Evidence of meeting #135 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 inmates.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
That was specifically one of the recommendations that came out of the Ashley Smith inquest.
4:25 p.m.
Yellowhead, CPC
All right, but you haven't really clarified the one thing I was asking. Is there some protection in there for the institution itself to argue its case against the medical professional? What I'm concerned about is the safety of our public employees working in institutions.
4:25 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
Yes, absolutely there is, because the health care professional is making a recommendation to the institutional head. The institutional head has all of the information at his or her disposal and can balance the risks and make a decision.
4:25 p.m.
Yellowhead, CPC
Okay, thank you.
You mentioned that the health care professional is independent. Say this person is not being treated properly in the institution and has to be removed, under the recommendations of the health care professional. Mental health falls under provincial medical legislation. Are there portions of the act whereby the provinces will be compensated, if you have to move this person from an institution to a mental health facility?
4:25 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
If need be, we have treatment centres, and if the offender needs to be in a treatment centre to get the proper care, that's where the offender would be transferred.
4:25 p.m.
Yellowhead, CPC
Okay, you have facilities, then, within the correctional institution to deal with severe mental conditions and violent mental—
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
For example, there is the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon, which deals with the prairie region.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you. We're going to have to leave it there, Mr. Eglinski.
Mr. Spengemann, you have the final five minutes, please.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Mr. Chair, thank you.
Minister Goodale, it's good to be with you and to have the senior leadership from your corrections team with you as well.
There is a fundamental difference in vision that you've achieved. I'd like to commend you for the leadership, for bringing this bill forward. To me, what you said early on captured it. When we put somebody into administrative segregation for any length of time, they are, in your words, “probably getting worse”. We're achieving outcomes that the correctional system isn't aimed to achieve. If we put somebody through it and they come out at the other end in a worse condition, that is not where we want to be.
To get back to some of the costing questions that my colleague Mr. Motz put in front of you, can you talk briefly about the economic opportunity or the benefit inherent in the proposal? In other words, when we have somebody who leaves the correctional system in a much better way, both in terms of mental health and potentially through programming other skills sets as well, when she or he returns to the community, what are the economic expectations? What are the expectations for that person's ability to integrate and resume normal life, so to speak?
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
It all depends on the individual, of course, but the point is, if we don't make appropriate efforts at treatment, rehabilitation and ultimately reintegration, people will come out of correctional facilities no better, or perhaps worse, than when they went in, and that will increase the danger to the public.
Our whole goal here is to be successful at the treatment and at the rehabilitation so that this person will not offend again, there won't be any more victims from this particular individual, and our communities will be safer. When you have fewer offenders in the future, fewer victims and safer communities, your costs go down.
It's a difficult thing to quantify, but the investment in treatment, intervention and mental health care, considering the huge proportion of that population that requires mental health care, is an investment up front that is bound to save dollars down the road.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you very much. That captures what I was trying to get at.
Administrative segregation would have created a risk of stigma within the correctional system as it's currently framed, as it was previously applied. To what extent do you think there is a residual stigma attached to SIUs? In other words, for somebody who's going through an SIU under the proposed bill, would there be less stigma as far as their peer population is concerned? If so, what forms would that take?
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
Mr. Spengemann, I'm going to have to defer to Commissioner Kelly here, as she has 30 years of experience in this system and understands the impacts very well. I would ask her if she could comment on that issue. When someone comes out of an SIU, how likely are they to be able to reintegrate back into the general population in an effective way?
4:30 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
I believe in the SIUs because of the targeted programming and interventions that are going to be provided.... Our goal is to ensure that we address the underlying behaviour, the reasons that offenders are placed in SIUs in the first place, and then ensure that when they are returned to the mainstream population, they don't come back to an SIU.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you very much.
Minister, we often look to our allies in matters of public safety, particularly the Five Eyes—Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S.—and others. How do we line up with this new proposal in terms of how other countries are managing their corrections systems? Is this cutting-edge, ending administrative segregation altogether? Are other countries doing it? What experience, if any, is coming back to us from them?
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
I think of what we proposed in Bill C-56 as a way to reform administrative segregation. I recall the Office of the Correctional Investigator describing that legislation as probably putting Canada in the vanguard of the world in terms of a progressive approach.
This legislation now goes further, eliminating administrative segregation and creating a quite different model that is intended to focus on mental health and other forms of treatment and intervention. Obviously we have to be successful in developing the new structures. We have to be successful in providing the new budgets and in the implementation of the plan, as it would be phased in over a number of years, but this has the potential to put Canada way ahead of virtually all our contemporaries in the way we manage our correctional system.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. Spengemann.
Before I suspend, I want to thank the minister for his attendance here today. I anticipate that he will be back here very shortly on something else entirely.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Ralph Goodale Liberal Regina—Wascana, SK
Mr. Chairman, let me just thank all members of the committee for their conscientious attention to the subject matter. This is a topic that's difficult, and it takes a lot of careful attention. I'm grateful that people on both sides of the table are dealing with it in a serious way.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you.
With that, we'll suspend for a minute or two and re-empanel.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Colleagues, could we come back together again? We have limited time.
Commissioner Kelly, I'm assuming you have no additional statement you wish to make?
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Thank you.
When I was reading the B.C. decision, one thing that really struck me was evidence from a Mr. Somers, who talked about “inmates volunteering to be in segregation...as comprising the largest proportion of segregated inmates and the most difficult to get out of segregation”. That stuck with me, because then there were findings that the judge made later in the case about how to deal with these inmates in particular.
Through this bill, is there any improvement regarding the way to deal with those individuals? What can you see structurally to help get those people out faster from the structured intervention units?
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
You're quite right, we do have a certain percentage of offenders who, for example, are currently in segregation and want to be there—it's at their own request. We're likely going to have the same in the structured intervention units.
What's going to be different about it is that we will have targeted interventions and programming. There will be staff—program staff, parole officers, elders, behavioural counsellors—who are going to work with those offenders to try to find alternatives for them so that they can go back to the mainstream population. Just the fact that there are going to be intervenors working with the offenders is going to make a difference.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
That was one piece. I believe the case referred to a new subpopulation labelled “voluntary dissociation”. They were talking about even having a separate system for those individuals. I don't know how realistic that is, and I don't know whether operationally they're held in a different place.
How does it work operationally, for the voluntary....?