Public Safety Committee on June 21st, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I call the meeting to order.

This is the 37th meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. It is a study on the current situation in federal prisons in relation to the Correctional Service of Canada.

I apologize for cutting the witnesses short last time, and it looks like we might cut the witnesses short this time. As you can see, we're waiting for votes, and I may ask for the indulgence of colleagues to gain as much time as possible out of this portion of the meeting.

With that, we're going to turn to Ms. Stubbs for six minutes.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, I hope we'll be able to hear more from all of the witnesses. The testimony at the last meeting was very compelling and in some cases extremely troubling and disturbing.

I note that Jeff Wilkins, the head of the union for correctional officers, didn't get any opportunity to answer questions last time. I'm going to focus on some questions for him in my time, and I hope that everybody else will also be able to speak during this meeting.

Mr. Wilkins, I'm wondering if you wanted to explain for us laymen and for Canadians who might be watching what the are differences between solitary confinement and administrative segregation, with a specific focus on prisoner and correctional officer safety, and if you want to expand on any comments on whether or not, in your experience, solitary confinement impacts or either improves or worsens an offender's chance for rehabilitation.

[Jeff Wilkins, National President, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers]

I see solitary confinement and administrative segregation—or what was formerly administrative segregation—as two different things. Administrative segregation, for the majority of cases in the populations across the country, was at the behest or the request of the inmates.

We have what's called “protective custody”, and a lot of the arrangements under the administrative segregation were for protective custody. We have inmates who can't associate with the general population for various reasons; it could be that they owe debts to the general population and they're fearing for their own safety. They're put into a population where they can essentially be separated from the general population.

During what was formerly administrative segregation, they of course have time for recreation outside their cell; they have time to get outside of their cell to do that. They have meetings with health care every day. They have meetings with elders, for example. In some cases, they continue to take programming inside of the former administrative segregation.

Of course, it's a more restricted environment. For the most part, the reason is that we are dealing with people who are dangerous. Some of the movement protocols that we need to hold inside those segregation units are for the officers' safety. They're for staff safety and the inmates' safety. It's to protect them against other inmates, to protect them against themselves in some cases, and of course to protect the staff who are working in there.

Again, I see administrative segregation and solitary confinement as two things. When I think of solitary confinement, which we've never had in Canada—in my career, I should say—you're thrown into the hole, you turn the lights off and you get a tray thrown in at you for some food. That's not the way things work. They have access to telephones. They have access to their PlayStation. They have access to TVs. They have access to everything that everybody else does. It's just that they need to be separated for their own safety or for others'.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you.

I know that a John Howard report has said that solitary confinement has been used as a means of population control in chronically overcrowded prisons. Have you or any of your members observed that?

[Jeff Wilkins]

I'm a little unsure as to what is meant by “population control”, to be frank. Of course, it is a population management strategy when we're talking about segregation, for the reasons that I have indicated already—for the protection of the inmate and the protection of others—but I'm not really sure that I understand what you're meaning there, Mrs. Stubbs.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Okay. I'm sure that there will be other opportunities later in the meeting for this to be expanded on.

Chair, how much time do we have? I want to get to this quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have about one and a half minutes left.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Wilkins, on the issue of the management of COVID-19 in correctional institutions—because this is part of the motion—I wonder if you want to let people know what the experience has been like for your members, for staff and for offenders in penitentiaries over the past year. Also, do you have any comments in terms of the vaccination pilot program and the ways in which that was done for correctional officers and support staff within institutions, as well as for offenders?

[Jeff Wilkins]

I said in my opening comments in our previous meeting that the Correctional Service of Canada and the work my members do are often overlooked by society. People don't think about what happens once somebody goes into an institution and is outside of regular society.

COVID-19 has been detrimental to the way we have had to do business. As I said in my opening comments, the ironic thing is that what stops the spread of this virus is that we isolate from one another, we separate ourselves from our neighbours and we don't go into public spaces. That is exactly what happens when you're in the institution. It just goes to further isolate our inmate population, because the recreation they could be having in the evening shifts is not available. The gymnasium is not open and their visitors are not allowed to come. Of course there are restrictions that are—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there.

Mr. Fisher, you have six minutes, please.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll stick with Mr. Wilkins as well. To the other folks who are here today to provide us their level of expertise, welcome.

Mr. Wilkins, CSC has taken an awful lot of measures during COVID. I know that unions were very much a part of a collaborative process to make decisions about sites and things like that. This led to significantly few deaths, disturbances and outbreaks, more so than in some other countries.

What would you say has worked well, and why has it worked so well?

[Jeff Wilkins]

I think that Canada in general, and of course the CSC, was highly unprepared for COVID-19. When it first struck our institutions—the first institution was Port-Cartier in the Quebec region—it spread like wildfire. We know that because of the proximity of the inmates and the staff to one another in those confined environments, as soon as the disease gets into the institution, it thrives.

It became very evident that to solve these problems, the bargaining agents were going to need to be consulted. We were going to have to come to some agreements on how we were going to change the operations, because sometimes operations and routines that are ingrained in my membership are a hard dime to turn on. We've been doing them for years and years. Routine is very important.

Of course, all of our focus became about how we could keep the virus at bay. The very first thing we needed to do was close the borders to our institutions to outside visitors or staff who weren't essential to the workplace. I do believe that was the very first step in trying to mitigate some of the spread in our institutions, but once it gets hold, the spread happens so quickly. We have had some serious outbreaks across the country in every region, except for the Atlantic regions.

I'm not sure I answered the question.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

The Atlantic region is, of course, the region I'm from. Thank you for that.

More generally, can you speak to some of the operational realities or challenges that correctional officers face when dealing with offenders in an SIU?

[Jeff Wilkins]

In the SIU, we know that there is still the reality that the mixture between inmates can't happen. They can't belong in the general population and there are reasons that they can't associate with one another. There's a lot of analysis done to make sure that inmates who are recreating with one another can do so. The operational reality is that it's hard to make the movement and the types of routines that are needed in the SIU—and I say “needed”—happen in the run of a day.

Back in November, we did a survey of our membership to find exactly what the problems were. Staffing was an issue. We needed more staffing. Infrastructure was an issue. In order to make the recreation happen between different populations, for example, we needed different yards, more yards.

The operational reality in terms of COVID has been that things have slowed down quite substantially, as they have across Canada. For example, it's very difficult to have meaningful contact with chaplains who aren't coming into the institution.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Chair, do I have another minute?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have two minutes.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I want to talk about the training correctional officers receive. There's a presumption there's lots of training. Is there uptraining, retraining, modernized training on a regular basis?

Maybe you could tell me a bit about that. I had a conversation one time with a paramedic. He said, “I get retrained all the time on this, this and this, but I've never had retraining on mental health, for instance, in 20 years as a paramedic.”

Could you talk about modernizing training, uptraining, retraining and things like that?

[Jeff Wilkins]

Absolutely. One of the biggest initiatives we saw over the past few years was the road to mental readiness training that came out. It was mandatory training for all staff at CSC. It is more of a preparedness for mental health and for recognizing the importance of mental health among staff and inmates.

Coming out of COVID-19, the biggest plague that is going to impact many departments, but CSC in particular, is mental health. To be honest, so many more resources need to be dedicated for the mental health of not only the inmate population but of the staff members who are working there. What we've seen over the course of 15 or 16 months has just been unprecedented. Our members are burnt. They need recognition and they need help.

The more resources we could dedicate to training.... Really, there is no ongoing yearly training for mental health. It was that road to mental readiness. We do receive suicide prevention training, which is not exactly the in-depth analysis we need to make when it comes to mental health. Certainly more can be done in that area.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you to all witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here. I am very grateful to them.

I missed your opening remarks. Unfortunately, I had to be somewhere else. I'm sure they were very interesting. I'm going to continue with some questions anyway. Actually, I'm going to continue in the same vein as my colleague Mr. Fisher, with respect to the unions. I will address Mr. Wilkins first.

I'd like to know what challenges your union members have faced since the pandemic began. You mentioned staffing, infrastructure and space issues. Are those challenges still ongoing?

In what ways has Correctional Service Canada supported you? Have your requests been heard?

[Jeff Wilkins]

Just to be clear, Mr. Chair, are we speaking directly about SIUs, or just in general?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Can you clarify that, Madame Michaud?

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

You can talk about it in general.

[Jeff Wilkins]

One of the biggest things that has happened during the course of this pandemic has been staffing crises.

We've had many outbreaks across the country. As I said in my opening comments, to date around 450 of our members have contracted COVID-19 in the course of this pandemic. We have a membership of only around 6,500 to 6,800 who report to work, so that represents a huge percentage. For the most part, because we are going in to the workplace every single day, and have been, the infection has been as a result of work.

With contact tracing, trying to keep the virus at bay, keeping it out of the institution, and keeping people at home who may be been exposed to the virus, our staffing in some cases has been reduced by up to 70%. When that happens, of course, we're now talking about people being forced to stay in the workplace after their shifts are over.

Forced overtime last summer was a reality across the country. It got to the point where our members, in order to take some needed time off, were afraid to take a day off, because they didn't want somebody else to be stuck in the workplace.

It's just a constant cycle of a downward spiral when it comes to physical and mental health. That has been a huge reality. There's the genuine fear of going in to the workplace, knowing that COVID-19 is there and thinking about the possibility of bringing it home to the family. Members have been hospitalized because of COVID-19. Members have gone home from the workplace and infected their families.

On several occasions we had public health measures specifically dictated for our membership: You are to go to work; you're not to stop for gas on your way home from your shift; you're not to stop at the grocery store; when you get home, you need to isolate away from your family so that you can report to work the next day. These types of things have led to, I would say, the biggest morale problem that we've ever seen in the CSC.

I know you missed my opening comments, so I will say again that there has been no recognition of the sacrifices—and I will use the term “heroes”—made by our members during the course of this pandemic.