Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Mr. Sapers and Ms. Kingsley. Congratulations on renewing your mandate. I am sure that you will continue to do a good job, as you have done in the past, specifically in terms of mental health, the area in which we had more opportunities to work together.
Before I ask my question, I would like to tell you that I very much appreciated that you talked about indigenous communities and prison overcrowding. Some people have criminal convictions and they have to serve their sentences. You said that employability, job creation, economic development and education are important for those communities since indigenous inmates have a low level of education. I think you have identified some useful solutions.
Mr. Sapers, I would like to hear your thoughts on the follow-up of a mental health pilot project. We don’t think that people with mental health issues should be in prison, and I’m sure that you agree. However, in practice, those with mental health problems are in our penitentiaries.
Could you elaborate on the pilot project? Space in hospitals has been used, including in the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. We have also looked at other institutions in Ontario and Atlantic Canada. How could we specifically follow up on this pilot project, in which those with the most serious mental health issues had been placed in hospitals?
More generally speaking, how should we follow up on the correctional service report prepared in response to the recommendations from the Ontario government investigation?