Thank you, and good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members. I thank you for the opportunity to meet you here today.
I understand the committee is studying the impact of drugs and alcohol in federal prisons. And while I have never worked in a federal prison, I think my personal and professional experience may lend a very different perspective that I hope will add a fullness to your research that you may not have anticipated.
Mr. Chair, drugs don't enter the institutions of our nation without having first existed on our streets. Drugs are coming in, not out. Starting with that premise, then, you will start to understand where both my working life and my personal life may prove to give you insight for the important task at hand.
Mr. Chair, as you mentioned earlier, I am a retired member of the RCMP. I served 33 years in Alberta, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. I retired at Whitehorse Detachment in 2005 as a watch commander.
My entire service consisted of front-line policing. Throughout my career, I have been involved in drug investigations and have witnessed first hand the impact on individuals, families, and communities. Mr. Chair, from that we must remember that a correctional centre is a community.
After my retirement, I worked for the Yukon government in a new program called Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods. The new act focused on closing down drug houses and bootlegging operations. Our unit closed down the most notorious crack cocaine den in Whitehorse, which had been in operation for over 20 years.
With the introduction of Yukon's new Corrections Act, I was tasked as an investigator to review critical incidents at Whitehorse Correctional Centre. These included serious assaults on staff, such as Mr. Van De Mortel just spoke of, stabbings, and other serious occurrences, including those involving drugs.
To say that my experience with drugs getting into a community and out of it into a correctional centre is limited to my experience as an investigator would be an accurate assumption. However, there is more to my story.
At 7:14 a.m. on January 14 this year, my wife, Lana, called me at work. There was absolute fear in her voice. Lana begged me to come home immediately. Lana said, “Ken, our lives are over.” I rushed home and found my wife frantic on the front porch. She said, “He's downstairs. Hurry.” I ran downstairs and found our 22-year-old son Christopher dead, hanging from a Bowflex machine.
As a policeman for 33 years who had seen it all, nothing in my experience prepared me for this. My son had struggled with alcohol and drug abuse for six years. Christopher had been in and out of jail seven or eight times and had attended five rehab centres.
There are a few points I need to make from this experience, an experience no parent should have to live through.
Lana and I never rested in our efforts to support and seek help for Christopher. We spent at least $100,000 seeking out treatment programs, from Montreal to Vancouver to Alberta, and yet the safest we ever felt was when Christopher, sadly, was in jail. I say this for a number of reasons. The staff in the Yukon understood that they worked inside a community, with people, not inmates, who were part of a greater community outside the facility. As Christopher's parents, we knew being in jail was the best opportunity for Christopher to avoid temptation and easy access to drugs. In short, we knew he would be sober, clean, and safe there, and that was a good thing.
This, of course, is not to say that there are no drugs, pressures, debts to be paid, violence, intimidation, and bullying within an institution, but they are reduced. They were and are reduced because of the continued and conscious effort of staff to keep drugs out and to keep violence in check.
This must continue to improve in order to provide the greatest hope for treatment and recovery for inmates who are wanting to, and ready to, change. I believe, Mr. Chair, this is something most inmates want as well.
On that note—what the inmates want—I've dealt with hundreds, thousands, of people who have been addicted. They've been in and out of jail, and of course they look at me as maybe the guy who put them there. I always had a fairly congenial relationship, if you could call it that, with people I dealt with on the street. Over the last 20 years, I've had people come up to me after they hadn't seen me for five or six years. They're a little bit uneasy. They'll say, “How you doing?” I say, “I'm doing great. How are you doing?” The very first thing that comes out of their mouth is that they quit drinking five years ago. They want me to know that. They want me to realize that they're not a complete lost cause. I've had quite a few people say that to me, so when I say most inmates want this, I believe that to be true.
To carry on, there are those who are addicted and those who feed the addictions through clear and conscious criminal choice. Those who struggle with addictions clearly need front-line staff support and effective treatment programs, and of course the absolute will to make the change and to take on a tremendous challenge.
The existence of drugs weakens those difficult efforts. It weakens them through the direct pressure on the inmate population, but it also detracts from the correctional officers' ability and time to focus on what they do best—providing positive leadership, guidance, and role modelling. It pits inmates against officers, and those who provide the drugs alienate, bully, and assault the inmates who welcome positive staff support. I know this from Christopher's direct experience. I could never share this story before because the “inmate code” transcends prison walls and creeps dangerously and continuously throughout our community, which would have made life for Christopher harder on the inside and the outside.
I often wonder if I should have spoken up sooner and louder. I applaud Corrections Canada's goal to have a drug-free system. However realistic one may believe that goal to be, the standards must be set high because the consequences of half-hearted measures can be deadly.
This may be a sad commentary, but the longer Christopher was in jail, the longer he was sober and the more focused his life became. This, I am certain, is a testament to the influence of the quality care and dedicated staff who work in an environment under circumstances most Canadians are unaware of. Behind those walls and under the right conditions, I firmly believe there is an opportunity for help, hope, and healing.
What lies ahead? I wish I had all the answers, but I don't. Lana and I wish we had Christopher here to tell you this story himself…but we don't.
Mr. Chair, I respectfully submit the following recommendations on Christopher’s behalf.
The first is that the government support Corrections Canada in its goal to rid the correctional facilities of drugs. It is what the inmates want.
The second recommendation is that the government support transitional services for inmates upon their release, with continuation of treatment services and other avenues of support to enhance their chances for success.
Third is that the government consider regulations and controls over treatment facilities to maintain integrity, consistency, and control over groups profiting from addictions services. It is not just the addicts who are desperate for change; families are vulnerable to fraud as they try in vain to help support their loved ones.
About five years ago, we sent our son to a treatment facility just outside of Montreal. It was a 90-day program. My wife Lana did all the work on the telephone, talking with the people at the centre. About 30 days into it, Christopher called us and said the place had been busted. I asked him what he was talking about. He said they had done a drug raid. I didn't believe it. He told me to Google it, and that it was in the news, so I did. The place itself had not actually been raided, but the owners, the director, and the people of this treatment facility were well connected to a gang out of Montreal--I believe it was called the West End Gang--who were charged and arrested, and 22.2 tonnes of hash that they had transported from Africa were seized from this gang in Montreal. It was a joint effort between the Quebec police and the RCMP.
I tell that story because when people are dealing with treatment facilities, they're phoning, they're desperate, they're crying, and they want help for their child or their spouse. A lot of times, the people they're talking to on the phone are the salesmen or saleswomen. They are the people who are selling you the goods. People have to be very, very careful in how they go about choosing appropriate treatment facilities. We had some good ones; we had some not so good ones.
The fourth recommendation is that the government continue seeking out the best treatment programs for the inmate population, and they include front-line correctional staff in the day-to-day support of inmates, because it is the front-line staff who have the greatest influence on the clients they interact with 24/7.
The fifth recommendation is that, as with treatment, the government support integration between law enforcement agencies in order to freely share information and support. Currently, information systems and independent investigations limit effective approaches to the cross-jurisdictional activities involving drugs.
Thank you. Merci.
