Public Safety Committee on May 12th, 2016

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to push the time a little bit on this round so we get all four in.

Mr. O'Toole.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for being here today, and for representing your organizations and the people within your groups.

I'll start with the corrections officers. When I've talked about operational stress injuries, I often use the term “uniformed service” because I think it was always expansive, and took into consideration a variety of different roles that put people in an operation that has stress and trauma as part of the nature of service.

I've often had the sense, in speaking with corrections workers, and I certainly got the sense from your presentation, that the correctional officers have felt like the forgotten cousin of the uniformed service ranks. We've seen the leadership, including what the chief outlined today, some of the things the big 15 police forces and fire forces are doing, the road to mental readiness training, these sorts of things. Do you find as a branch of uniformed service that corrections officers are behind where others are in terms of tools and training and the ability to combat and build resiliency?

[Gord Robertson]

Yes, honestly we feel behind. As mentioned, we've only been using some of the tools since October. It has been a problem breaking down the stigma. I know stigma has probably been mentioned about other departments. It's very difficult when you're dealing in an environment like corrections, where we're expected to be strong. We're expected to just put up with all the things that are going on. We have an issue getting our members to speak out when they need help, before they get to their breaking point. So now I think people are starting to break down that stigma and are willing to talk about what they're going through. That's why we're perhaps going to catch up. We're going to maybe get to the point where we will see the supports that we need, as people are going to be asking for them. They're going to be seeking the help.

So I think that's a good first step, breaking the stigma for correctional officers, breaking that cycle.

[Jason Godin]

Just to add to what Gord is saying, we have been ignored for years. We just recently embarked on trying to break that stigma. In fact, Gord was a participant. We participated in a video encouraging our members to come forward and get on board with the R2MR program.

This is really new to us, and you're exactly right, Mr. O'Toole. We have been that forgotten-about, uniformed, public safety officer group. We're just embarking upon this, and we're obviously looking for solutions, and we want to make sure that we're funded. Can we start to introduce some programs that we're not used to? Because it's always been expected that, well, you're the correctional officer, and at the end of the day you guys expect to be dealing with this. You're supposed to be dealing with that every day, and that's part of your job. Yes, we understand, it's part of our job, but we also need help—

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Yes. I found in your presentation there was something I hadn't thought about, but you nailed it exactly. It's also the only uniformed group that we want to be out of sight, out of mind, not because of you guys, but because of the people you take care of.

[Jason Godin]

That's right.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

For most Canadians, their romanticized vision of what you do would be from watching The Shawshank Redemption, or something like that. Most people have no exposure, whereas they see police, firefighters, and others in their communities, at events. So it's another hurdle, I think, that you guys face.

There is one question that would be helpful for me, and we're talking about federal corrections here. If one of your members had a traumatic incident where there's certainly operational stress—and you described a few—is there the ability through your organization, or a practical way, to withdraw someone from, say, the worst, maximum security, terrible sort of situation into one of the lesser prison contexts? I know sometimes geography will make that difficult, but is it something that the wider profession is looking at?

[Gord Robertson]

Yes, we do have that ability. We have a return to work program. If someone does suffer a mental health injury, PTSD, part of getting them back to work is looking at what their limitations or restrictions are, and it may be that they can't go back to that maximum security environment where they were assaulted, or whatever happened. We would then find alternates, transferring them to a minimum or medium security environment where they could work.

We do have that ability, and you're right, it's easier in some places than others. I'm from B.C., so, of course, all the institutions are quite close together. It's quite a lot easier for us than it would be in the prairie region where it's much more spread out.

It is something that we've tried to work on with management and our members to get them back to work and help them deal with that by looking at their restrictions.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you.

My last question, in what time I have left, would be for our chiefs of police. Thank you for tuning in by technology.

I'm heartened to hear of the rollout of road to mental readiness, and resiliency training, more broadly, and the issue of combatting stigma, which I think even these hearings is helping to do.

When I was in the air force, each squadron would have a flight safety officer. They would be a flying member, but they would have the specific responsibility for being the subject matter lead for flight safety, because it was so critical to our operations. Are large forces considering such expertise with someone in the organization who can be a lead for mental health?

The training is great, but you almost need that permanent expertise, and someone constantly combatting the stigma that the culture of the organization might have.

Do you have any comments?

[Chief Jennifer Evans]

Yes, I can comment on that.

The staff sergeant in charge of my organization of wellness bureau would be my flight safety officer. He becomes involved in any of the incidents. He leads a lot of the critical debriefings. He organizes the training for the peer support and looks at the trends. He also manages the officers of the early intervention systems, and that's where we're tracking if an officer has responded to too many child deaths or too many motor vehicle fatalities. So he is the flight safety officer for the entire department. I think we're one of the few in Peel, in the organization of wellness bureau.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

My last comment is this. Of the big 15 municipal forces, if all of them had that sort of lead, the organizational wellness officer, is it a role that the federal government could do, once a year, to bring these flight safety officers together for best practice training and that sort of thing?

[Chief Jennifer Evans]

I think that would a great idea, because I don't think there is.... Right now, we've never had such a forum to do that.

[Steve Schnitzer]

I would like to also add that our committee is very much aware of some of the smaller police forces across Canada. While I acknowledge that Peel and Calgary police, which sit on our committee, have excellent in-house resources, there are smaller ones that are definitely lacking. A major goal of our committee is to try to bring best practices to medium- and smaller-sized police forces as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Jolibois.

[Georgina Jolibois, NDP, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you very much.

My name is Georgina Jolibois. I'm the member for northern Saskatchewan, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River riding.

I have a question for the municipal police forces, and the RCMP is not here.

Here I am thinking about my constituency, and the majority of the constituents are aboriginal. In my riding, we have an RCMP police force, and in the south it would be the Prince Albert municipality and Saskatoon police services, which I'm very familiar with.

In the back of my mind, I'm thinking about the population that you serve, and then the population that gets in trouble with the law, the so-called criminals who could be aboriginal or non-aboriginal in that framework. On your mental wellness, in terms of race relations with our communities in Saskatchewan and across Canada, what kinds of strategies are there in place within municipal police forces as well as the RCMP to assist the members who are either first nations or Metis, or of another culture?

[Chief Jennifer Evans]

It is my belief that the RCMP have been doing the training for the road to mental readiness program for quite some time. I'm not sure about the Prince Albert police department, but I think it would be police departments in the west—Calgary and Edmonton—that started the road to mental readiness training. They have been providing that training to officers for quite some time.

[Steve Schnitzer]

I can speak for British Columbia. The road to mental readiness has recently been endorsed by all municipal forces in British Columbia as well as the RCMP, who are in the midst of rolling it out to all of their staff throughout not just British Columbia but across Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Mr. Di Iorio.

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank all the witnesses for being here today and for their excellent preparation for our meeting today. The work and consideration they have put into this has been very thorough. I also thank them for their fine presentations.

If I may, Mr. Chair, my first questions are for Mr. Godin and Mr. Robertson.

You mentioned something that I find very powerful and that is very relevant to our work. You are in a unique position. Canadians don't know what you do; they are not even aware of what you do. Worse still, it is supposed to be that way. In other words, you perform your duties out of the public view, by definition. Not only does the public not have access to your places of work, they do not want access.

Another particular aspect is that you are surrounded by people who want to harm you. Many of the people you come into contact with on a daily basis would be very happy to cause you serious injury or even to kill you. These are very important aspects of your work.

I would like to you to give us some more information. I am asking the question very candidly without presuming to know the answer.

Can someone do that kind of work for their entire career? You mentioned something important in one of your replies. You referred to the fact that major incidents can occur, such as when you were forced to drive an inmate to the hospital. In addition, you sustain multiple injuries on a daily basis. We are talking about moral injuries and not necessarily physical injuries. Can you elaborate on this?

[Jason Godin]

An average day for a correctional officer can be lots of things, and I think that's the part the Canadian public doesn't understand. At one moment during the day I could be stepping into a cell playing the police officer confiscating drugs from an inmate. At the next moment, the inmate may turn around spontaneously and assault me. The following week, I could be engaged in fighting a fire down the range and having to evacuate 50 inmates. The week after that I could encounter an inmate who has hanged himself, and I arrive at the scene, have to cut him down, and have to perform CPR immediately.

I think the Canadian public thinks that we work in such a controlled environment, and this, I think, is where there is much confusion. We're not always in a controlled environment. The frustrating part for correctional officers as first responders, and I have many examples I can provide you, is that there are examples in which we've had officers intervene and save inmates from committing suicide 40 or 50 times—one officer.

On the street—and again with no disrespect to our colleagues—if that were a police officer or a firefighter on the street, they probably would have been given a key to the city; they would have been honoured by the mayor and thanked for doing a great job. But the Canadian public doesn't care whether correctional officers save an inmate 40 or 50 times. This is a huge stressor on our members, because we can go from that one instance to fighting with an inmate on the ground. The next instant we could also play counsellor; we could be an officer trying to talk an inmate out of committing suicide, because at four o'clock, all the professionals are gone. It's us; that's it.

It's a great question, and I appreciate it, because we really want to work at educating the Canadian public about what we actually do in the course of a day. As I said earlier in my testimony, we are all of three of those occupations inside the institution.

I described to you some personal circumstances in which I have performed CPR on inmates, I have cut inmates down, I have pulled inmates out of cells who have slashed themselves. I have talked inmates out of committing suicide. We have evacuated ranges. It's one of those things that the public doesn't understand.

That's the stressor. A correctional officer is here at one moment; the next minute he's here; and the next minute, emotionally he's up here again, depending on the events of the day.

Then there's the stress of the clientele we're dealing with. We're walking down ranges on which the inmate behaviour is unpredictable. In general society we like to think that people act in a certain way, but we can never, when we're walking down a range or inside an institution, predict how an inmate is going to react. I hope that gives you a little bit of—

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Yes, that 's why there is a second part to my question.

I ask the question very candidly without presuming to know the answer. I simply want to understand the situation.

Can someone do this kind of work for their entire their career, since they sustain daily injuries in this kind of work? I am talking about moral injuries.

[Jason Godin]

Again, it's one of those jobs that is the exact opposite of the rest of the public service. Our stress increases with years of service. This is one of the reasons why we push very hard on a pension to allow us to retire early, because these daily stressors that we have, they just continue to be cumulative over years of service. At some point it's going to catch up to you. I remember one officer describing to me that he had witnessed over the course of his career 14 murders. Eventually, it's going to take its toll. Those are examples where it's very difficult.

Our life expectancy, quite honestly, is not very high. There have been some studies done, certainly some American studies, and it's not high because of the cumulative stress that we endure and the occupational stress that we endure over the course of a 25-year or 30-year career. Some officers, they're fine. They go through 35 years, they walk out that door and they say, I've had the most satisfying career of my life. It's been wonderful. And then some officers.... This is why we want to get into the resilience piece, it's to build that resilience up, because some officers don't handle it as well as other officers. Gord and I see that regularly where we know officers who go into work and, it's no problem, this is my job and I'm proud to do my work, and then there are other officers who are proud to do their work, it's just that they don't receive the assistance they need when they're going through those stressful periods.

Sometimes we're like this, we're like a roller coaster. We could have a spike in incidents in an institution, and then all of a sudden it evens out and keels out for awhile, and then there could be another spike. This is, again, a huge stressor on correctional officers.

To say that it's a career where sometimes people are able to do it for that long, and other members.... Gord described an earlier situation where there was an officer suffering from mental stress, and in his case he felt like his employer was abandoning him, and they wanted to pension him off and get rid of him. This guy was basically saying, look, all I want to do is work. I still want to work, I still like my job. I just need the help to get back. We shouldn't be considered null and void if we suffer from a mental stress injury.

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Would you say that staff selection for such unique and demanding work and conditions is rigorous enough?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Very briefly. We're over eight minutes.