Public Safety Committee on March 25th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I'd like to bring this meeting to order. This is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, meeting number 5. We are studying prison farm closures and food provisionment. We'd like to welcome today, as witnesses from the Correctional Services of Canada, the regional deputy commissioner, Mr. Ross Toller.

You have with you some other people from the department, and I will ask you to introduce them. Will there be more than one opening statement?

[Ross Toller, Regional Deputy Commissioner of Ontario, Correctional Service Canada]

Just the one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll give you ten minutes approximately, and I think you know how it works at the committee. After the opening statement we'll go over to the official opposition.

You have a point of order, Mr. Holland?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

If I could quickly, Mr. Chair, you and I had an opportunity to speak briefly prior to the meeting with respect to the establishment of witnesses. I think most times we can come to a consensus on witnesses, but there was some confusion before this meeting. I'm going to suggest, just to avoid further confusion, that perhaps in the future we could submit, say a week in advance, who our witnesses are and try to come to a consensus by way of direction to the clerk. If there isn't a consensus, then we obviously would have to come to the committee. I anticipate most times we could come to some form of consensus on the witness list, but in the event we couldn't, then we could ensure that matter would come back before the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You've all heard that. Do you have any comment on that point of order?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

My only comment is that when this session started we were trying to be as non-partisan as we'd ever been. Mr. Chair, as you know, the other side hijacked the committee agenda and filled it up. We have taken the approach that we want to continue to be agreeable to work with the other side. We have been told the agreement among the whips was that there would be an equal number of witnesses; the committees would work on that. I think there are some other issues there that we have agreed to.

We've abided by that. We didn't like what the opposition did when they filled the agenda with things and moved government business and others off to the side. We're more than happy to work in a manner that is fair to the House and to the people of this committee, but to load up a committee agenda without discussing it among ourselves when we've already had people scheduled to be here is a little bit less than what we had understood the whips had agreed to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll leave it at that then.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I don't have a problem with working with one another, and as I said, most of the time I think we can establish consensus around the establishment of witnesses. My only point is, in what I hope to be a rare event that we don't have consensus on witnesses, to avoid confusion in the future and putting the clerk in an awkward position, if there isn't consensus, then we would bring it back to committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay. My understanding was that there was an agreement among our whips that there would be an equal number of witnesses on both sides. We'll try to work with that. I agree we should try to reach a consensus as much as possible. If there are no other comments, we'll continue with the meeting.

Mr. Toller, when you are ready, you may begin.

[Ross Toller]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I have with me Liette Dumas-Sluyter, acting assistant commissioner of corporate services; Pushkar Godbole, director general of technical services and facilities; and John Sargent, the chief executive officer of CORCAN.

It's our pleasure to appear before you to respond to any questions you may have about CORCAN farm closures and food procurement this afternoon. As you are aware, the Correctional Service of Canada will be closing six federal CORCAN farms by March 31, 2011, as a result of the Government of Canada's strategic review. This review requires all existing government programs to be reviewed on a four-year cycle to ensure that programs are effective and efficient.

In 2008, the Correctional Service of Canada assessed its programs and services to ensure that funding is focused in the areas where they are most needed and to identify better ways that we can deliver services and programs. This process has given the Correctional Service of Canada the opportunity to further align its budget, programs, and priorities with the new vision for federal corrections in Canada. The service is committed to both providing correctional programs to offenders and assisting them to develop employability skills that will facilitate their obtaining and keeping a job in the community.

In order for us to be successful in this aspect, our employability skills development opportunities for offenders must reflect labour market demands of today and the future. This is something CSC does not take lightly. With the help of local business and government departments, we are working towards the development of alternative employment training that will help offenders with the successful reintegration into society.

The experience and skills obtained from working in the farms have been valuable; however, the decision to close the remaining farms was based on the fact that offenders were not gaining the maximum employability skills through agriculture. This becomes evident as over the last five years less than 1% of all offenders released into the community found work in the agricultural sector.

While offenders participating in the farming program did gain employability skills such as responsibility, team work, accountability, punctuality, and farming skills, relatively few offenders found work in agriculture once released into society. Therefore, CSC is looking at developing alternative training that will help meet the needs and realities of today's labour market and improve opportunities afforded to the inmates in the six minimum security penitentiaries across the country. This in turn will reflect a better integration of correctional programs, education, and vocational skills development.

These opportunities will be closely aligned to CSC's transformation agenda and will foster further employment skills development. CORCAN will continue to operate the other business lines, which include manufacturing, services, construction, and textiles. In addition, plans are currently being developed to produce new work opportunities and training to offenders that will include providing offenders with labour market-driven training and employment, formal vocational training programs that will provide offenders with marketable third-party certification, as well as several other opportunities that are being actively pursued with both government and the private sector.

As for other areas of CSC operations impacted by the farm closures, I can say that the service will use all available human resource tools and processes to ensure that all affected CSC staff are offered appropriate employment elsewhere.

I can tell you that no final decision has yet been made on future use of the land that was used for farming, but for the time being, the commissioner is open to discussions about leasing portions of the land to local farmers, provided the security of the facilities are not jeopardized.

As farms supply a range of produce, meat, eggs, and milk to federal institutions, once they close down, CSC will purchase these items through existing contracting authorities and mechanisms, including the government tendering system. The service does not anticipate a significant impact to the annual cost of food procurement due to the closing of the CORCAN farms. In general, we have found that some CORCAN products such as beef, pork, and chicken were more expensive on average than from local Canadian vendors, whereas other CORCAN products such as eggs and milk were less expensive.

Our financial records indicate that during the fiscal year 2008-09, CSC purchased a total value of approximately $4 million for inmate food from the CORCAN farms out of a total of approximately $27 million spent for inmate food that year.

CORCAN farms previously operated in three of our five regions. In Atlantic Canada and Ontario, meat products, milk products, and eggs are purchased from CORCAN. As of April 2009, the prairie region ceased purchasing meat products from CORCAN as the meat production operations in the prairie regions were discontinued. In the Quebec region, eggs and milk products are purchased from Ontario CORCAN operations. In the Pacific region, food products have been purchased using regular government procurement processes.

CSC is also currently examining the use of national and regional contracts for certain food commodities to realize economies of scale in the procurement of food commodities. In fiscal year 2010-11, Public Works and Government Services Canada intends to introduce a new national commodity strategy that outlines how the Canadian government will purchase food and beverage commodities over a multi-year period. The goal of this new strategy is to provide a more consistent procurement process for all government departments and an increased value to Canadians as best pricing for commodities should be obtained. Pricing will be obtained from the vendors on a more frequent basis in order to take advantage of market fluctuations in cost of commodities.

As for the farm equipment and livestock, CSC is obligated to seek fair value for all disposed assets. Any assets not required by CSC will be offered to other government departments. Some farm-specific equipment has already been sold to Agriculture Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Any remaining assets will be disposed of in accordance with government policy.

Although farm closures will introduce new challenges, I'm confident that CSC will continue to fulfill its mandate and to ensure that we deliver good public safety results to Canadians.

Thank you, and we welcome your questions today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much. We'll move over to the Liberal Party.

Mr. Holland, please. You have seven minutes.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to the witnesses for appearing today. Our time is limited, so if you could keep your responses brief, it would be deeply appreciated.

My first question is with respect to the mandate of the prison farm program. What was and is the mandate of the prison farm program?

[Ross Toller]

Well, it's the mandate of the Correctional Services of Canada and it includes all programs, which is to manage and administer the sentences that are imposed by the courts and to aid inmates in their reintegration and rehabilitative process.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Okay. On that point, if one of the principal objectives of any program in Corrections Canada is rehabilitation, what I didn't hear you address is the efficacy of the prison farm program from a perspective of rehabilitation. What we know is that there are a variety of international studies that say that animal husbandry, working with animals, is on the leading edge of rehabilitation. It's one of the most successful things you can do to rehabilitate somebody. We also know, from talking with Correctional Services officers who've worked in some cases more than 30 years in prison farms that they don't know a better program at rehabilitating inmates.

With all that evidence on the one side, can you give me any evidence that you have on the other side that these programs aren't effective in rehabilitating inmates?

[Ross Toller]

As I said in my opening comments, there is no question that working on a farm does contribute to valuable skills, such as reliability, punctuality, and teamwork—elements associated with working in any sort of level of environment. However, the difficulty is very clear, that for those people who leave our facilities to seek employment, the agricultural sector is not a viable, realistic market right now. I mention some statistics here that were presented to this panel before, that in only 99 cases out of 25,000 were jobs actually obtained in the agricultural market. What we do know is evidenced by some of the Canadian council boards, that there is a strong demand and a continued need for labour in the vocational trades skill area.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

One of the things I've heard time and time again with this program is the fact that, because it's a voluntary program, because these inmates are going in at 4:30 or 5 o'clock in the morning and working a full day, one of the skills they learn that is critical—is it not?—to employability is the value of a good day's work, understanding the motivation of getting up in the morning and doing a good job, the pride that comes with doing a good job. Are those skills not critical skills in whatever job you're going to pursue afterwards?

I have a general arts degree. I took political science and history. I can apply almost none of it directly to what I do in my everyday job. But the point is about giving base skills. Don't you find those skills critical to somebody's employability once they get out of prison?

Secondly, when you said at the beginning that the mandate is rehabilitation, I don't recall you saying that the principal mandate is jobs skills. I admit it's important, absolutely, but why all the emphasis on job skills when we know they do get this base and we know it's so effective at rehabilitation?

[Ross Toller]

There's no question that skills learned in any position relative to punctuality, teamwork, the things that I mentioned there, are important in an inmate's progress towards rehabilitation. There's no question of that. However, to me, our perspective is that learning those skills in a job that is more likely to give you employment at the end would be quite reasonable.

On the second part of your question, a very high number of inmates, almost 70%, come to us with unstable work histories; 60% of the inmates who come to us have no skill, no trade, or no vocational experience. There's lots of information that notes that inmates in vocational trades have a 33% less likelihood to recidivate. So, to me, the essence of training in skill development with an employability aspect to obtain a job that's real in the market and needed is the best recipe for rehabilitative public safety results.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

You just mentioned recidivism statistics for vocational training; do you have recidivism statistics for the prison farm program?

Second, if you don't have those statistics, do you have the success of employment when they come afterward? I ask because employers I've talked to who've hired them have said they are some of the hardest-working people they've ever met.

Third, what are you replacing it with? We're a week and a half away, and I've yet to get an answer on the incredible, amazing thing that is so much better than prison farms that you're replacing it with. What are you replacing it with?

[Ross Toller]

We don't have the statistics that break it down relative to the employment aspect that you asked about in terms of specifics on where the jobs went. There are a number of areas that we are looking at to replace in different levels of programs. If you just give me half a minute--

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Well, let me ask you this: how can you make a decision that something doesn't provide strong employment skills if you don't have the statistics on whether people are getting jobs when they come out? What evidence are you basing that on?

[Ross Toller]

Well, I just mentioned evidence that only a very small portion--

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

You just said agriculture, though.

[Ross Toller]

Very few of our inmates who are released from prisons get any jobs in the agricultural sector--

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Well, what about construction? I've talked to all kinds of those involved in construction who say the people who come out of this program have an incredible work ethic and understand the value of a job and understand the motivation needed to get a job. So I'm asking the question for all types of jobs, not just agriculture. It's about broad skills. What percentage of people, when they leave, are getting jobs?

I'm hearing there is tremendous demand, so I'm just wondering. You made the decision to cut this and you're saying people aren't getting employment. What are you basing it on? What are your statistics for employment for people coming out of this program?

[Ross Toller]

I can refer you to what we have in terms of offender job placements. These are placements for people who go through the CORCAN employment group. I'll use figures from 2008-09. Of 2,560 areas where job placements took place, 476 offenders got jobs in construction trades, 367 in general labour types of trades, and 14 in agricultural and horticultural areas.