That's great. Thank you. I'm not going to autograph it for you. They're already autographed.
I was a member of Correctional Services in the province of Ontario. There was a solicitor general by the name of Dave Tsubouchi. I wouldn't want to step on his toes and pretend that I was him. I could never be Dave.
Surprisingly, I actually agree with a lot of what I heard a few seconds ago. You'll see bits and pieces of that sprinkled through the report that we issued to the government in 2007. In fact, we identified in that report five sections of recommendations. There were 109 recommendations in total, but if you were to group them into groups, there were five main groups. In one of the recommendations we were requesting and recommending to Corrections a number of recommendations to deal with drugs in institutions. We're not talking about a schoolyard here. We're not talking about a grocery store. We're talking about a federal correctional institution. One would expect higher levels of security, and one would not suspect almost identical levels of drug trafficking as you would see on Yonge Street. This is a federal correctional institution where people are sent because they've demonstrated clearly that they have a problem with justice; they have a problem with obeying our laws.
Two things need to happen, and those two things, amongst other things, are actually mentioned in the current Correctional Services Act. One is imprisonment for the sake of punishment. That's actually part of our Criminal Code. If you read the Criminal Code, that's one of its objectives. But because none of the sentences, with the exception of a few, are indefinite and because these people need and will at one time return to society, there needs to be some serious effort at rehabilitation so that when they leave they can return to society and preferably, for our own safety, not return again. Every time they return, there's been yet another violation of what we call laws in this country.
The correctional services system has two fundamental mandates, and we spoke about that in our report.
I'm going to make my comments short, even though historically I've maybe not done so, in order to get questions.
There's been a lot of talk about programs, and I think if you read the report carefully, you'll see an adjective used--“effective” programs. We have a lot of inmates going through programs and ticking the box that they've completed. In fact, I think Don Head will have said that 80% complete their programs. How many successfully complete their programs? We should be measuring program delivery by success, not by how many bums were in the chairs and how long they sat there.
Interestingly enough, two presentations prior to us you were asked to request of Corrections how many programs there are, how long they are, whether they meet the demand versus the supply of those programs in the institution, and whether they're delivered in a timely manner. You weren't asked whether they are effective. Yet that should have been the very first question that's asked, not of all drug programs but of all the programs in Corrections. Part of what we try to speak to in the report that the panel provided to the minister is, can we not start to look at whether or not these programs are effective? Are we actually rehabilitating people?
After being appointed Minister of Corrections in the province of Ontario, the protocol for those of you who haven't been through this is that the very next meeting is with your staff, who present you with binders about this high. And you start the process of briefing the minister. The very first question I asked about two minutes into the briefing was--I said my title was Minister of Corrections--how much correcting do we do. I got blank stares. They wanted to proceed with the briefing to tell me how many prisoners we had, how many were there, how many people attended programs. I said I wanted to know how much correcting we were doing, because the reality is that with the exception of a few handfuls of people within our federal correctional system, they will all be out one day and will be walking down Yonge, Bay, or Queen Street with you and be expected to behave as law-abiding citizens.
Remember, they came into the system federally with barely a grade eight education, a family history that could hardly be called that, and a severe addiction to drugs. I think about 80% of those who came in were at one time addicted to drugs, and 20% were found to be involved in drugs at the time of their crimes--and effectively unemployable.
The correction system needs to return those people back to society as employable, educated people who can live in society without relying upon the crutch of drugs to forget their family lives. And this has to happen in less than two years. I think the average hold in the federal correction system is now three and a half years. In three and a half years you're going to turn somebody with that history into a law-abiding citizen? That's a huge order.
On the criticism about long sentences, especially for drug sentences, the correctional system should have sufficient time to help these people get over their deficiencies so when they get back to society they can live as law-abiding citizens. There shouldn't be a time expiring on the clock--boom, you're out. Think of what you've got: grade eight education, no employable skills, a severe addiction to drugs, and a family they can't rely on. We need to help these people. Corrections should be there to do that. Yes, they should be there for punishment. I think society expects that. But society is also expecting the correction system do some correcting.
With that, I'll finish my remarks.
Thank you.