Public Safety Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

You talked about the RCMP coordination centre. Where will that be located? Is it in Ottawa?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I can't tell you, sorry.

No, I'm just kidding. Of course I can. It's in Ottawa.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

My next question is for Corrections Canada.

Earlier this week we had Dr. Zinger, who came in to speak to his annual report. I want to talk about his recommendation number 10. It says that, in consultation with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, CSC should review staffing to better reflect “the diversity of the offender population”. It also says, “CSC should examine complaints against staff on prohibited grounds of discrimination” and develop an action plan “to address gaps”.

Can you comment on what CSC is doing to do just that?

[Anne Kelly, Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada]

Certainly, we keep stats, complaints and grievances from offenders around those issues, and we follow up on them.

I don't know what in particular the OCI was referring to.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

It was about the staffing. Staffing should better reflect the diversity of the offender population, because there were, I believe.... I don't have the notes on me. For black inmates, the complaints were much higher than for some of the other inmates.

[Anne Kelly]

We're working hard at this because, as you know, both indigenous offenders and black offenders are represented in our institutions. As you know, indigenous offenders now have reached 30%. In terms of black offenders, it's 8%, as opposed to 4% in the Canadian population. For indigenous offenders, in terms of recruitment, we're going to the indigenous communities, speaking with them and changing the way we receive applications, because often they may not use technology. It's the same for recruiting black personnel as well. We're working hard at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to leave the answer there. Thank you.

Ms. Michaud, you have six minutes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to come back to the Parole Board of Canada because I didn't really get an answer earlier. Perhaps Ms. Lapointe could answer my question.

According to the poll that was conducted, 70% of parole officers say that they are unable to do their job properly.

What has been done about this? Will extra funding be added to ensure training and coordination for these officers?

[Anne Kelly]

I can answer that.

There are two types of parole officers: those working in institutions and those in the community.

This is how things work in institutions. The ratio is one officer for every 25 offenders in minimum security institutions, one for every 28 in medium security institutions, and one for every 30 in maximum security institutions.

For community parole officers, we use a resource allocation formula. This formula calculates the time these officers need to do their job, that is to draft reports, supervise offenders in the community—there are different models of supervision—and to travel to carry out this supervision. This tells us how many resources are required in the community. We work with our union partners and review the formula annually.

We want to establish a similar formula for parole officers working in institutions. We conducted a survey in collaboration with Statistics Canada. We are working on creating a formula that is similar to the one used for community officers.

As for training, parole officers have initial training of four and a half weeks. After that, all parole officers receive one week of training a year.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Do you plan on increasing this? I am under the impression that, in the case of Ms. Levesque's murder, there was a lack of community supervision for people on day parole.

Will more investments be made in this area?

[Anne Kelly]

We hope that will be the case. As you know, a joint committee was established to conduct an investigation. It will examine all the circumstances of this case and determine if policies were followed. There is the law, but also training. If more training was required, we will consider providing it.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Do you think this came about because of a lack of funds?

[Anne Kelly]

I would not say that. It is based on a resource allocation formula, which is reviewed every year together with our union partners.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

All right.

I will come back to what a witness told us last Tuesday. Several recommendations were made with respect to the Correctional Service of Canada. This witness talked about a fairly toxic climate and said that there were funds for this file, but that the priorities were not the right ones.

Could you tell me more about this?

[Anne Kelly]

I can categorically state that having a healthy and respectful culture and environment where there is no harassment is one of my personal priorities as the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada. I will also tell you that a great deal of work has been done in that regard, and I can give you many examples.

The Auditor General made recommendations. We now have a comprehensive national strategy, which will be finalized by the end of March. We also conduct a respect campaign divided into themes, during which our managers receive training on how to have difficult conversations with employees.

We presented our first report on the work climate and employee well-being to establish a point of reference. We intend to present these reports annually. We set up discussion groups across the country, precisely to speak to employees. Personally, I have chaired two of these groups. A great deal of work was accomplished.

The national chairperson of our citizen advisory committees told me just two weeks ago that she had noticed a change in the service's culture. That said, it is a large organization with 18,000 employees. It takes time.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

In concrete terms, you believe that public awareness and prevention campaigns and perhaps more training could change the current climate. We can therefore hope that the next Auditor General's report will attest to these results.

[Anne Kelly]

I hope so.

Our external partners are telling us that they have noticed changes. We are working very hard on this issue because our staff does the work. They must have a healthy and respectful environment.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

Mr. Harris, you have six minutes, please.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Kelly, I was listening to your comments, and also looking at the Auditor General's report. The Auditor General does not describe a respectful, healthy climate at Corrections Canada.

You may be making changes now, but the fact of the matter is that, in the Auditor General's report, nearly half of the employees stated that they felt they would fear reprisals if they made a complaint of harassment, discrimination or violence from another employee or from management. Half of the employees felt that there would be reprisals for doing that. As well, 60% said they had serious concerns about civility and respect in the workplace, and 67% felt that the organizational culture was a serious or significant concern.

That doesn't describe to me a healthy, respectful workplace for employees. This is not new. This has been reported for several years in a row. I really wonder how this is going to be fixed between now and March. That sounds very optimistic. Do you have enough money to do that?

You say you don't need any more resources for the parole service, yet the Office of the Correctional Investigator just told us last week that there was a 1:1 ratio of employees to offenders in the prison service, and on the parole side, a ratio of 1:6.5, or thereabouts. He felt that there were insufficient resources for parole.

Could you try to square some of these circles? I'm confused about how this healthy and respectful workplace has these kinds of problems described by the Auditor General.

[Anne Kelly]

I would start by saying that correctional work is challenging. We work in a complex environment with a sometimes difficult population. When people visit our institutions, they feel that the staff are dedicated; they're passionate, and their hearts are into the work they do.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Commissioner, I'm sorry to interrupt. It's a tough job, and I think we all accept that. What we're talking about here is workers and workers, and workers and management, the culture of the workplace.

There's an assurance that the department has a workplace free from bullying, harassment and sexual violence. My staff were talking about that. That's what I'd like you to focus on, if you might.

[Anne Kelly]

Okay. What I will say is that, in his news release of February 18, the OCI himself acknowledged and was encouraged by the efforts under way across the service to create a more respectful and healthy workplace. This is what we're working really hard at doing.

In the latest public service employee survey, which was in 2019, the one thing I wanted to see was increased participation from staff in terms of responding to the survey. We saw that in the department. We also saw improvements, albeit small improvements. We saw a decrease of 6% in respondents indicating they had been harassed; an increase of 7% in respondents indicating their satisfaction with the quality of supervision they received; an increase of 3% in respondents who feel they can initiate a formal recourse process without fear of reprisal. As I said, we've put in place a number of initiatives to ensure that we have a safe and respectful workplace.

I mentioned the end of March. That was in terms of what the OAG recommended, which is a national comprehensive strategy for workplace wellness and employee well-being. The OAG recognized that CSC had undertaken many activities, but we didn't have an overall, overarching strategy. That's what we've been working on.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I'd say that an improvement of 6% in terms of lack of concern about reprisals would still leave you with 40% who are concerned.

Bear with me for a moment. If you've declared to this committee today that you already have a respectful, healthy culture at Correctional Service Canada, then that seems to contradict the needs that have been described and the fact that you need to have a comprehensive strategy to deal with that. You're not there yet, are you?

[Anne Kelly]

No, we're not there yet. What I'm saying is that for me it's a priority that we have a safe, healthy, respectful workplace. We have the report of the OAG, and the OCI has said some things. That's why we put in place a number of initiatives where we hope we'll see improvements in terms of a safe, healthy, respectful workplace at CSC. But yes, there is more work to be done.