Public Safety Committee on March 3rd, 2011

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

I apologize for that. That's unparliamentary.

But the point is that points have been made over and over again about the terrible U.S. system and how we must never.... So I again want to point out the other thing that the head of Corrections Canada told us. They budgeted for 1,300 new inmates as a result of some of the legislation. The actual number for 2010 was right around the high 300s, just under 400. So the budgeting was done for a much higher number.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. McColeman.

We'll now move to Mr. Kania, please.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I only have five minutes.

Professor Waller, first, our Minister of Public Safety has indicated that double-bunking is “not something that is inappropriate or illegal or unconstitutional or violates international standards. ...and quite frankly I think in many cases it's appropriate.”

We understand that Canada is a signatory to the United Nations standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners, which expressly decries double-bunking as anything more than a temporary practice. How was that standard come up with? Was there a study? I assume this wasn't something they just came up with in ten seconds.

[Dr. Irvin Waller]

I can't comment on that. I don't have any comment to make.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

But this quote from the Minister of Public Safety you would agree is certainly not in compliance with the United Nations standard minimum for rules of treatment of prisoners?

[Dr. Irvin Waller]

What I know is that the public safety ministry is not in conformance with the UN standards on crime victims or on crime prevention.

And my whole case here is yes.... I have, by the way, visited most of these penitentiaries--not recently--and clearly I think it is a good idea to replace. The issue is the balance between replacing old institutions and doing the things that taxpayers in Canada would want if they were given the information. In proposition 36, people were given the information and then they voted. If the public here were given the information about how you can reduce homicides, how you can reduce car theft....

One of the most spectacularly successful strategies in the world to reduce car theft comes from Winnipeg. One of the most successful jurisdictions in the world at reducing crime is Alberta. We have models. One of the most effective ways of reducing violence against women comes from Ontario. What I want to see is some balance.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities said that for every dollar you're going to add for reaction, match it with a dollar for prevention. I think if we started doing that in this country we would not deal with the short-term need for prisons but we would deal with reducing violent crime, reducing property crime, and reducing the need for what by any standards are very expensive reaction systems of policing, courts, and corrections.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Waller.

Mr. Kania.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Hutchinson, thank you for coming to Canada and welcome to Canada.

In essence, I'm going to summarize what I believe your main thrust to be. The conservatives in the United States in the past went through situations where you had declining crime rates, just as we have in Canada. The focus became punishment and not reintegration and not rehabilitation. They built more prisons, they changed their laws, and in essence what you're saying is that they made some mistakes doing all of that.

[Asa Hutchinson]

The conservatives who joined the “right on crime” initiative are saying it's good to re-evaluate where we are in the United States on incarceration policy. It's not saying everything we did was wrong. We're not saying it didn't have a beneficial impact. We're saying that in terms of fairness and in terms of costs to the taxpayers, it's fair to re-evaluate.

That's the essence of my testimony. It was a very gracious invitation, and I'm delighted to be here in response to that.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Piché, Mr. McColeman gave you a statement, and in my view he did not fairly give you an opportunity to respond. And when Mr. Norlock was providing his comments, I saw you squirming around. I'm providing you with an opportunity now to respond to both gentlemen in terms of what you might wish to say.

[A voice]

I would say the witness was moving very graciously.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Piché.

[Justin Piché]

If we're to look at the 2007 CSC review panel, one of the recommendations is to minimize retrofits and additions to aging penitentiaries.

All the money your government has allocated so far towards penal infrastructure projects has been diverted towards retrofitting existing aging facilities and adding new units to aging penitentiaries.

There's a bit of a contradiction in your statement, and I would just like to point that out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have 20 seconds.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

You indicated on page 2 of your paper that we need to be responsible to the taxpayers who are watching at home. We need information on what all of this is going to cost.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer needs to know this. They released their report on February 25, 2011, called Fiscal Transparency. That's an independent office. They say they don't have the information they need to be responsible, on page 2 of their report. I'd like you to comment on that lack of information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. Unfortunately, there's no time left for comments.

We'll now move to Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Piché, my first question is on your document. On page 9, at the very bottom, you footnote a cost. It was quoted in your brief from Minister Toews—footnote 78—from the Canadian Press. In this quote you're stating this cost is $90 million. It's what he originally said, but in fact that's the supplementary estimates for the additional cost to the Truth in Sentencing Act for 2009-10 and 2010-11.

Do you feel this is a little out of context, the way you put that in your document?

[Justin Piché]

Mr. Toews was asked by a member of the Canadian Press how much the Truth in Sentencing Act was going to cost. I have the article here, which I can table. He answered:

We're not exactly sure how much it will cost us. [...] There are some low estimates, and some that would see more spent—not more than $90 million.

That was his quote on the 27th. The next day his quote was $2 billion. That's my interpretation. The numbers changed. You can explain it if you'd like.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I just did explain it. The $90 million was for the—

[Justin Piché]

But that's not what he said.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

—fiscal year, and the balance was moving forward.

[Justin Piché]

I think that's not what he said.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I think that's pretty straightforward. Thank you very much.

To Mr. Lee, sir, you come from both the education world plus the business world. You have both. You're quoting the facts.

It's safe to say with a prison facility obviously there's high capital cost, a high maintenance cost, especially when the rate of reinvestment or the rate of reserves has not been maintained at the optimal level. History will show it was about 1%. It says here that the Parliamentary Budget Officer's optimum target would be 4%.

Would you like to comment? A lot of the increased costs are certainly catch-up dollars, to put the facilities at least where they should be.

[Prof. Ian Lee]

I'd be pleased to.

I want to step back, though. I hope that the committee does look at this document from the International Centre for Prison Studies, which shows that the prison populations are going up in 71% of the countries around the world, so Canada is certainly not an outlier at all. This is from the World Prison Population List published by the International Centre for Prison Studies, King's College, London. This is the trend that's going on.

To answer your question, I did read the testimony of Kevin Page, who I respect very much, before this committee. I read the questions. I found it very interesting. I thought there was a lot of confusion between capital and operating costs. Capital costs are not expensed. They are amortized over a very, very long period of time. After all, if you have prisons from 1835 or 1870, that suggests they do have a long life expectancy. People throw around figures such as $2 billion as a construction cost, or something like that, and it's misleading to conflate capital costs with operating costs.

In terms of the operating costs that Kevin Page suggested, and there are different figures floating around out there, one figure is $2.7 billion over five years. That's about $600 million a year, which is a 20% increase, which, as I already noted, will take CSC from 1.2 to maybe 1.4. These are still very, very small numbers. It reminds me of that quote by Dan Gardner in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday. These debates are over very small things, and he quoted Freud on the narcissism of small differences, because these are very small differences, empirically speaking.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I would agree on the gap. We have an issue with a 150-year amortization rate on a building.