resolutions at their conventions calling for the provision of clean needle exchanges in prison, both for tattooing, I understand, and for drug use, as a means of controlling the skyrocketing rates of hepatitis and HIV infections. I'm just wondering if you had any comment or recommendation on that as a harm reduction tool.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
In the past, my office has made the recommendation, based on the best international scientific evidence available, that the Correctional Service of Canada should implement a prison-based needle exchange program. That recommendation has never been accepted. The issue has been studied by the Correctional Service of Canada as a harm reduction measure or an extension of some of their other harm reduction initiatives, but it hasn't found favour—and that's, as I say, in spite of international scientific evidence. It does pose some operational issues.
The Correctional Service of Canada had a pilot project dealing with safer tattooing practices. I understand the evaluation for that pilot indicated it was effective in preventing the spread of infectious diseases, blood-borne diseases, that arise through needle sharing. But in spite of that evaluation, the decision was made not to extend that pilot project and in fact to shut down those safer tattooing sites.
Those are policy decisions of the Correctional Service. I think there is evidence to suggest there would be reasons to pursue both of those harm reduction initiatives.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I want to get my last question in. Would you tell us what the three most important recommendations would be that you would give us for improving the provision of mental health services in prisons? If you could wave your magic wand, what are the three things we could do as parliamentarians to assist on this issue?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
If it's a large magic wand, it would be full staffing, through recruitment and retention of those health care professionals. Number two, it would be the immediate implementation of intermediate care across the country for those offenders suffering from mental health issues who will not meet admission criteria to the regional treatment centres. Number three, it would be the development of a national strategy that would link mental health in corrections, through all of the provincial health care in correctional systems, with the federal health care in correctional systems.
Ashley Smith's, if I can refer to that tragedy once again, is a textbook example of what goes wrong when you have gaps in systems and real people fall through very arbitrary jurisdictional gaps.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming this morning.
In my riding we have Canada's largest federal penitentiary, Warkworth Penitentiary, named after the village in which I live. That institution plays a large part in the life of not only my community and my riding but that sector of the province of Ontario.
I know one of the first challenges we have as a government has to do with the morale of people who work in any endeavour, and in this case, of course, the morale of the people who work in our prison system. Of course, they had gone for close to five years without appropriate remuneration, and I was glad to see, after having met with several different representatives from the various bargaining units, that we came to a rather quick correction of that problem.
I was privileged over the last three years to have on three different occasions taken a tour of the prison. We always concentrate on the negative, and I realize that's part of your job, but I think we have to see some of the positives. Some of the positives that I've seen at the prison are the following. Of course, my background is such that I want to know what causes people to commit crime, and two of the biggest reasons that people commit crime are literacy--in other words, a poor education--and what I call respect, and respect as it relates to self-esteem. When we're looking at property crimes, and crime in general in New York, one of the common denominators is that the people who commit property crimes are the people who don't own property; therefore, it's difficult to respect that it belongs to someone. That's the respect aspect.
When I went on the tour of the prison, I wanted to find out how those two issues were being dealt with. As far as I was concerned, or could see, for those who wanted it they did provide literacy. You can further your education. But more importantly, you can obtain a trade there.
One of the two major operations they have.... They have a very robust...I think it's Canada's largest CORCAN operation. I think their sales are in the millions of dollars. The other thing they do there is they repair at a reasonable cost--because you have to provide an ability to gain a trade--some of the larger military trucks. There are the savings to DND, and also the ability to be able to provide an education or a trade. One of those trades is sandblasting. I'm told by the instructor there that most of the people, with the exception.... He mentioned that of those who took the sandblasting portion of the course, or auto restoration or vehicle restoration, he could count on one hand those he saw again. They all had jobs, some of them before they even left, because there's the connection between the teaching staff and the people who need sandblasters. There's a connection there. They were able to retain them, and they don't come back.
One of the other recent developments is the building of a bungalow or a separate dwelling so that our first nations can begin the healing process. I think in that part of eastern Ontario, Warkworth provides the only Pathways to Independence program. That program has received rave reviews in the first nations communities, not only, again, teaching self-respect and self-esteem, which goes a long way to preventing recidivism, but also teaching traditional skills and trades.
I just want to switch over now, because we hear so much about the negative, but those are things that I believe we can build on, and I think Corrections Canada is doing the beginnings of a good job, or a good job at being able to bring those types of programming.
There is a change in that prison population. It's a medium security institution. When it was built, it was built for people who had committed serious property crimes, fraud, those types of things. Today, some of the older population includes murderers who have not caused a problem in the prison system, and it has a large sex crime population.
How does the federal prison system compare with the provincial institutions in the ability to provide programming? How does it compare with regard to the treatment process? Are there any things that we can learn from them? I always like to look at best practices. What about other western countries with societies similar to ours? How are they dealing with similar programs? Can we adopt some of their programs and put them into our system?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Boy, that's a whole bunch of questions. I'll do my best to address them.
The bulk of your comments about the power of those programs, I would endorse 100%. That's part of our message. When the programs are accredited and delivered by appropriate staff at the appropriate time in an offender's sentence, they work well. That part of our system, we should be proud of.
With respect to your last comments about other countries around the world, I can tell you that the Correctional Service of Canada constantly hosts delegations from other places in the world that want to learn about Canadian best practices. I have been fortunate to deal with correctional practitioners from Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and the United States, and I can tell you that they look to Canada for a certain leadership.
Please understand: we're not attacking or questioning the quality of the existing programs. What we're questioning is the capacity to deliver those programs, and what we're worried about is the applicability of those programs to a particular group of offenders—those with mental health issues. At Warkworth, for example, the last time I counted, there were 103 sex offenders wait-listed for the core sex offender program. Wait-listed at Warkworth!
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
I'm only too aware of that issue. When the member of Parliament comes in, everybody is on his best behaviour, and you try to get them to relax and talk to you.
But there's also a lack of these professionals in the rest of the country. How do you attract people to work in a potentially dangerous place that, compared with similar facilities, is narrow in its scope? We need to be careful that we don't put too much emphasis on the reluctance to hire these people. It's also that candidates are reluctant to be hired.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Let me be clear. I never said there was a reluctance to hire them. I understand that the human resources folks at Correctional Service of Canada are working double-time to recruit and retain those people. It is a challenge, and it feeds directly into the capacity issue, notwithstanding that you still have wait-lists at that institution, which is considered a heavily programmed institution. It's part of the landscape that we have to accept.
I think it's fair to say that provinces don't run programs to the same extent the federal system does, and most of that has to do with sentence length. The average length of stay in provincial corrections is less than 30 days. In fact, I think it might even be as low as 14. So it's hard to make program access comparisons between these systems.
You also talked about CORCAN and vocational training. The road map to public safety, the transformation agenda for Correctional Service of Canada, is heavily invested in vocational training. But I must caution you about CORCAN. A big part of CORCAN operations is their agricultural business, and the CORCAN farms are going to be closed as a result of the strategic review that the Correctional Service went through. I'm told that this process identified a potential of about $4 million in savings. That's an impressive number, but only if you think about it in terms of savings. Agricultural programming in corrections has been a feature in Canada for decades, going back at least to the Depression. So the $4 million, I would argue, is an investment in vocational programming, not a cost.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.
