Thank you very much. This is a very important question.
There are nearly 14,000 people serving sentences in our corrections institutions, and we have a duty of care to protect them during the unique challenges that occur in our correctional institutions as a result of COVID.
During the first wave, the Correctional Service of Canada did an extraordinary job, working with the Public Health Agency of Canada, provincial health authorities and regional health authorities, in making sure that their institutions were safe.
When infections were brought from the community into the institution, I believe they took some really extraordinary steps. There have been health and safety audits and infection control audits. They provided PPE to inmates and to corrections workers in the institutions. There have been a number of very effective measures. As a consequence, after the first wave they were able to wrestle that pandemic in the institutions well under control.
We were very fortunate to go a number of months, but unfortunately, with the recent surge within the community, we're starting to see that surge reflected. In your riding in particular, in the Drummond Institution, we now have 18 inmates suffering from infection, and a number of corrections officers, who of course live in the community. We are also monitoring very carefully the federal training institution, with which you are very familiar.
As of today, there are 95 inmates in the federal population right across the country who are infected with COVID. They are receiving treatment within the institutions, and we are taking very significant steps on that.
If there is more time, I would invite the deputy director of the Correctional Service of Canada to talk about some of their measures. I think the model that the Correctional Service of Canada implemented is a model that would serve well, to all of the provincial governments and other jurisdictions to show how effective safety measures can be implemented to keep inmates safe.