Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I was speaking about a letter that was written on March 11, 2024, and in my view this letter really animates a number of the concerns that I have and that this committee ought to have, and while—welcome to our new colleague here—the committee ought to have these concerns, I'm saddened that it doesn't. I think that part of what this letter talks about is just how far we have gone astray as a committee. I think there are individual committee members who may have more responsibility than others.
I go on with the March 11 letter. They say it is our job to listen, help and implement change. Now, I'm going to read an exchange that took place here during the Bernardo meetings. This is from November 27, 2023. It may actually be November 27, 2024, by the time we actually get this report tabled. Actually, this intervention is between you, Mr. Chair, and the commissioner of Correctional Service Canada, Anne Kelly. I quote, member, Mr. McKinnon.
I notice a common thread in questions from my Conservative colleagues. There seems to be, still, an impression that somehow the reclassification of Mr. Bernardo to medium security is somehow a mitigation of his sentence. Can you tell me if the pillows are softer in medium security?
Her answer: “No, they are not.”
With all due respect, I think it really misses the point to ask whether the pillows are softer in medium security. In Canada, a lot of people don't know this, but there is no sentencing principle of retribution. There is no sentencing principle of punishment per se. Some people have disagreed on this a bit, but, “Are the pillows softer in medium security?” With all due respect to the chair—and I know or I believe that there are victims watching or people who are interested in watching—this is exactly the type of thing that is dismissive of what people have gone through as victims, what the French family and the Mahaffy family, and the other nameless, faceless, voiceless victims have gone through—people whose names we will never know.
I've often said our work, or the work I'm trying to do, is about giving names to the nameless, voices to the voiceless and faces to the faceless.
Mr. Chair, when we ask about whether the pillows are softer in medium security, I think we completely disregard that. I think we denigrate the victim experience. Frankly, I'm surprised, and maybe this was withdrawn, but it should have been withdrawn, because in my view, it is a slap in the face to victims. The commissioner answered, “No, they are not.” Mr. McKinnon continued:
Under the conditions of his imprisonment, he was not sentenced to maximum security.
That's true, you can't be sentenced to a security level in Canada.
He was sentenced to serve a term of some number of years in a prison.
That's life imprisonment.
He wasn't sentenced to medium versus maximum, so the change of classification is really only about managing the prisoner, managing the conditions of the prison and determining whether or not this person is a danger within the institution. They do not, in any way, increase his opportunity to be put on the street or to escape.
The commissioner said, “That's right. Security classification is very important. It's to manage the inmates where they should be managed.”
It's interesting that the commissioner says this, because escape risk is one of the things, if public safety risk is at “high”, that will actually send you to maximum, if my memory serves. I'm not sure why the commissioner would say that.
The chair said, “They do not, in any way, increase his opportunity to be put on the street or to escape.”
I've been to Millhaven Institution, where Paul Bernardo was previously kept. I saw the cell where he previously was. I've been to La Macaza. The two jails could not be any more different.
For those people who've not been in jail—which is most of the public and probably most of the people in this room—a maximum-security model is highly controlled. Particularly in new jails, there is minimal interaction with inmates.
When I was visiting a jail recently, the correctional officers would do a walk every hour. Every time they did their hourly walk, there was somebody present up above, who could use deadly force at any time to protect them. Once an hour, they would go through.
If somebody needed something, I presume they could make a request, because there was an open area where they could communicate with officers, but there was no hand-to-hand interaction. There was face-to-face interaction, but there was a distance between them.
When you go to La Macaza, it is completely different. You don't have the double-door model, as I'll call it. In maximum security, it's always two doors. When one door is open, the other door must remain shut. When we're talking about escape risk, actually, I'm surprised that the commissioner didn't pick up on this. It is harder to go through two doors than it is to go through one door. In order to get to an inmate at Millhaven, for instance—to actually see them on the living unit—I would estimate that we probably went through three, four or five locked doors, in addition to the external gate.
At La Macaza, once we went through the initial gate, we walked into the unit that housed Bernardo. I don't even think the door to the unit that housed Paul Bernardo was locked.
To say that there's no difference in escape risk is, in my view, completely misguided. Moreover, I think the point that was trying to be made is that there's no difference in perimeter security. That's true. The two external fences are exactly the same. The difference is what is between a person who's incarcerated and that external fence. In maximum security, you probably have to go through one or two fences, one or two gates, or both in order to get to that external fence. In medium security, somebody can get there.
The chair continued to ask the commissioner. He said, “Okay. The day-to-day experience of Mr. Bernardo in medium security is—