Thank you for your questions, Mr. Holland.
On your first point as to whether you're only going to see where they've recently painted the walls and polished the floors, I suppose that might be the case, but I can tell you that running a correctional facility is complicated and that it changes from moment to moment. The Correctional Service will be interested in showing you, certainly, the best they offer, but I believe they'll also give you a fair showing of what their challenges and problems are as well. The institutions you're visiting do represent the range of institutions in terms of their age, capacity, population counts, and program availability, etc.
I would recommend that you perhaps ask to talk to the chair of an inmate committee if you don't feel you're being told everything or shown everything. I'd recommend that you seek out the native brotherhoods or sisterhoods, depending on the institutions you're in. The elders who come into the institutions to provide aboriginal spiritual guidance are also good sources of information. Walk the segregation ranges and go through the areas where there is inmate employment and I think you'll get a pretty fair showing.
In terms of engagement with the NGOs, certainly I would endorse that. Many of these organizations have staff and volunteers who spend hours and hours inside institutions right across the country at all levels, and they're a tremendous source, I think, of invaluable information. There are umbrella groups, such as the National Associations Active in Criminal Justice of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, which may provide you with very good access to local contacts as you're travelling across the country.