Evidence of meeting #34 for Public Safety and National Security in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was csc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
I was just going to say I think when they're tabled with the committee, they're normally public anyway, Chair, so we don't have a problem with that at all.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB
Chair, following all of that, I think that we still have outstanding motions we need to deal with, so can you confirm for us when will we do that next week and at which meeting?
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
That's an excellent question to which I don't have a very good answer.
Your intervention, as welcome as it might be, is probably not in order given that we are debating Mr. Harris's motion.
Are there any other interventions on the motion itself?
(Motion agreed to)
I would dearly love to get to these witnesses and maybe I'll have some clarification for your inquiry by this time next week or even earlier. I'd like to be able to have a work plan of some kind or another to deal with the various issues that are in front of us. We can undertake that, and I'm sure you'll hold my feet to the fire.
With that, with whatever time we have left, Mr. Clerk, I'm assuming that the witnesses are standing by.
I see Madam Coyle, Dr. Doob and Dr. Sprott.
We will have very limited time.
How much time do we have left, Mr. Clerk?
6:15 p.m.
The Clerk
We have until 7:10.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
It's 6:19 so we have roughly 50 minutes.
I think to be fair to the witnesses, who have been extremely generous and patient, that we ask them to make their presentations and then we'll have to figure out how we go to questions after that.
In no particular order, I see Dr. Sprott and Dr. Doob. I believe Dr. Sprott wishes to go first. I believe each of you is going to do four minutes.
Dr. Sprott, please, you have four minutes.
6:20 p.m.
Dr. Jane Sprott Professor, Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, As an Individual
Thank you very much for inviting us to speak to you about Correctional Service Canada's structured intervention units. To date, we have written four reports using CSC's data on the operation of these new SIUs. Before highlighting any of our findings, it's important to know from the outset that none of what we found could predominantly be attributed to COVID. These issues [Technical difficulty—Editor]
6:20 p.m.
Professor, Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, As an Individual
Have I frozen?
6:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
You froze. I'm sorry.
You are unfrozen now. Perhaps you could just back up, say, 30 seconds and go from there, please.
6:20 p.m.
Professor, Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, As an Individual
Absolutely.
To date we have written four reports using CSC's data. None of our findings can be predominantly attributed to COVID. It's important to understand that these problems are pre-existing.
In our first report, released almost eight months ago now, we identified some very serious issues. While there is enormous provincial variation or regional variation—
6:20 p.m.
Professor, Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, As an Individual
Oh, no. Am I back?
6:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
You're back in the land of the virtual.
My suggestion would be to go over to Dr. Doob.
I'll try to come back to you, and by some magic or another, maybe you won't freeze quite so often.
Dr Doob, we'll give you four minutes.
6:20 p.m.
Dr. Anthony Doob Professor Emeritus, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Excellent. Thank you.
The presentation from Professor Sprott was really to give you an overview of some of the findings we had in the four reports that we wrote using Correctional Service of Canada data. Rather than describing what she, I hope, will be able to describe, I'd like to concentrate on the issue of the oversight of our system of solitary confinement.
One body said to be providing oversight are the independent external decision-makers, or IEDMs. In our fourth report, we document, using CSC data, that there are prisoners who are ordered by the IEDMs to be released from SIUs but who remain in SIUs for at least 61 days after their case is referred for review. We report that there are others who have been in SIUs for long periods of time without review.
As you know, if you look carefully at stays in SIUs, you will see that many of the stays fall into internationally recognized categories of solitary confinement and torture. I find it disturbing that in Canada we could have a discussion of why the rate of torture in CSC facilities in the Pacific region is so much higher than in Ontario. I never thought that in my career as a criminologist I would be comparing torture rates in institutions under the control of the Government of Canada. This is happening while oversight is being provided by these external decision-makers.
Let's talk about another form of oversight. I chaired the SIU implementation advisory panel that was established in mid-2019. We were a volunteer panel. In order to get an overview of what was happening, we asked CSC in November 2019, before the SIUs were to open, to provide us with certain administrative data that they routinely collect. In February 2020 we were told that CSC might not give us this data. No adequate justification was given. Only when the panel released its first and only report in August 2020, after its mandate had expired, did anything happen. To his credit, Minister Blair at that point apparently told CSC to provide me with the data that the panel had requested. By then the panel did not exist.
Professor Sprott and I received this data on September 30, 2020. We went to work finding out what this data told us about the operation of the SIUs. We provided a draft of our report to CSC for comment 16 days later. We released it publicly at the end of October. Professor Sprott, if she is able to get back on, will tell you some of the findings.
In our report, we were influenced by a statistician who suggested that in policy areas like this, the motto should be, “In God we trust. All others must bring data.” Our four reports total 111 pages and contain 87 tables of data, most of which provide details of the serious problems in the operation of the SIUs. We trust the data. We're skeptical of those in CSC who question the validity of our research findings, which are based on CSC data, when these same people fail to provide any evidence of their own. We need to have adequate oversight of CSC's operations of the SIUs.
Let's consider the basis for the decisions made by these IEDMs. They are almost completely dependent on CSC's accounts of individual cases. We have at this point no information about what they base their decisions on, or even what information they are given by CSC. We're not criticizing the IEDMs as individuals. It's a problem of the structure in which these people are being required to make decisions.
We also know that there is significant and substantial variability in the pattern of decisions made by these independent decision-makers. You are much more likely to be ordered to be released from the SIU by some of these IEDMs than by others. Our fourth report provides a substantial amount of data demonstrating that the IEDM system is not adequate. We also need broader oversight of penitentiaries to determine whether solitary confinement is being practised elsewhere in the institutions, not just in the SIUs.
Remember, solitary confinement is a practice, not a place. Our prisons are—
6:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Can I interrupt? You have roared past the four minutes, and I apologize.
Should we go back to Dr. Sprott?
6:25 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Yes, let's do that.
6:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We will get her properly started and hopefully not frozen. The tech team said something about closing a bunch of apps. I just got a note. It says here that your connection is good, but they are asking you to close as many apps as possible.
Anyway, this is called multi-tasking, Dr. Sprott. I'll ask you to do four minutes, please.
6:25 p.m.
Professor, Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, As an Individual
Sure. I can be quicker than that. I'll pick up from where Professor Doob was talking about some of the disturbing findings that we have found.
In our third report, released almost four months ago, we found that 28% of stays in these SIUs fell within the internationally defined Nelson Mandela Rules as solitary [Technical difficulty—Editor]
6:25 p.m.
Conservative
6:25 p.m.
Professor, Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, As an Individual
Perfect. I'll do that.
Another 10% of these stays constituted what would be internationally described as torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This means that, overall, 38% of SIU stays can be described as being solitary confinement or torture.
I'm not sure if that perhaps requires repeating, but in Canada, 38% of SIU stays would be internationally defined as solitary confinement or torture.
You might have thought, when calculating [Technical difficulty—Editor]
6:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Okay, here we go again.
I see you are frozen. The best way to handle this is going to Ms. Coyle and asking her for her seven minutes, and, because we are under time pressure here, we'll ask you to respond to questions as they arise.
Ms. Coyle, you have seven minutes.
