Public Safety Committee on Feb. 17th, 2011

[Kevin Page]

Again, as I explained previously to a member, it takes us months to develop an original methodology, to come together with assumptions, to provide something that's authoritative that you can use in committee discussions or when you're voting on supply. So for us it's a timeliness issue. We can provide this type of information, but it takes us a long time.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Right.

How would you describe the cooperation there has been from the public safety ministry and the RCMP in terms of providing your office with the information you need to give parliamentarians the cost information that we require?

[Kevin Page]

Well, sir, we've been told and we understand that once these issues are deemed to be cabinet confidence by the people who make that decision, it's very difficult for us to have a relationship with a public servant, because they must follow the advice they've been given.

Again, we support the work of all the public service officials and Correctional Services Canada and the RCMP. They have very difficult jobs. But once they're told it's a cabinet confidence, then it's very difficult for us to have a relationship.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm holding in my hand, Mr. Page, a document prepared by Correctional Services Canada called “Strategic Plan for Human Resource Management”. I understand you've received a copy of this document in the last two weeks or so.

[Kevin Page]

We did, and that document, I believe, is posted on the Correctional Services Canada website.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

It is now.

I'm going to quote from it. It says:

Over the past year, legislative changes have occurred, namely the passage of Bill C-2 and Bill C-25, for which preliminary forecasts show the CSC inmate population growing to about 4,000 in the next two to three years.

Now, that's for two bills. Can you give me a ballpark estimate of the assumption you would make for the cost of one position in CSC? So if we add a position to CSC, what ballpark full-time equivalent figure would you use?

[Ashutosh Rajekar]

Do you mean a cost per employee of CSC?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Yes.

[Ashutosh Rajekar]

Actually, we do have a cost for an inmate. I'm not sure we have a calculation for the cost of an FTE in our report, but historically, we have seen that the number of FTEs at CSC is almost the same as the number of inmates. So you can roughly assume that the cost for an FTE will be the cost for an inmate.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Right. In fact, that's where I was going next. This document also contains, as you've seen, charts with CSC's estimates of precisely how many positions they're going to have to create, broken down by classification--guards, administrators, etc. I've added these up. Over 3,300 new staff will have to be created over the next two to three years to deal with those 4,000 new inmates projected by these two bills alone in the next three years.

So if I'm trying to guess how much 3,300 new positions will cost, have you figured out an FTE cost for an average position so I could multiply by 3,300 positions?

[Kevin Page]

Well, sir, I think in today's discussion and in our document, we've provided an operational plus capital replacement cost per inmate. So as Ashutosh Rajekar explained, we kind of look at it as a per inmate cost. We could do a reverse calculation and look at how much on average it would be for salary and benefits, and do it that way, but we did it per inmate, and I think our per inmate cost is $160,000 per year.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Could you break down for this committee what a good fair assumption would be for an average FTE? If we're creating 3,300 positions, what's that going to cost us? Is that something I can ask you to do?

[Kevin Page]

Yes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thanks.

Now, we've talked about two bills here, Bill C-25, and I think it was S-2. Can you tell this committee what the total cost of the government crime agenda comprehensively is, for both capital and operating, to date?

[Kevin Page]

Sir, I'm not in a position to answer that question. We've only focused on Bill C-25, the Truth in Sentencing Act.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Right. And your estimate is that this one bill alone will cost us a billion dollars a year over the next five years. Is that correct?

[Kevin Page]

It's an estimate that includes both operational and new construction costs, based on a number of assumptions, including status quo occupancy rates.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Do you know approximately how many crime bills there are before this Parliament that may have cost implications?

[Kevin Page]

We actually haven't gone through to say all these have costs. Some are more material than others. We're now focusing on Bill C-39.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

You don't know that yet.

Last night this government, with the support of the Bloc, passed Bill C-59, which eliminates accelerated parole, meaning that about a thousand people a year who would be coming out of prison and going to halfway houses at one-sixth of their sentence will now be unable to do that until they have reached one-third. That will obviously create a cost factor in our prison system too, won't it?

[Kevin Page]

It will absolutely, sir. If you're changing the length of stay, if you're changing inflow and outflow, if you're changing the number of head counts, it's going to have a cost--an operation cost and potentially a cell cost as well.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

And once again, when we asked yesterday what that cost would be--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go very quickly, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

--the government wouldn't tell us, because they said it was a cabinet confidence, so we had to vote at third reading last night to pass a bill for which we didn't know the cost. Is that the kind of problem or breach of fiduciary duty that you're concerned about, Mr. Page?

[Kevin Page]

Certainly I'm concerned about it, and we'll do our best as the Parliamentary Budget Office to make sure you have the information you need to do the costing. But in this case, no, that's not the way a system should work.