Public Safety Committee on March 20th, 2018

[Rob Campney]

In terms of corrections, the visitor proceeds with the next phase of entering the institution.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

There are no further questions, nothing, right? Unless there's something else, based on the ion scanner, there are no further—

[Rob Campney]

Based on the scan, the ion scan has given the visitor a pass and they proceed.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

If I understand, ion scanner use started in the nineties. Is that correct? I thought it was in 1995. I'm actually talking about for corrections. When did you start using them?

[Supt Warren Coons]

In the early 2000s.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Do you have an actual year?

[Supt Warren Coons]

No, but we can get that for you, Mr. Chair.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Do you have any statistics as to contraband drugs inside the prison in the year before and in the year after you started using it? You must have numbers.

You indicated no, so I'll just put that on the record.

[Supt Warren Coons]

That's correct. We don't have those statistics here.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Not here? That's fine.

[Supt Warren Coons]

Frankly, I don't know whether those statistics exist.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Do you keep track of contraband drug use in your institutions? In any given year, do you track this?

[Supt Warren Coons]

You're talking about a very broad question when you talk about drug use in an institution. There are various indicators, such as seizures, but we also have other factors. We know through intelligence, for instance, that there may be drugs in the institutions but we haven't seized any. It's a very nebulous kind of question when we talk about drug use within the institution. How you measure that is a very difficult challenge.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

That's fair enough. It's just that the report we've been looking at referred to the rate of random urinalysis drug testing results remaining stable over the past five years.

[Supt Warren Coons]

We do have urinalysis statistics; that's correct.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

That was one marker used there.

[Supt Warren Coons]

That's an example, yes.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I'm just trying to bring it back because there's been all this discussion about.... Obviously we're looking at whether this is a useful piece to keep in place, the ion scanner, and whether it actually helps to keep drugs out. Are there any markers other than urinalysis that you can track from the year before you used the ion scanners and the year after?

[Supt Warren Coons]

I'm not aware of those statistics, but I can tell you that things like detector dog indications, things like ion scan positive hits, things like intelligence that we have within our institution can all be indicative without actually having evidence of drugs within the institution.

It's going to be very difficult, other than those clear indicators such as urinalysis pass/fail. That's clear. Seizures are not necessarily indicative of the amount of drugs in an institution in a given year. If seizures have increased year over year, whether or not there are more drugs, there is not necessarily a correlation there because there could be—

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I'm going to jump in because I'm running out of time.

Can you provide to us—you're not going to have it with you now—the urinalysis results from the year before you used the ion scanner and the year after you started using the ion scanner?

[Supt Warren Coons]

I will commit that if there are those statistics available, in other words, if the timing of when we started the urinalysis program means the statistics are available, we will definitely make those available to the committee, Mr. Chair.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

If that isn't available and there is any other data indicator, I would appreciate that data.

You're asking us to make recommendations based on whether this ion scanner is something that should remain as part of your detection, so any data you can help us with to show that it has had any type of positive impact on the level of contraband drugs in your institutions would be helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.

I see no other members wishing to ask questions. Before I thank our witnesses, I want to make sure that members are satisfied that we have clarity with respect to undertakings. There does seem to be a kind of thread of contradiction between the corrections office and what's being said here. I'm going to work on the assumption that we do have clarity of undertakings, and possibly we may see you again.

Regardless, I want to thank you for the testimony and thank you for your help in our study. You are free to go.

I want to speak to the committee. As you can see in our agenda, we have the member Alain Rayes here on Tuesday morning to talk about M-124. We had anticipated having witnesses on the Thursday for M-124. If anybody has witnesses they want the clerk to call, sooner would be better than later so that we can fill the Thursday witness list.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

As I was at a previous committee, my only caution is that the Thursday of Good Friday week may be a Friday.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have rare insight, Mr. MacKenzie.