Public Safety Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2020

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you very much, Dr. Zinger, for being with us here this evening and sharing your wisdom and experience. Thank you for your report as well. As I read through it, I sensed your frustration in observing what appears to be a pattern of inaction by the minister on a number of issues, which I'll get to in a minute.

First I want to thank you for your contribution to the very important national discussion about medical assistance in dying. As you know, this passed second reading in Parliament last week. It's been sent to the justice committee for review. I just want to know what your thoughts are on that, and whether you think that a parliamentary review should be undertaken before we pass any legislation, and, importantly, whether you would be willing to come to that committee to give evidence. I think you have something valuable to contribute.

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Thank you.

I would be delighted to put forward two amendments to that bill. My expertise is not infinite, but there are two things that I think are important to at least hear, which are some of the concerns in my office.

The first one is simply that the procedure of MAID should never happen in a penitentiary. I think that's a no-no. I don't think any country in the world does that. This is about shortening the life of an individual by the state in a prison setting. The optics are terrible.

What should happen in the best-case scenario is that those who are ill and meet the criteria should be very promptly released under community supervision and while on parole make those decisions in dignity and respect. This should be consistent with the legislative criteria. If that's not possible and the person is still in prison and the release is not possible, then in these exceptional cases the procedure could be, and has been, done in a civilian or a community hospital.

The second one is that the Correctional Service should investigate those cases. Right now there's an exception. I don't know how that exception went into the existing law. It means that they don't have to investigate. If they don't investigate, I don't even get notified.

When there's a death in custody or the death of a parolee, my office gets notified. Now, I don't even get notified. Of the deaths from MAID—there have been four MAID cases so far—three were done in the community. We reviewed two out of the three. I had some grave concerns with the two that we reviewed out of the three.

I think it's important to continue that. For example, if an individual who is seeking MAID and meets the criteria dies, it doesn't mean it wasn't premature, in the sense that if the Correctional Service provided terrible medical services, it should not learn from those mistakes.

Those are some of the concerns I have.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you for that.

I mentioned that there was a tone of frustration in your report. I'm going to turn to a topic that was asked about by previous speakers. It's what is clinically called SCV, or sexually coerced violence.

I understand that the minister has had this report in his hands since June of this year, and here it is November 2. We finally got a letter from him; I just received it today. It was addressed to Mr. McKay, our Chair, saying that this committee should study this report.

This is after three meetings of this committee getting together to determine what our priorities were. The minister could have had this letter to us a week, a month or two months ago.

Sorry; that's not a question. It's just a comment.

I want to follow up—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have about 20 seconds left, unfortunately.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

It's a quick question.

It's a question that Madame Michaud asked about referencing the Prison Rape Elimination Act in the United States. How effective was that in stemming the problem there?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That is an important question, Dr. Zinger. Unfortunately, Mr. Van Popta has left you no time to answer it. Regretfully, I will have to move on.

It's now Madam Khera's turn. You have five minutes, please.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Dr. Zinger, first and foremost, for being here, and for all the incredible work that you and your team do every single year. I could truly feel your frustration for sure with the Correctional Service of Canada.

As a committee, we have been very clear in terms of pushing. We have the CSC coming before us in our next meeting an hour from now. We will certainly be talking about your report. Your report truly shines a very unfortunate light into the corrections facilities and the realities that we have here in Canada.

I was certainly appalled to learn the facts about your investigation into sexual coercion and violence in federal corrections. Certainly I did not know about that. There isn't a specific preventive strategy for incidents of sexual violence, especially for those who are the most vulnerable.

One of the problems that you talked about is under-reporting. Can you talk a bit about what can be done to promote safe and efficient reporting for those crimes?

I'll give you time for the example that I know you wanted to share earlier.

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Certainly, you have to create an environment within the prison setting where it's not so hard to disclose what happens. Right now, there are so many risks and disincentives that the disclosure just doesn't happen, so it's very grossly under-reported.

We know that in society at large it's an issue. We know that the research suggests that only about 5% of sexual assaults in the community are reported. The great majority just do not get reported.

You have to create an environment where disclosure is more likely to happen. How do you do that? You have to bring education forward for both staff and inmates. You have to do the training. You need to have a strategy to protect those who are more vulnerable and at risk of being victimized. You need to also have a strategy for the predators, to make sure that they don't just get shuffled around.

All that has to come, and you have to track incidents. You have to conduct those regular inmate surveys to ask them if they've been the target of sexual violence and coercion in the last six months, in the last year or ever.

Also, we have to remember that sexual coercion and violence are not just sexual assault. We're talking about sexual harassment, threats and sexual exploitation. All of these things fall under that caption. What we've seen is that the service has simply not done its homework in order to know what the prevalence is, and they can't respond to it because they don't know.

The Prison Rape Elimination Act is not the panacea. I'm sure that a Canadian version of it could be drafted to inspire best practices from their experience. They now have a commission based on that statute. They have a resource centre. They've drafted guidelines and best practices. All of this could be inspiring the drafters at the Department of Justice to do a bang-up job to have something that could effect change in the correctional system, and I think not doing it is problematic.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you for that.

Would you know of any other jurisdictions around the world—except the U.S.—that we could look at and that have the best strategies to prevent sexual coercion and violence in correctional facilities?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Certainly. I will tell you that Scandinavian countries are some of the most progressive countries in the world when it comes to corrections, so I would certainly look at them, but I would also look at some European countries. I'm sure my staff can provide you with some assistance there to point you in the right direction.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you for that, Madam Khera. You have 20 seconds left. Maybe we'll try to save it for some other future question.

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will continue on the same subject, namely coercion and sexual violence.

You reiterated that there is no single, accessible policy to guide how staff should act, no approach to detecting and reporting cases that occur, and no approach to managing victims and perpetrators alike.

If there is no single strategy at this time, what means are available to inmates when they are sexually assaulted in correctional facilities?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

You ask me what the current situation is.

We looked at the figures over a five-year period. During this period, about a dozen cases were reported each year, for a prison population of about 14,000 individuals. If we take into account the comings and goings of some inmates and the number of individuals who stayed in the penitentiaries during this period, we are talking about 20,000 people who stayed in the institutions, and only about a dozen cases were reported. The Correctional Service has investigated one-third of these cases internally, which means four or five cases per year. It was found that charges were laid, criminal suits were initiated, or some action taken in only 12% of these cases. This is extremely low. This suggests that there is a much more serious problem.

In 2007, the service conducted a survey of inmates but did not ask about violent sexual abuse. It asked a question about sexual activity, but did not ask whether or not it was consensual. Among men, 17% of the inmate population reported having engaged in sexual activity. In the female population, it was 31%. We know that this is part of the prison experience, but we do not know the extent of coercion and sexual violence in this environment.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

Mr. Harris, go ahead for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair. It's very dark.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

The lights have gone out on you, Mr. Harris.

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

The lights have gone out in the neighbourhood, and we just heard the loud sound of a transformer blowing up across the way. However, fortunately I have a battery-powered Surface Pro and wireless Internet, so I'm able to talk to you still.

Dr. Zinger, leaving all of that aside, I did start by asking you about what kind of preventive measures could be implemented, because I think what's important about sexual violence and sexual coercion is making sure it doesn't happen if you can possibly do that. Could you outline some of those preventive measures? I know you talked about some of them in response to Madam Khera, but would you just talk about them in terms of how they might prevent this type of thing from happening?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

You have to put strong policy in place. My annual report talked about legislation, but while legislation is developed, the Correctional Service of Canada can do a whole lot of things to try to prevent and detect and respond to sexual violence.

In terms of engaging with respect to education and awareness and programming and specific initiatives, it's about having a strong policy that makes it clear that those who are identified as being the most vulnerable will be looked after and protected and that predators will be flagged and tracked and managed appropriately. When you carry out investigations, those investigations should be mandatory and they should try to break down those things. In many ways it's about embarking on a dialogue in an era of Me Too or Time's Up when disclosure has become easy or easier. That's what the Correctional Service has to do. It has to make disclosure easier, and that means that staff have to be engaged on these issues and informed and willing to learn, and that the offender too has to break away from that infamous inmate code.

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

Thank you for that. That gives us some encouragement.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Harris. It was a very enlightened question.

With that, we have five minutes to be split between Mr. Motz and Mr. Van Popta.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Dr. Zinger, it seems unheard of that a report from an auditor general or a conflict of interest office would be ignored, but it seems very much as though this minister is treating your investigation as secondary to other reports.

You have conducted an investigation, a thorough one. You have written a report. In that report, you have made recommendations with some solutions. From your perspective, specific to sexual coercion and violence, why would the minister be delaying getting at the recommendations in this report and instead be sending it to committee for further study? We already know what the problem is. We already know what some solutions might be. In your opinion, why would that be occurring?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

I think that question should be directed to the minister and the Government of Canada.

In my view, the response of the Correctional Service is dismissive and unresponsive and I think now there is quite a long track record of adopting that stand.

When I look at politicians and leadership in terms of the minister, the mandate letter and even the Trudeau government in publishing these mandate letters of all the ministers, I think that's great. Maybe the problem is no longer at the political level but at the bureaucracy.

Perhaps part of the resistance to change is the public service. I think it's time it takes a look at itself, and once they have clear marching orders, are they actually moving mountains to make it happen and reflect the will of the elected officials?

I think there is something to be said here. Sometimes I'm not that critical of the political elite, because they've done everything they could. The Correctional Service got their marching orders. Your committee did a wonderful report and issued recommendations to the Correctional Service, yet two years later there is no change, so maybe we have to look at the bureaucracy in the public service. I only know corrections; in terms of valuing the democratic system and values, we should probably be chatting about the bureaucracy too.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

Mr. Van Popta, you have two minutes.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Dr. Zinger, I am going to move on from SCV to education. I think we've established, to quote Mr. Harris, that it's time for the minister just to put a bill to us that is similar to the U.S. Prison Rape Elimination Act, and we'll study the bill.

Regarding education, in your opinion, would this committee's time be more productively spent on studying education in prisons, or rather the lack thereof, and how important education is to rehabilitation and coming back into communities?