Evidence of meeting #100 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was scan.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Do the...?
I've lost my train of thought. I'll have to ask next time.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Just as a point of clarification, Mr. Dubé referenced a report. Members have been provided with the security bulletin. Are we talking about the same thing or are we talking about something different?
11:35 a.m.
Supt Warren Coons
We're talking about a review that was conducted of various things, such as CSC policy and what we talked about right now, the number of visits and what have you. Those are all components of a review that we undertook. We have committed to come together and put together a “report”, for lack of a better term, of all of the steps we took and the results of each.
11:35 a.m.
Supt Warren Coons
It's not together as one document, no.
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I want it on the record that I'm asking for an undertaking to have this review.
11:35 a.m.
Supt Warren Coons
That's fine, Mr. Chair.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Thank you for your presentations.
I have to say that I'm still stuck on the fact that the report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator has very different numbers from what you're telling us today. This is a 2016-17 annual report, so we're not talking about something that's wildly outdated.
I was hoping we could go through the stats a little bit more. You gave us stats showing that about 1% show positive results. Is that right?
11:35 a.m.
Supt Warren Coons
Correct.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Was that the same number across all your institutions, or were there outliers?
11:35 a.m.
Supt Warren Coons
There were differences in each of the regions across the country, but I wouldn't term them significant differences. It might be dependent on which institutions and how often it's actually being used in those circumstances, but no, there aren't significant outliers.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
When you said regional differences, what were you referring to?
11:35 a.m.
Supt Warren Coons
I meant the numbers. In other words, I believe in Ontario and the Prairies, the numbers are higher. Again, we can—
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
11:35 a.m.
Supt Warren Coons
We can make those stats available.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Yes, why don't you just provide us with those?
Can you explain to me how it is recorded in each instance where there's a positive? It could be a false positive or a positive positive. How is that recorded?
11:40 a.m.
Supt Warren Coons
It's through the threat risk assessment process. The positive hit on the ion scan or through the detector dog triggers a threat risk assessment. That threat risk assessment is what's being tracked.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Is there any kind of a download from the ion scanner to show that there were this many positives in a day or anything like that?
11:40 a.m.
Deputy Director, Preventive Security and Intelligence, Correctional Service of Canada
No, each result of the ion scan is a printout. Then it's recorded in the threat risk assessment for that individual inmate.
March 20th, 2018 / 11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Is there a separate file? You're talking about going through people's individual files. Is there something such that each time there's a positive, someone has to fill out a form and file it somewhere, for each one, individually, not in the prisoner's file specifically? Maybe they chose not to put it in a prisoner's file for some reason. Is there something that tells you, at the end of the day, this is how many times the ion scanner was used, and this is how many positives we had?
11:40 a.m.
Deputy Director, Preventive Security and Intelligence, Correctional Service of Canada
Again, if the ion scan is used and there's a hit and the results are below the threshold, then the visit proceeds without any kind of threat risk assessment. If the ion scan is used and the visitor hits above the threshold, then that generates the TRA process. That information is recorded and then compiled nationally.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
I'm trying to figure this out. Do you have any explanation as to why the numbers would be so different between what the Office of the Correctional Investigator found in 2016-17 and what you're giving us today?