Evidence of meeting #7 for Public Safety and National Security in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was system.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director General, Clinical Services, Correctional Service Canada
Yes. It's placed under the tongue, as opposed to swallowed.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
You mentioned, and I'd like you to expand a little bit more on it, what is referred to in the presentation in the very next paragraph, and you said “When used in conjunction with cognitive programming”.... Can you expand on what the cognitive programming is?
Director General, Clinical Services, Correctional Service Canada
Just at a high level....
Regional Director, Health Services, Prairie Region, Correctional Service Canada
We're not the experts in programming, so I want to say that up front. Cognitive programming looks at skill development and lifestyle management to deal with some of the issues that may have started them using drugs.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
Okay.
The next question is relating to the long-term dependency. As you've said, many people never get off their dependency on the methadone or the alternative opiates. These are probably expensive drugs, I would think. Are they covered under health plans for them after they're released?
Director General, Clinical Services, Correctional Service Canada
Yes. There are many community methadone clinics that run just like our program. When we developed our program, we developed it based on models out in the community. So there are a lot of methadone programs covered through provincial health care systems.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
Okay.
I want to pick up on my colleague's comments about what I'll call the needle exchange programs--I forget the right words--that some institutions have. When we were touring some of the prisons, it was brought up by one of the wardens, I believe, that having a program would greatly endanger people because of the safety issues involved with providing needles to inmates.
I'm wondering if you have any comments with that side of the story in terms of how that's managed and whether or not the guards and others would have a concern because these items would be accessible to the inmates.
Deputy Commissioner for Women, Correctional Service Canada
I'm not going to speak on behalf of all staff, but I'm sure a significant number of them would raise some concern about needles or any other sharp and pointy thing.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
Have any of the unions who represent these workers, to your awareness, made any comments about these programs?
Director General, Clinical Services, Correctional Service Canada
I'm not sure.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
You're not sure. Okay. You're not here, obviously, to answer that question.
In the presentation of the deputy commissioner, you mentioned managing more complex cases. One of the observations in touring the facilities was that certain of these more complex cases take up inordinate amounts of the time of programming and management and resources in institutions. You talk about it in terms of some of the transition agendas you're going through. Learning best practices is referred to in your comments about these. Can you share with us any kind of insight on how to be better control those more complex cases, the cases that are so hard to manage in terms of the behaviour of inmates?
Deputy Commissioner for Women, Correctional Service Canada
I think so. I'll try.
They are very much a challenge, and there are very few of them, which makes it even more difficult to come up with some concrete ideas.
One of the major problems we have is the actual structure itself. I would include infrastructure, and I would talk about the model too. I think we really have to look at something quite different for some of these complex cases.
As I said, on the management protocol, we're not particularly pleased with the results we've seen. We are moving away from it. There is an ongoing external review into long-term segregation. We will use their findings to help inform us. We have consulted with the correctional investigator and with other stakeholders to look at what would best work for these very challenging cases.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
I appreciate that. I appreciate also that you're working on those models for best practices that would focus on, first of all, the safety of the individual and the people around them in most of these cases, and then also the kinds of therapies they require.
Deputy Commissioner for Women, Correctional Service Canada
Yes, you're right, but we also have to think that whatever we build on in terms of an incarceration period will have to be supported once that person leaves. It's no good doing one thing in one end of the system and not having the ability to then support that on the outside when they are eventually released. And most of them will eventually be released. There's going to have to be some groundswell of support from the community in terms of assisted living units, supported housing, more efforts to support these women when they are released.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
To be fair, you could have another minute, because everybody else ran over by one minute.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
That's very nice of you. Thank you so much.
I hear exactly that, that this is a much broader continuum of care that is required, particularly in the case of people who have severe mental illness and it's recognized early and up front when they're admitted to the institution and in setting out their programs.
Are these typically repeat offenders? Are these people you see repeatedly in the institutions?
Deputy Commissioner for Women, Correctional Service Canada
For women, no, they're not. Most women actually are serving their first federal sentence, 53% of them for a violent offence. But on average, for most women, it's their first time in the federal system.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
Would they have gone through the provincial system in a lot of cases?
Deputy Commissioner for Women, Correctional Service Canada
Some of them, yes, but in comparison to our male offender population, they haven't been through the provincial system as much as the male offender population has.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Thank you very much.
I'd like to thank you all for appearing before this committee. It was a short and sweet session. You've given us some valuable information and I thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I'll ask our next witness, Mr. Penner, to come forward, please, and we'll begin the next session.
We welcome Mr. Bruce Penner, the general manager of Canadian operations at Momentum Healthware.
Committee members, we tried to translate the materials this morning but were unable to do so. The powerpoint presentation has not been translated and is not available in both languages. Is it okay with the committee if we proceed with the translation taking place from anything the witness says?