Evidence of meeting #86 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 community.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Good morning, everyone. It's 8:45 and we need to get started. We seem to have a paucity of witnesses this morning, so by default, Ms. Gentile is first up as witness.
We do know that Senator Pate is going to be late, and we have no idea where Mr. Freeland is. With that, Ms. Gentile, you have 10 minutes to make your presentation.
Savannah Gentile Director, Advocacy and Legal Issues, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
Great. Thank you for having me. My name is Savannah Gentile. I'm the director of advocacy and legal issues with the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. I want to thank you for giving your time to these really important and pressing issues.
In order to talk about indigenous peoples in corrections, I feel it's first very important to provide a context for these issues. I want to talk about the institutional trauma that is experienced by indigenous communities, and in particular by indigenous women. This trauma begins long before a federal sentence. It begins with residential schools, with the sixties scoop, and with the continued, ongoing apprehension of indigenous kids into the child welfare system.
I want to quote Dr. Cindy Blackstock directly because I think it's a powerful statement. Just this month, she reiterated the fact that there are more first nations kids in child welfare today than at the height of residential schools. What is the most common reason for apprehension? It is issues related to poverty.
It should come as no surprise then that 80% of women who are criminalized in this country are criminalized for poverty-related offences. Indigenous women and girls are overrepresented at every level of the correctional system— youth, provincial, and federal. They are in fact one of the fastest-growing prison populations today in Canada.
Once in prison, there's added inequality and discrimination, as indigenous women are overrepresented as well in maximum security and segregation placements, where they have limited access to culturally sensitive programming and mental health supports. In light of the federal government's commitment to reconciliation, to recommendation number 30 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to the facts I've just stated, and to the number of reports verifying the systemic nature of these issues, our efforts as a country must be focused on getting indigenous women prisoners out of prisons.
I know the mandate of the committee is to look at programming within prisons. I want to talk a bit about why programming in prisons is not really one of the solutions, and it's actually a part of the problem. In fact, substantive equality demands that we do things differently, that we move women outside of the prison system. Really what it requires is a major paradigm shift, one which CSC has frequently and demonstrably resisted.
I want to talk about section 81 agreements. Section 81 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act offers the opportunity for indigenous communities to sponsor indigenous prisoners to serve their sentences in the community. This offers the opportunity for much-needed resources to be redirected from prisons into indigenous communities that are in need.
However, section 81 has been around as long as the CCRA, but it's severely underutilized. There are a number of reasons for this. These reasons have actually been documented extensively by the Office of the Correctional Investigator in the report “Spirit Matters”.
I want to talk a bit about how CSC has frustrated the purpose of section 81, in one way by diverting funding from section 81, that is, agreements based in community, to prison-based interventions like pathways units that currently exist within many of the prisons—in five of the regional facilities across this country, I think.
Diverting funding, again, is documented by the Office of the Correctional Investigator. Much of the funding meant to be allocated to section 81 agreements was at a point diverted by CSC into prison-based interventions. This is actually quite contrary to the purpose of section 81. The purpose of section 81 was meant to address concern over the growing number of indigenous people in our prisons. Obviously, by diverting funds to prison-based interventions, you're not accomplishing that goal.
One of the major impediments, in fact, to the development and maintenance of section 81 agreements is funding inequity and insecurity. They operate on five-year funding cycles. The funding difference between CSC healing lodges and section 81 community agreements is quite substantial. This means that there is a lot of turnover when it comes to employees. In fact, it is known that section 81 healing lodges have become a training ground for CSC.
One of the major barriers created by this funding inequity speaks to the inadequacy of providing indigenous programming inside prisons. Again, this is recorded in “Spirit Matters”. What some of the existing section 81 agreements speak to—there are not many, especially for women prisoners—is the pressure put on them by insurance companies to follow CSC security-related procedures, which these indigenous organizations feel are inconsistent with an indigenous approach to healing.
When you have indigenous programming within a CSC facility, you are already.... It's a bad starting point, because it is a colonial structure. We have to acknowledge the reality of that. Indigenous ways and practices cannot be seen to their end in this kind of structure.
I was formerly a regional advocate. I went to Grand Valley Institution for Women on a regular basis for over a year. They have a pathways unit. I can say from experience hearing from women that there are a number of ways those units don't adhere to indigenous culture. For instance, the elders are on CSC contract, so this creates a distrust between the women in the pathways unit and the elders.
In addition, there are limited spaces for indigenous women in the pathways unit, which means that a number of women have no access to pathways. At the same time, culturally based ETAs, escorted temporary absences, are often limited to the women in pathways. Other indigenous women in the prison miss out on those opportunities because they are not in the pathways unit or because they've been kicked out of the pathways unit for behaviour that is the result of dealing with trauma, which is the point of those units. That's another way in which CSC has frustrated the purpose of section 81 agreements.
I just want to emphasize again that substantive equality calls for a different approach to these issues. We've tried it in the prison for a number of years. There has been an erosion of the “Creating Choices” principles that the regional facilities in our country were founded on. That erosion began before the foundation was even firmly set.
The lack of section 81 agreements and the erosion of “Creating Choices” speak to the fact that CSC is not able to readily implement substantive equality approaches within its facilities. It's not going to happen. We need a different approach, one that moves women outside of the prison system.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Ms. Gentile.
Welcome, Senator Pate and Mr. Freeland. We appreciate your contribution to the committee.
Mr. Freeland, you have 10 minutes, please.
Neal Freeland As an Individual
Thank you. I've written some words down, so I'll just read that.
“Indigenous People in the Correctional System”
I said that to myself and it rings in my ears like vulgar profanity,
Mostly because I'm here addressing this colonial body of the government,
Responsible for putting so many of my people into prison,
Because this is in English and not in Nakawemowin, a.k.a. the Saulteaux language of my people,
Because I don't speak my language and have to relearn it after having it taken from me.
I am doing this in poetic form because this is how I learned to use my voice.
“Indigenous people in the correctional system”
Rolls off my tongue, and I feel like I've been punched in the face all over again.
I didn't know what to think when I was invited to speak here.
What do I say?
And I thought what do I have to say, that these people with degrees and titles can't say better?
What do I say?
When you're already aware of anything that I could say to you about the stats, about the facts,
About the system that you know full well is broken.
What can I tell you,
About why my people are in prison more than any other segment of the population of this country.
What can I tell you,
That you haven't read about
In a million plus one reports.
It was always about where to begin,
How to begin,
Not what to say.
If you're native...
If you're native in this country you know someone in your family is in prison.
If you're native,
That's a fact.
If you're native,
That's the reality of growing up in this country.
And if you're unfortunate enough to be Indigenous and find yourself going to prison,
Then you know you're staying until the very end—I'll speak more about that later on—
Especially true in the Prairies
Because
In the Prairies we know that we'd not see the light of day until our time was served and then some.
Short timers know that without a doubt, they will be there until their stat release.
They know that it's useless to take programs because if you're native—
No, that's not what I want to say—when—
When you're native, taking programs counts as nothing,
Nothing at all to the parole board,
Counts as nothing to your parole officer,
Counts as nothing to anyone working inside of CSC,
Counts as nothing, nothing,
Except futility and the death of hope.
And that's the cruel joke—or maybe it's not a joke,
But the official “unofficial” narrative.
We know that's the point too.
We know that's the point of putting us there in droves.
We know that's the point of sending us to jail, to prison.
We know that's the point of keeping us there.
We know that's the point of the correctional system in this country.
The justice system's mission is to breed the ideal of futility in the native person.
Correctional services canada was mandated to
Eviscerate hope from the native spirit..
And to the native person in Canada,
Jail is just another word for genocide.
To the aboriginal person in Canada,
Incarceration is just another word for genocide.
To the Indian person in Canada,
Prison is just another word for genocide.
To the indigenous person in Canada,
Rehabilitation is just another word for residential school.
Take us from our families, just like residential schools.
Scatter us from our communities, just like adopting us out across the world in the sixties scoop.
Remove us from our culture, just like outlawing our cultural practices.
Dictate what culture we have access too, creating laws to say what we can practise,
How much culture, when and where and who with, just like the Indian agents.
Sell the lie of hope that if we take programs, we'll earn early freedom.
Sell the lie of life that if we behave, we'll earn early freedom.
Sell the lie that all prisoners are equal.
Sell the lie of being able to start over.
Sell the lie of getting out to something better than that which we were taken from.
Sell the lie, sell the lie, sell the lies.
When I was young, I looked at my life inside and wanted something different.
I said “I'm not going to die here.”
I said “I'm not going to end up like that grey-haired old man broken down, bent, and worn down here.”
“This isn't where I end.”
“This isn't where my story ends, finishes for me.”
When I was young, I knew I was messed up.
When I was a youth, I knew that I needed help.
I knew I'd never get out unless I did something to change.
I knew that if I wanted to leave, I didn't want to leave messed up.
I knew that I needed help and so I took what help was there.
And that help was useless.
And that help was worthless.
I took breaking barriers.
I passed through cognitive skills.
I worked through anger management.
I participated in anger and emotions management.
I took the ABC program and just like so many,
The list goes on for Indigenous offenders taking programming
That CSC and the parole board give but absolutely no one cares about.
So why take it at all?
Because if you don't, there really is no hope.
I was told when requesting breaking barriers that I was a lifer and it was denied to me.
So why participate at all?
Because if you don't, there is no chance.
I was told that I would not be given access to programming until my day parole eligibility.
So why try at all?
Because if we don't, we can't lie to ourselves and believe in hope.
I was told that short-timers received programming before lifers.
Why sit in programming?
Because we still had the illusion that it matters to.
I was told that I didn't need to worry about programming and that I was fine as I was,
that my time would come for programming in about eight years.
We as inmates start with the visceral cognitive phantasm of belief that yes it matters,
That it matters to anyone on that side of the table,
But it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter because the parole board doesn't care about our programming.
It doesn't matter because the parole board knows we're native and that the system will bring us right back.
Breach us and in we go again.
It doesn't matter because the system only exists as long as there are prisoners to put through it.
Native people are easy to breach because no one cares if we're in prison.
Because if we're all locked up, then no one has to feel guilty for stealing our land.
Because if we're all locked up then no one has to feel bad about small pox blankets;
No one has to worry about our land rights, our safe unsafe drinking water;
No one has to think about the sixties scoop children taken away because we were born native`;
No one has to feel a thing about the residential schools and the children molested there,
The children murdered there,
The children whose souls were ripped from them,
The children whose spirits were leeched away until they were husks sent back to the reserve.
It doesn't matter, because if we're locked up,
No one has to feel bad about anything sacred taken from us.
It doesn't matter if we take programs; it doesn't matter because no one cares about criminals.
And it doesn't matter because
That's what the system does: it makes entire generations of my people criminal,
And therefore in the eyes and hearts of mainstream non-indigenous society,
Worthless,
Good for nothing criminals that no one wants to associate with,
Or look upon,
Give a job to,
Give a chance to,
Or respect the rights of, because once upon a time,
We went to prison,
And therefore forfeited all rights of belonging to humanity evermore.
The system is wielded against my people as a weapon of genocide far more effective than residential schools,
Because it's made the average citizen think of natives as criminals first and foremost,
Because that is the lie being sold to the people of this country.
So that brings us to accessing mental health services,
And all I can say here is this:
They aren't given access because non-indigenous offenders are given priority,
Even in the Prairies where up to 75% of the inmates are indigenous.
Then again there's never enough psychologists in any given prison to begin with,
And this is who you have decided to entrust the psychological well-being of the convicts to:
Overworked, underqualified people, who by default are set up by the system to fail.
Those are the people you call mental health services,
And they can't help you in prison,
Because they don't know what it is that you're dealing with,
Because they only imagine the horror and torment that you face every day,
Most of it from the prison staff, the guards that hold all your rights in their hands.
They can strip you of those rights, any time, anywhere.
They can physically strip you any time; they can deny you everything.
They can beat you to unconsciousness on a whim; evidence and reason can be and is manufactured,
And that is a daily occurrence in prison.
Then there is the hostility of 1,000 men or more living in a confined space,
Who are angry for being there,
Who are resentful for being there,
Who grew up in abusive homes,
Who grew up with families and role models that failed them,
Failed to teach them right from wrong.
And then you have the indigenous prisoner who more than likely was
Arrested because they were native,
Charged because they were native,
And/or grew up in abusive homes because their parents and grandparents survived residential school,
Who became, because of that, role models without any idea of how to be a positive role model,
Who instead found themselves outsiders in their own homes,
Their own communities,
Because they spoke white,
Because they only thought white,
Because that's what was beaten into them.
And those beatings taught them to beat their children in order to teach those children
How to be healthy-minded, loving people.
And so the genocidal cycle of how to kill off the native people
Was reincarnated whole, as prison
And generations of indigenous people have found themselves
Growing up in youth prisons,
Graduating to adult prison,
Where they are surrounded by non-indigenous jailers.
Where they are cut off from culture, from people,
Where everyone around them that they are forced to live with are resentful,
Angry, frustrated, confused, full of bitterness and rage, and hatred,
And
With no access to adequate mental health resources,
With outdated programming designed by social workers that have never been to prison,
Social workers who had angry citizens in mind when they designed those breaking barriers programs,
Those cognitive skills, anger management and a myriad of programming just like those,
Because in prison you do have time to count backwards from 20 in a hostile situation to deal with your anger, your emotions—
No, actually, you don't.
Because in prison the situations covered in those programs really do apply to prison reality—
Again, no, they don't.
And if you're native in the Prairies or anywhere else in Canada,
You find yourself at the end of the line waiting for those mental health services,
And you have to wait so very long to gain access,
Access that non-indigenous prisoners have from the beginning.
I'm a bit frustrated with knowing all this for having lived it.
I'm no longer bitter about it, though.
I'm no longer seething about it.
I got out on my own terms, and I had some very vital help,
Not from CSC; no, Correctional Services Canada had very little to do with my getting out,
With my becoming the person I am now.
Instead I did all of that with a lot help from my friends out here,
Who guided me, who taught me how to be human.
I also wasn't one of those indigenous people that shouldn't have been arrested.
No, I am guilty of my crime and I live with that and will always hold that close to me.
It gives me strength when life out here gets hard and depressing for it can be so much so,
Guilt and the need to do better, to be better, to be more than just a survivor.
In getting out I learned some things about the system,
About how to succeed out here.
I learned that you see the world as you saw it when you last saw it.
If you went in when you were 18,
Then you see the world again through the memory of your 18-year-old eyes,
And you see it through the mind of the 35-year-old getting out,
And somehow those two perceptions need to harmonize and find their balance.
No one talks about that,
Because no one knows about it.
I learned that I had PTSD,
And so does everyone else, to some degree or another, when they get out.
It's from always being on edge, always on guard, always waiting for something to happen.
No one talks about that,
Because no one knows about it.
There once was a system in place for lifers, those convicted of murder, for when they were released.
LifeLine it was called and needs to be once more.
LifeLine provided employment for about a hundred or so lifers on parole.
Their job: to help lifers reintegrate back into society.
Lifers are uniquely qualified to aid other lifers in getting out of prison,
Because they know exactly what those being released are going through,
What the new parolee will go through.
It was a far more useful program for rehabilitation and reintegration than anything else.
And what of lifers?
Why should they be given such a chance at employment?
Why should they be given such positions of trust?
Why should they have such authority and sometimes autonomy?
Because unlike all other convicts, only lifers have to go through years of psychological testing,
Years of proving time and time again that they have changed,
Years of reports and assessments from every aspect of their prison life,
Before they are even given a chance to begin reintegration.
They have to take the programs.
They have to pass them too.
They have to be model prisoners.
They have to be role models.
They have to prove again and again in every situation that they will not commit a crime again.
Short-timers don't have to do anything and they will just get out.
Also, if you're indigenous as a short-timer, it still doesn't matter if you take the programming,
You're still going to remain inside prison until your stat.
Only lifers have to prove over time that they have truly changed.
And change is what it's about.
So let's pretend for a moment that programs work and are of real value for being relevant.
If that were the case,
The system will need many more people qualified to run them,
Truly qualified to run them.
Those programs need to be created for prisoners,
To address prison-related situations.
And for indigenous prisoners, that means making them culturally appropriate.
I don't mean just slapping feathers and medicine wheels throughout the workbooks;
I mean actually culturally appropriate in a societal context:
Inuit programming for Inuits, Métis for Métis, first nations for first nations,
And taught by their people,
Not just by indigenous program facilitators either,
With our medicine people along with those indigenous facilitators,
With our elders, be those elders Métis, Inuit or first nations.
There is power in the voice and the person that teaches the way
These programs need to be offered to all indigenous prisoners from the get-go.
Nothing is gained by waiting.
Indigenous lifer's need to be taking part in an indigenous lifeline program:
Métis for Métis, Inuit for Inuit and first nations for first nations.
And the Elders need to be involved in these programs.
The actual communities need to be involved in these programs.
If you hold a program for indigenous prisoners about healthy living and healthy relationships,
Then you need to have those relationships take part.
Wives and husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends, teens and children take part,
Because this all begins where it all began—with the children, with the child the prisoner was.
If you create a healing lodge for indigenous prisoners, then you need to let the community run it:
Indigenous programming for indigenous people by indigenous people,
And provide the community with the training to do so properly, efficiently, effectively.
Elders need to be community-based elders.
That means a community of indigenous people recognize the person to be an elder,
Which means CSC needs to absolutely end the practice of creating
Elders themselves.
You have no right to do so.
CSC has no right to do so.
That is spiritual appropriation and a form of gas-lighting abuse.
The community will tell you who is an elder—the community.
Indigenous society is built this way.
Indigenous philosophy is built this way.
Nothing we do, have done, will ever do is without the community,
Without the relationships we have in our circles of life,
Because we are all connected, because of this land,
Because we are all related, in spirit.
Kim Pate Senator
Thank you. I'll take a minute to let all that sink in.
I want to apologize. As you may know, I have just come from the endodontist and have had a root canal, so I'll try not to drool all over my papers and to be as articulate as possible.
I want to start by acknowledging that we are on the unceded territory of the Algonquin people.
I've spent the better part of the last four decades going into, but most importantly, unlike Mr. Freeland, being able to freely walk out of prisons, first for young people, then for men, and for the last 25 or 26 years, for women. The impact of colonization on indigenous peoples in this country is painfully obvious. I think Mr. Freeland has very succinctly expressed the whole complexity of that, so I won't try to in any way reframe that.
I'd like to talk a bit about what is possible with the current legislation and what's possible for your committee as well as the committees in the Senate that are looking at this issue. It's important to know that the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, when it was introduced, was part of a human rights legislative scheme. It was seen as human rights legislation, a primary component and objective of which—if you go back and read Hansard from this place and also the other place—was to de-incarcerate in particular indigenous people, but more generally to reduce the numbers of people in prison. This was started with the Daubney report and resulted in the CCRA being developed as legislation that was aimed from the get-go, from section 4 right through, at getting people out.
I want to talk about a few of the sections that have been not just underutilized but developed along policy lines by the Correctional Service of Canada in ways that absolutely restrict the legislative intent of those provisions.
In particular, I want to talk about section 29, which allows for the transfer of people out of prisons into health and other facilities, particularly those who have physical health issues. This could also apply, and has been applied, to those with mental health issues. There are exchange-of-services agreements between the Correctional Service of Canada and all of the provinces and territories. Primarily though, these are around emergent physical health types of care. There need to be agreements in place for mental health care.
The first thing you'll hear back from Corrections is that they've tried to do that but that there are inadequate services in the community. That's partially true and partially not true.
I have been in discussion with some of the same health services that the Correctional Service of Canada has been in touch with, and I'm told that the stall is on the federal side. You will hear from the Correctional Service of Canada that the problem is on the provincial and territorial side.
I don't pretend to tell you exactly where the problem lies. I do know that with an investment of the resources that are currently being used to jail people, those resources could be in place in provincial and territorial settings to provide mental health services, which I dare say would benefit not just those who are in prison right now but also those who might face prison, or the community as a whole.
In addition, there is section 76, which requires Corrections to actually develop from the day someone enters prison—and I'll just underscore here what the Auditor General said in chapter 5 of the most recent report released this week. They're supposed to be working on developing community release plans so that everything about what's happening with the individual in prison is designed to assist them to ultimately integrate into the community in a way that's safe for the community, for themselves, and for others.
Section 77 requires that the Correctional Service of Canada consult with and involve women's groups and those who have expertise. This was because of the start of the influx of women into the system at the time that the CCRA was coming into effect, something which, as I'm sure Ms. Gentile has already covered, continues to this day. In fact, it's the women, particularly indigenous women and women with mental health issues, and if they all intersect, they are the fastest-growing prison population. Section 77 hasn't been fully implemented.
Section 80 requires the same for indigenous communities. There is supposed to be consultation and involvement of indigenous communities.
Then we have sections 81 and 84, which I think you've already heard a bit about. Section 81 allows for individuals to serve their sentences in the community. Section 84 allows for individuals, particularly indigenous prisoners, to be conditionally released into the community.
If you look at those policies, you will see that, in fact, they have been severely restricted from what the legislation allows. The policies will indicate that only individuals at minimum security.... You heard from Claire Carefoot, who runs Buffalo Sage, earlier this week, I believe. She would talk about the fact that we need to see more of those institutions. I would encourage you to look at the legislation and what the legislators intended and recognize that part of the reason we haven't seen full implementation of those provisions, in my view, is that over the last couple of decades—it's 25 years since the legislation was introduced—very few indigenous communities have even known about those provisions, and if they did, they were told that they had to build institutions in order to implement them.
That is not accurate if you look at the legislation. It is accurate if you look at the policy decisions. In fact, anybody, at any level, including Mr. Freeland when he was in custody, could have been accepted into their community if their community applied to the Minister of Public Safety and requested to have a section 81 agreement. An agreement could be built and resources developed around the needs that Mr. Freeland himself, as he has very ably articulated, would have desired to participate in. That is not the way it's being characterized to indigenous communities and it's not the way the policy has been developed.
What Ms. Carefoot didn't tell you is when they first opened only the second healing lodge for women in the country, initially no indigenous women were qualified to go there. None of them had low enough security. None of them had access to the types of programs. In fact, they had to be reclassified in order to get indigenous women there. The corrections policies at various levels interfered with a very good intent to open one new facility, but then not have any women eligible to go there.
I commend to you the sections of the Auditor General's report that talk about the fact that from day one the classification system was problematic, and the manner in which individuals were able to access programs. We know from the most recent correctional investigator's report that more than half of the women who are classified as maximum security are indigenous women.
That is all part of the same trajectory. As Mr. Freeland has articulated, part of that stems from the static factors that exist in most indigenous people's lives. Remember, it was only in 1990 that Mr. Justice Cawsey in Alberta did a review of the number of men—he didn't look at women—who had been in the criminal justice system, and found that 90% of the indigenous men who reached the age of 30 had criminal records. We're talking about vast overrepresentation.
The other issues that are identified are a lack of adequate grievance processes and complaint processes, a lack of access to justice, period, and lack of oversight. In terms of security classifications, in 2004 and 2005, the Correctional Service of Canada actually hired someone to look at the classification scheme for women in particular. They hired a woman named Dr. Moira Law. When she came back a year later with a recommendation to start all women prisoners at minimum security, which she determined after she had interviewed staff, prisoners, and outside individuals, including the correctional investigator, it was never implemented. Yet, in the response to the Auditor General's report, the Correctional Service of Canada says they will now be undertaking a review. They have excellent research at their hands that they have never completely implemented.
As I know my time is near a close, finally, I would like to propose that this place and this committee, or presumably this committee, and the Senate committee jointly conduct oversight reviews at least on an annual basis. The correctional investigator reports to the Minister of Public Safety and the report is then tabled in Parliament. We need judicial oversight, but in the interim, in order to ensure that the legislative mechanisms and intent are both adhered to and implemented, I would propose that we look at a mechanism whereby all parties and a cross-House and cross-chamber committee could actually look at that kind of oversight on an annual basis.
I look forward to your questions.
Liberal
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you.
I want to thank all three witnesses for being here today.
Elizabeth Fry Societies, I just want to acknowledge and thank you for the work you've done for decades with women in corrections. You don't get thanked enough for all the work you do. You really do make a difference in women's lives and are very seldom acknowledged for that, so thank you.
Mr. Freeland, thank you for sharing your story. I could tell how difficult it was for you to share that with us. Thank you.
Senator Pate, I know you've been a tireless advocate on this issue since long before you were in the Senate.
I guess what we're trying to do here is come up with some solutions. Senator Pate, you've given us a few.
One of you, and I think it was you, Ms. Gentile, mentioned something about elders being on contract. I wonder if you could expand on that. If that's not the system that does work, what should we be doing in terms of having elders working in corrections?
Director, Advocacy and Legal Issues, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
Sitting beside Neal here, I really feel that's a question which he's better placed to answer.
Director, Advocacy and Legal Issues, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
Go ahead, if you feel so inclined, Neal.
As an Individual
Elders in prison started out with actual elders from the community being paid by CSC to come in and be the elder for convicts, both men and women. I think around the early 2000s that policy changed, or that had changed internally within CSC, and elders were no longer approached by CSC. Instead these roles were advertised as jobs. If you're a native person, any native person, any age, you could be hired by CSC and be called an elder and get a paycheque and be the elder.
That's not how indigenous people, Métis, Inuit, and first nations, pick an elder or recognize an elder. Elders are community members who know the teachings, know the medicines, know the stories, know the language, more often than not, and have years, if not decades, of experience within the community as a spiritual adviser, a medicine healer, maybe a pipe carrier, a sweat lodge runner—
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
One of the things that our government did was invest a significant amount of money in the last budget into working with communities, with community development officers. I think those communities have to include both urban and on-reserve settings. Not everyone is going to return to their reserves. They may have been gone from the reserves for quite some time.
I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on the impact of those investments that we're making and if there's more needed.
Go ahead, Senator Pate.
Senator
On Friday, I was in the Fraser Valley Institution for Women to meet with a number of women serving life sentences and the elders. There was a gathering.
The elders reminded us that there are three main components that everybody needs to get out and to be successful. One is a community of support. I think that's true. We all need a community of support. Another is having something to do that is meaningful, and hopefully it's something that you can also get paid for; if you don't get paid for it, then you need some income. Another component is safe, stable housing.
That was one piece. A number of the elders.... In fact, the first elders going into the prisons when I was working in the prisons weren't paid. They came from communities because their community members were in prison, and so effective were the interventions that in fact, as Neal said, Corrections saw the benefit for indigenous prisoners in particular, but also for other prisoners. Often, the brotherhood and sisterhood would welcome others.
Even then, those elders said that what they really needed was to be able to bring people out, back to their communities. I recently had some discussions with some communities who said that section 81 and section 84 agreements may work best if we can also take people from other communities as a bridge to them going back to their own communities. I would be interested in Neal's perspective on this.
The example used was one community where someone was in for a life sentence for being involved in the death of another member of the community. The community felt that they wanted to work with that person, but they weren't ready for them to be right back in the community. They were negotiating with another community about whether the person could be paroled—it was actually an urban community with indigenous support from the friendship centre—and then have a transition.
It made me think that we haven't thought through all of the options and opportunities for how to do that, as Mr. Freeland has said, but part of the problem is coming from corrections, from the prisons out, and not from the community in—
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
We've heard that from the parole officers as well. Corrections is not going into the communities to try to work with people to have them come and work in....
I have a couple of quick questions. We heard that there should be a deputy commissioner for aboriginal offenders. We heard that the corrections investigators have been asking for that for a decade. Do you have a yes or no on that one?
Senator
It's hard for me to say yes or no. I would say that if we had a choice between that or implementing the TRC's call to action number 30, I would go with number 30, which is to start the decarceration strategies.
Senator
If it's required to have a deputy commissioner to do that, fine. I don't think it requires that, though.
Liberal
Director, Advocacy and Legal Issues, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
I agree.
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for their participation.
It's quite a complex issue We've had several meetings on the subject so far. The committee's first objective is to identify the conditions in which indigenous people are incarcerated and determine whether the indigenous population is overrepresented in comparison with other groups.
At the end of the day, crime is the problem that keeps coming up. A person is sent to prison because they have committed a crime.
As someone who isn't an expert in indigenous matters, I have a question. Do indigenous communities recognize the Criminal Code of Canada?
Ms. Pate, could you answer that question?
Senator
Thank you for the question. I'm going to answer in English, if you don't mind.
Absolutely, the Criminal Code is recognized, but law is a theory and who is determined to be criminal is largely dependent on who has the power to do so. The more someone is available and known to the state, the more they are likely to be also criminalized.
When I used to teach at the law school, I would talk about the fact that we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees equality, but never really delivers on that substantive equality. Then we have a Criminal Code that is said to apply equally. There's an old Anatole France quote—I can't remember it exactly—that neither the rich nor the poor are permitted to sleep under bridges or steal food. I think that epitomizes the issues we're talking about and why I mentioned the truth and reconciliation calls to action and the need for substantive equality. It's much easier for certain people, if they have mental health issues, or if they sometimes have good reason not to trust police when they haven't been protected.... We know from the missing and murdered indigenous women inquiry—