Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Sapers and Madam Kingsley, for your testimony today, as well as for the job that you do in providing an independent and objective voice and providing a safe and humane correctional environment.
I have been listening very carefully to your testimony today and I have read your report. I want to underline that I absolutely share your conclusion that there has been an erosion in the state of that environment.
Just to highlight some of the statistics that really jump off the page, at least for me, there is the increase in the overall inmate population of 10% over the last 10 years. One wonders whether or not that has something to do with the overreliance on mandatory minimum sentences, some of which have since been struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada. We see the overrepresentation of indigenous communities, with a growth of 50% in their population, and an overuse of segregation, with nearly half of all inmates having been submitted to some form or other of segregation. There are insufficient resources for those who suffer from mental illness and there have been cuts to programming over the last decade or so, which is the area I want to spend a few moments focusing on.
I agree with you as well that in order to succeed in reintegrating inmates into the community, we have to find ways to restore CSC's fundamental role in rehabilitating inmates through programming. Some of my colleagues have highlighted as well how the inmate population is already disadvantaged because they don't have the same degree of education, skills, and training that those who are not in the inmate population do.
In your view, why is it that inmates are not completing programming? If I'm correct, that number sits at about 65%. Does it have something to do with a lack of incentives in the approach to engaging inmates in completing programming?