Good morning. My name is Kevin Grabowsky, and I'm the national president for the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. I am a correctional officer, and have been for 36 years now.
When we look at this bill, one of our biggest problems is that we don't know how we see it operationalized. When an inmate is granted parole, there's usually a very short window before his release. If he comes for the urinalysis test and it's dirty, usually it takes us three weeks or longer to get that test back. Our question is whether or not it gives the board authority to pull them from the street if their test was dirty before they were released.
The other problem we see is that if a person refuses with the mechanisms, does this bill mean—again, in operationalizing it—that just the refusal itself is enough to notify the board to have them make a decision, or are they charged in internal court and it has to go through that process? Operationalizing what this is remains certainly a big concern for us. We don't know how that mechanism will work. With that, is it effective, or is this a tool that's put in our tool box that certainly doesn't mean anything but looks good? Those are really the questions which are a concern for correctional officers.
Drugs in prison? Certainly. In all my years working, for every hole we've plugged, they've found new, inventive ways to have it come in. Drones now are a big scare for us. Drugs are also put in dead birds and thrown over the fences. Bows and arrows have been used to get drugs over the fences, compromising the staff. We've seen drugs in tennis balls that get thrown over.
There is definitely a demand in there. Putting things in there to make it stop, or so there's a consequence for using certainly is one mechanism, but as I think was said, there does need to be programs for them as well.
Our greatest concern with this is operationalizing it. How will it work? The tests take a long time to get back; the inmate could already be released. In terms of the refusal, in B.C., as I recall, if you get pulled over for impaired driving and you refuse to blow, you automatically lose your licence for three months and your car is towed away; you haven't gone to court. Well, we don't think this bill, if that's what it was trying to look at, goes far enough.
Those are the concerns for correctional officers in operationalizing this.
Thank you.