Evidence of meeting #34 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was complaint.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Thank you, Mr. Sapers, for that response.
I'm very happy to see you emphasizing a fair, accessible, and expeditious internal complaint and grievance system. We, on this side, have tried to raise the idea that this is one of the things that contributes to a well-run corrections system. It contributes to rehabilitation. It reduces tensions inside the institution. It has many positive aspects. We feel, as you mentioned, that this bill perhaps is misdirected by focusing on those few.
I'd like to ask if you've done any analysis of those who have filed multiple grievances with you or your organization. How do you deal effectively with those who file multiple grievances that you believe to be either frivolous or vexatious? Can you give some indication on how you would deal with those?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Office of the Correctional Investigator
It's true that we do have more latitude. We do have more discretionary authority. We have the authority to simply not even entertain a complaint. We can dismiss it right away, but we don't. We provide a response to every complaint.
We do receive a fair amount of these types of grievances from a few multiple grievers, but for us they are very easily dealt with. It's not that difficult to entertain If it's frivolous and vexatious and it's made in bad faith, we provide the answers right away. The only difference the service has is that under the regulation if the offender is not happy with whatever response they get, they can then raise it to the next level, and then raise it all the way up to the commissioner's level.
In terms of actual work for the service, it's the same. They simply have to rubber stamp the decision made initially that the complaint is groundless. That doesn't take much work. They have to get the paper up the chain, but it's not very administratively cumbersome. I would say that's the only difference.
For us what is more important is to make sure that, at the institutional level, everything is in place to deal with those legitimate grievances in a fair and appropriate and timely way. All your energy, just like Professor Mullan said, should be focused at the institution. With the assistance of mediators, grievance coordinators, and grievance clerks, as well as inmate committees and outside review boards, the service has everything it needs to achieve a much higher level of resolution at the institutional level.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Thank you very much.
We've talked about the Mullan report and its recommendations. Without asking you to speculate on anybody's motives, why haven't these proceeded? Are there obstacles in those recommendations that have prevented their implementation?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
The simple answer is no. There are 65 recommendations. There are implications in terms of implementing all of them, and there are some timing issues, but there's no particular obstacle that's stopping movement.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
They don't require either legislative change or significant new resources or...?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
The only real legislative issue is the issue around the multiple levels and the recommendation to eliminate the second level, or the regional level, which I frankly don't have any issue with.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Coming back to the bill specifically, I'm concerned about the perhaps unintended consequences of this bill. One of those I think you've touched on. You say that you often require people to exhaust the internal grievance process before you will deal with their complaint more extensively.
With this new bill in place, if someone is designated under this act as vexatious or frivolous and therefore has a higher standard to meet, would you consider that as having exhausted the internal process and would they automatically come to you?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Frankly, we would have to deal with that on a case-by-case basis. When we have a multiple griever we may get to the point where.... I've done this twice, actually. I have written to an offender and put them on notice that we will only accept complaints from them in writing, or we've negotiated with them. In fact, my intake staff are brilliant at this. They'll negotiate and say, “Please only call on the first Monday of the month and I'll give you time on the first Monday of the month.”
There's a way of managing these. We would have to deal with those on a case-by-case basis.
Now, what this creates, of course, is a whole new category of complainant, and that is a complainant whose issue is being designated as frivolous or vexatious. We would then have to manage that as well.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
So there is a significant chance that this would increase the workload of your office, as well as CSC's.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you.
We'll now move to Mr. Leef, please, for seven minutes.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I did hear you talk a little bit about some of the flexibility that you enjoy in your office. That, in my mind, definitely differs from the Correctional Service of Canada.
I have had the opportunity, as the deputy superintendent of a correctional facility in the territory, to work closely with inspections and standards offices. I can say that I think they reply to every single complaint that they receive as well. However, I was privy to seeing those responses, and a large part of them were simply one-line responses that said, “We have received your complaints. We deem them to be without grounds. Thank you very much.” Or they said, “It was determined that the you failed to go through the front-line process that you can avail yourself of in the correctional centre”—done deal.
So I think when you suggest that the only difference between the process you have and the role you play and your ability to respond, compared to what front-line officers have to do.... I would say that probably every front-line correctional officer in the country would take exception to your remark that the only difference outlined is what you suggested there. I can highlight a number of differences in terms of that complaint and grievance process, one of which is the fact that front-line staff, officers, wardens, and deputy wardens have to deal with the inmates every single day.
It's a very different picture when you're dealing with a complaint and you have to deal with the inmate individually or with the inmate population, than it is if you're outside of the institution and just send letters saying, “Well, we found this to be frivolous and we're not going to deal with it.” I'm sure you can appreciate that there is an absolutely different operating relationship between the front-line staff and the inmates when a one-line letter comes from you as an officer, or a one-line letter comes from you as an oversight body outside of the correctional centre.
Moving on, would you agree or disagree, Mr. Sapers, with the commissioner's comment that the people who are filing multiple, combined with vexatious and frivolous, complaints—so they're not just multiple, and not just vexatious, but multiple and vexatious or frivolous as a pairing—are “educated”, “high-functioning”, and have made a “concerted effort to flood the system”? Would you agree with that or not?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Let me first go back to your earlier comments, because I'm not sure that I fully appreciated them or understood them.
There are many differences between what my office does and what an internal standards and practice officer does. There are also many differences between what my staff do and what a front-line correctional officer does. There are legislated requirements and obligations on Correctional Service staff, and legislated requirements on my staff.
So I'm not entirely sure of what your point was, but I will say this. My staff are also front-line workers who spend days inside institutions meeting with inmates and staff, and who have thousands of contacts with inmates face to face. It would be a mischaracterization of the work of my office to suggest that we do a paper review and write a one-page letter or a one-sentence letter. That's not our process. It may have been the process you were used to—
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
It may have been the process that you are used to. It's not the way our process works.
Conservative
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Personally, no, I never have.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
And we wouldn't find that in your office? We wouldn't find a response that would be just a one-line reply?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
We had 20,000 contacts. I suppose there might have been one, but it wouldn't have been certainly our normal practice, and it wouldn't have been the standard response. Your suggestion that my staff are not front line and don't have that experience or that accountability I think is a wrongly made suggestion.
To move on, I would say that many of the multiple complainants that we deal with are, in fact, intelligent. I'm thinking of one gentleman in particular who was also a published scholar with significant academic training. It doesn't, however, take away from his mental illness. So again, I'm not sure that these are mutually exclusive.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Right, but his characterization of the very specific people who we were talking about—and he narrowed it down to a very small number of what were deemed to be multiple and vexatious or multiple and frivolous—as educated, high-functioning, and who have made a concerted effort to flood the system, would you agree or disagree with that?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
I don't know which cases he was referring to. There are probably about three dozen people in the system who might fit the profile of multiple and vexatious in terms of the number of complaints and the substance of their complaints. The Correctional Service has not produced any kind of a psychological profile of those offenders, so I'm not sure on what basis anybody would conclude about the mental health of those three dozen individuals.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Would you agree or disagree with the commissioner's statement that a small number of offenders who abuse the process take precious time and resources away from offenders who avail themselves of the system with legitimate intentions?