Public Safety Committee on Feb. 17th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Good morning, colleagues, and welcome to meeting 49 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Today under orders of the day we will be dealing with employment and skills training for offenders.

We have three witnesses with us today. From the Correctional Service of Canada we have Don Head, the commissioner. We have Fraser Macaulay, the assistant commissioner, correctional operations and programs. From CORCAN we have Lynn Garrow, the chief executive officer.

Welcome to all of you.

We will of course have opening statements for up to 10 minutes from our witnesses today. After that we will have our rounds of questioning. The chair will try to find a few minutes at the end of the meeting, 15 minutes or so, to go to committee business to see if we can get our schedules arranged for the future, knowing that we have some challenges with witnesses. But of course we can bring them up, and the committee can make its decisions as to what it wants to do and where it wants to go. We have a little budget issue that we will bring up asking for your approval on committee business as well.

Now we will open the floor to opening statements. Let's go ladies first. Would you like to make a statement? If you would not, we will move to Mr. Head.

[Lynn Garrow, Chief Executive Officer, CORCAN]

I will defer to my commissioner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You are the broad support this morning then.

[Lynn Garrow]

I most certainly am.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

That's wonderful.

Mr. Head, you have the floor, sir.

[Don Head, Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As you pointed out, with me today are Fraser Macaulay, the assistant commissioner, correctional operations and programs, and Ms. Lynn Garrow, the chief executive officer for CORCAN, which is an arm of the Correctional Service of Canada.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members. I'm pleased to appear before this committee today to assist you in your study of the Correctional Service of Canada's ability to provide employment and skills training to offenders in our custody, be it inside our institutions or in the community.

As you may be aware, CSC operates a special operating agency called CORCAN, which plays a key role in CSC's mandate to enhance public safety by providing offenders with the employment experience and skills they need to become productive law-abiding citizens and skilled workers when they return to the community. Prison industries can be traced back to 1835 in Canada when offenders worked on the construction of Kingston Penitentiary. In 1980 CORCAN was first registered as the trademark for correctional industries in the Correctional Service of Canada and in 1992 CORCAN was made a special operating agency.

CORCAN's mandate is to aid in the safe reintegration of offenders into Canadian society by providing employment and employability skills training to offenders incarcerated in federal penitentiaries and for brief periods of time after they are released into the community. CORCAN operates in over 100 shops in 28 CSC institutions across Canada and three community-based operations covering four business lines, which are manufacturing, textiles, construction, and services. Products and services generated by CORCAN are used internally within CSC and marketed externally, primarily to Canada's public sector. On any given day over 1,250 offenders are working in CORCAN operations across the country. Over the course of a year over 4,000 offenders benefit from the program obtaining over 2.4 million hours of on-the-job skills training. These on-the-job training skills are provided in seven of the top 10 industry sectors by payroll employment.

Additionally, offenders are provided with employment opportunities not only in CORCAN shops but also in an array of institutional jobs where they are able to obtain various skills as, for example, painters, groundskeepers, and tutors. In 2013-14 over 14,000 offenders were involved in an institutional employment assignment and accumulated over 11 million hours of on-the-job training.

As I mentioned, CORCAN is a key rehabilitation program and provides a sense of purpose to offenders while contributing to a safe environment in institutions. Work programs increase institutional self-sufficiency thereby lowering costs of incarceration.

CORCAN strives to provide the most realistic work environment possible given the constraints within institutions, providing goods and services that meet market standards of quality, price, and delivery. In addition, many offenders who earn third party-certified vocational training certificates have the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills while working in CORCAN shops thereby enhancing the training experience.

In 2013-14 CORCAN generated revenues of $68.3 million from operations supplemented with a correctional and training fee of $18.1 million. The correctional and training fee is authorized by Treasury Board ministers to offset the costs incurred by CORCAN that cannot be passed on to clients related to our training mandate and correctional operating environment. CORCAN is required by its charter to be competitive with the private sector on price, quality, and delivery.

Approximately 54% of CORCAN's annual revenue is from CSC, with the Department of National Defence and other federal government departments accounting for most of the balance. CORCAN also sells to other levels of government, not-for-profit organizations, and the private sector. Revenues are reinvested in enhanced training programs, the replacement of equipment, and the development of new business and training opportunities.

CORCAN conducts an ongoing review regarding current labour market trends by providing the monthly labour market bulletins from Statistics Canada to the regional employment and employability managers to ensure that training opportunities align with market trends. It is important to continue efforts in providing community awareness on the barriers offenders face in trying to return to the workforce, by engaging employers and providing them information on the training that is provided to offenders while incarcerated and the benefits of employing them.

CORCAN works closely with external organizations, as all vocational training offered to offenders is third party certified to ensure that all training is recognized in the community and meets private sector standards.

Key vocational training programs are provided in areas such as construction and non-construction trades including, but not limited to, welding, carpentry, the food and service industry, and workplace safety. The CORCAN shops provide offenders with the opportunity to learn technical skills through on-the-job skills training in the four business lines I mentioned. Offenders learn how to use equipment in a setting that supports standards of productivity and quality as reflected in a similar work environment in the private sector, as the majority of CORCAN shops are certified by the international standards organization ISO. This certification demonstrates that CORCAN has the processes, resources, systems, and skills to deliver high-quality services in a timely manner. These standards are maintained through periodic audits to monitor compliance with ISO standards.

In 2013-14 over 4,000 offenders earned more than 2.4 million hours of on-the-job training. This training provided offenders with the opportunity to learn and develop technical skills as well as develop and practise essential skills in a workplace setting. In order to increase the benefits of CORCAN on-the-job training in the institutions, many regions work with the provincial governing body in charge of apprenticeship training, regulation, and certification to have the hours worked by offenders registered towards a trade.

CORCAN also provides on-the-job skills training in three community sites in the Atlantic, Quebec, and Ontario regions. The majority of the offenders working in these shops are supervised in the community. These three sites provide an opportunity for offenders to complete training they have begun while incarcerated, to obtain employment in the community for the first time, or to transition back into the community when employment opportunities might be limited due to their criminal record. In 2013-14 CORCAN's three community-based shops provided 103 offenders with over 48,000 hours of on-the-job training.

Through community partners such as community colleges and other recognized training providers, CORCAN is able to provide third party certifications in construction and non-construction trades, food services and food safety, and basic safety training that is required in many work sites. In 2013-14 over 5,988 offenders earned 19,438 certificates through vocational training related to many industries and trades, including construction trades such as framing and drywall; non-construction trades such as welding and autobody repair; the food industry, such as culinary arts and food safety; and a variety of safety training such as first aid and WHMIS.

With regard to offender employment opportunities in the community, CSC's community employment services program is intended to provide meaningful employment interventions to conditionally released offenders, increasing the likelihood of safe and successful reintegration. CSC community employment coordinators and contractors work with employers, community partners, and the rest of the case management team to provide offenders with the support, referrals, and job opportunities needed to address their employment needs in the community. CSC has employment coordinators across the country who can help employers find the right employee.

The support an offender receives does not stop when they get the job. CSC continuously works with both the employer and the offender to follow up on his or her progress and compatibility with the organization.

It is important to remember that providing assistance to offenders in finding work is only one aspect of a successful reintegration. Offenders also receive support from professionals in many fields—parole officers, psychologists, social workers, program officers—who all work together to ensure that they experience a smooth and safe transition to the community.

In conclusion, Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank you for the invitation to discuss the commendable work that both CSC and CORCAN staff do to support offenders' employment opportunities and skills training. As you're well aware, promoting public safety is of paramount importance to our organization; therefore, providing federal offenders with effective, meaningful, and relevant employment and employability skills helps us to fulfill our mandate and make our streets and communities safer.

I'd now be happy to take any questions the committee may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Head.

Seeing no further opening statements, I'll go to our first round of questioning.

We will start off with Mr. Norlock, sir.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witnesses, thank you for attending today.

We had a brief conversation before the meeting, so I'll cut to the chase because, quite frankly, I'm very happy that this committee is looking into this study. I think it's a good-news story, not that there are improvements that couldn't be made to the CORCAN regime. I'm sure we're going to hear from witnesses where we can get those improvements, and I know for a fact that's what you and your very capable staff are hoping for also. Anyway, it's a good-news story in my opinion.

The reason I say that is not that I necessarily listen to the...and I'm one of those talking heads, because I've gone into the prison system and I've seen it in action and spoken to the inmates, as well as the instructors. I came away with the feeling that there's much more we can do in this area, working with you to see that it's done.

I'm going to ask for a couple of things, because the bottom line when we train inmates is that we want those inmates, once they receive a certification or are on the route to certification.... I'd like to talk to some people who are the recipients of the hard work of our correctional system and the employees there, who are also quite motivated. I'm going to ask if you or your staff would be able to provide the committee with an eclectic mix of several private sector enterprises that have used the services and hired that inmate, so we can get a flavour for what they feel are the results of your labours. Perhaps they can give us some improvements we can all work on.

Because, in the end, what we want—and then I'm going to ask for a comment from you—are people who have the knowledge, skills, and ability to be able to earn a good living for themselves and their family so they don't have to resort to a life of crime. That's the aim of every person at this table, whether they be on the other side or this side, that's what we all hope for. We just sometimes have a difference of opinion as to how we can achieve that. That's my first ask of you.

The second one is you mentioned some of the programs. Have you received any feedback from the private sector with regard to some programs that you might want to embark on that you are not already doing, and if so, what are they? What's your experience from your perspective of the product you're putting out there and that is a person who is better able to function in our society?

[Don Head]

I have a couple of quick comments and then I'll get to the very specific questions that you raise. At the beginning of February it was 37 years ago that I first put on a uniform and walked into my first penitentiary. At that time, what was happening in what we would call prison industry very much resembled the traditional high school shops. Offenders were being kept busy making items that were probably closer to hobby craft items than items that could be sold on the market.

Over time, CORCAN has become a very viable entity, one that we're all proud of: proud of the work that the staff do in assisting offenders; and, proud of the work that the offenders themselves do to the point that we have relationships with other government departments and the private sector in products that we produce. Over the course of quite a number of years CORCAN has shown that it is a viable entity and also a major contributor in supporting offenders and contributing to public safety. Over that time, we've developed many good relationships with the private sector, and I'd be glad to share names with the committee. We'll compile a list and send it to you. We will send a video to the committee that we did within the last year where we had testimonials from individuals, including those just down the street here, who have hired offenders who are working in their workplaces and speak very highly of the skills they bring, and encouraging others to bring them forward. We'll be bringing forward names such as various construction associations, trade unions, even some private sector employers.

You're probably familiar with Lyman lures. Lyman lures are now made by offenders in our institution in Matsqui, a private sector arrangement that worked out. We have a number of offenders employed that now produce these fishing lures. Again, great opportunities are being provided, and we'll definitely bring forward those names.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

I spoke to you about a former warden in several of our correctional institutions. Monty Bourke is now the commissioner of corrections in the Northwest Territories. He and I were discussing this very issue. I was getting some ideas from him. He said currently in the Northwest Territories there is a great need for tradespeople. They work 12 days on and 12 days off. Of course, in our prison system we know there are a lot of—too many—first nations folks. I know that in Warkworth there is a program that teaches traditional things to our first nations members, but we also need people in our diamond mines, because there's huge need.

I wonder if you have contemplated working with resource industries that are hungry for some of these skilled labourers, especially in areas where there's a high first nations population. I wonder if you could talk about the programs you have for first nations vis-à-vis learning traditional trades and then the new trades of today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Sorry, Mr. Head, in the next round of questioning you will have an opportunity to respond to that, but we're over time right now. We have to move on. You can respond later when things are heading in that direction.

We will now go to Mr. Garrison, please, for seven minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

I would invite you to go ahead and answer the question from Mr. Norlock.

[Don Head]

Thank you for allowing that.

I have a couple of quick comments. All the trades activities in the institutions are open to all offenders. We encourage all offenders—aboriginal and non-aboriginal— to participate, and we can share some statistics with you shortly in terms of those participation rates. But in terms of the broader question, looking forward, clearly there are various sectors we want to become more engaged with. Actually, I believe this committee can help us in terms of reaching out to some of them.

You mentioned, for example, the diamond industry. One of the challenges we have there is with someone with a criminal record being able to get into diamond mining businesses. Their security is almost as tight as mine—I won't say it is tighter, but it's almost as tight as mine—and the issue of a criminal record has come up many times.

That being said, there are other areas we've been exploring, particularly with regard to getting aboriginal offenders more involved. For example, in the construction field, we have been engaged with several first nations communities and their economic development groups in terms of building homes for first nations reserves. We've been quite successful at that, and as a matter of fact, we have agreements with the ones who were doing the work such that we have to ensure that a percentage of the offenders involved in that construction training are aboriginal offenders. We see that as very, very positive. We've had arrangements with the Bay of Quinte Mohawks, and with Muskeg Lake and Whitefish Lake. We've built houses for the communities up in Lac La Ronge, and we have other projects under way.

We are also quite interested in reaching out to the oil and gas industry. There's less concern about an individual's criminal history there than there is in the diamond mining area. We're in some very, very early discussions, through networks of our other partners, to start looking at how we can have the oil and gas industry bring its money and training into our institutions. We have the manpower and the woman power. They have the money; they have the training. Match the two up and get individuals trained, so that as they come out there is a ready supply of workers who can go out into the oil and gas industry across the country and become employed and become law-abiding citizens.

This is an area in which we're starting to knock on doors and one we want to pursue further. Again, there's great interest in terms of opportunities for aboriginal offenders.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thanks very much, Mr. Head.

I think there is, as Mr. Norlock said, a great deal of agreement around the table on the value of both prison work and the vocational training programs. The annual report of the correctional investigator cited lower rates of admission to segregation, fewer institutional charges, higher parole grant rates, and the fact that those who are released are more likely to obtain and hold a job in the community. I think everybody understands that.

What I want to ask about is a report that your department prepared for the minister in May of 2012, which is a bit less sunny than the report that you presented to us this morning. I want to quote from that report. It said:

One of the biggest weaknesses of CORCAN is the absence of any correlation between either the work or the vocational training programs with labour market analyses. Training inmates for the jobs of yesterday, or for non-existent jobs, or for jobs in already over-resourced fields in competition with non-offenders is a waste of scarce resources and counterproductive to public safety.

That's the report in 2012. My question is, given that since 2012 you've had an increase in your system from 14,000 to 15,000 roughly, have you had additional resources to allow people to access these programs, and what else has changed to give us this sunny report we got today, compared to your very critical internal report in May 2012?

[Don Head]

The report in 2012 pointed to areas that clearly we knew that we had to improve on, and over the last two years that's exactly what we've been focusing our attention towards—to ensure that we have good, viable opportunities for offenders in our facilities. Part of that has required us to retool some of the activities that we have been engaged in. Part of the problem that we have in CORCAN is the push-pull between being financially viable, because we are a separate operating agency, and meeting the needs of the offenders. This is always a push-pull.

Although we have some opportunities, for example, as mentioned, in textiles and manufacturing—we produce a lot of furniture that's sold to government departments—we have to make sure that we sell enough so that we are able to reinvest back into CORCAN to keep the opportunities going. Some of the problems that we have are in competing with other markets. When government departments' budgets are cut or tight, they don't spend as much. That puts a strain on us. We have to be very careful about how competitive we become because then there is the whole issue of using inmate labour to produce goods where the private sector is struggling as well.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Back to my beginning statement, in terms of the number of people who access programs, you've got basically 1,000 more people in the correctional system. It doesn't appear to me from the statistics I've seen that there are any more places available in CORCAN or the vocational training programs than there were in 2012, or that you have any more resources devoted to this than you did in 2012. That would mean fewer of those in the system getting the opportunity that we all know would be very positive for them.

[Don Head]

What we've been doing, and Ms. Garrow can expand a bit, is expanding certain activities, certain opportunities. For example, some of the construction work that we've been doing for CBSA, the Canada Border Services Agency, creates more opportunities.

We are not in a position to create thousands of new opportunities. That's been a challenge for us. There is absolutely no question about that. It's another 10 new opportunities here, another 20 new opportunities there. That's the way that we've been able to tackle it within the budget that we have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

Your time is up, Mr. Garrison.

We will now go to Ms. Ablonczy, please. You have seven minutes.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Head, welcome to you and your officials.

You mention that the case management team provides support and referrals on job opportunities needed to address offenders' employment needs in the community.

I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the success rate of those efforts.

[Don Head]

Overall, the combined work that we do—the combined effort around both employment and correctional interventions, correctional programs—is what produces the public safety results that we have today.

We know, as was pointed out earlier, that offenders who are involved in CORCAN opportunities and involved in their programs addressing issues such as anger management or substance abuse, if they're tackling all those things in their correctional plan, are more than likely going to be able to return to the community in a law-abiding manner. What we see for individuals who go out into the community, particularly during the period that they are under our supervision, is that the rate of reoffending in a violent manner is less than 2%, which is a very positive number.

We also look at their rates of reoffending and coming back to federal custody at two years and five years after their warrant expiry date. The rate of return for individuals after two years is less than 10%, and after five years it's 18% to 20%. What that tells us is that the work that we're doing with them while they're in our care is good, and it sticks, but the farther they get away from the support that they have, unless they have ongoing support networks including employment, housing, family, prosocial associates, their risk of reoffending seems to go up. But the rates of reoffending and coming back to federal custody are still some of the best rates around the world when I compare them to those of my colleagues in other jurisdictions.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Have you looked at strategies for extending the support?

[Don Head]

Yes, that's one of the biggest challenges we have right now. Again, this is one of the things that this committee can help us do.

We have traditionally talked a lot about job support while individuals are under our care, but we need to talk about that going beyond their warrant expiry. Some of the partners that we've started to talk to, particularly out west, have realized that and have actually become some of our best spokespeople in regard to providing that support.

We've held two major forums now, one in the Pacific region—we actually had two forums there—where we brought groups of people from NGOs, the private sector, and various industries to talk about how we can support offenders beyond their sentences. We just finished one recently in the Alberta corridor—again, another very successful one. We're starting to get some very respected spokespeople from groups such as the B.C. Construction Association, which represents over 100 different construction organizations there, talking about the benefits of not only hiring offenders, but also supporting them throughout the rest of their time in the community.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

How are offenders chosen to go into the program? Are those indicators being refined?

[Don Head]

Yes, that's one of the challenges we have right now. We were speaking just the other day about what work we can do, for example, with community colleges and vocational schools that have a lot of experience in terms of bringing people in and assessing them and training them.

We have more work that we need to do with regard to the initial assessment. Right now, our initial assessment of the needs of offenders is relatively basic. We look at their employment history prior to coming into federal custody. If they haven't been employed, haven't been able to keep a job, we know that they have high needs in that area, and that will be identified in their correctional plan. Then what we call correctional intervention boards that are in each of our institutions will look at the opportunities that currently exist, the types of work activities, employment opportunities in the institutions, and match those needs that have been identified in the correctional plans of offenders to those opportunities and start to plug them into the various aspects of the program.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What role does offender preference or choice play?