Okay, well, the chair as he then was, a member of this committee, asked the following:
Okay. The day-to-day experience of Mr. Bernardo in medium security is, except for the increased access to programs, essentially the same as it would be under maximum security.
This is what the commissioner said:
Yes. He gets up. It's the same food. It's the same type of cell. It's the same bedding. Many of the same things that you would have in maximum security are there in medium security.
I could not disagree more with the commissioner. I'm going to come back to this, because I have a quote here. This is from Mr. Danson, and he speaks about the comments of the chair, as he then was as a member of this committee, asking questions. The date on that was December 4, 2023. I'm reading:
The glib comment about pillows is.... If I shared that with the families, that would be gut-wrenching for them. That would be a shock to them—to make light of this by talking about whether the pillows are softer or harder in medium security versus maximum security.
To suggest that transferring Bernardo to medium security does not disconnect us from the fact that he is a psychopath, to me, is just words. The fact of the matter is that he will have a lot more freedom and a lot more rights in medium security.
I'll go back and repeat what the chair said as he then was, as a member of the committee:
Okay. The day-to-day experience of Mr. Bernardo in medium security is, except for the increased access to programs, essentially the same as it would be under maximum security.
The commissioner answered:
Yes. He gets up. It's the same food. It's the same type of cell. It's the same bedding.
I'll bet it's even the same pillow. I'm sorry; that wasn't said by the commissioner. She said:
Many of the same things that you would have in maximum security are there in medium security.
With all due respect to the commissioner, this is completely wrong. When a person walks into Millhaven or any maximum-security jail, the security level is like a nine out of 10, if you want to put it like that. There is a super-max jail in Canada that Correctional Service is almost reluctant to send people to now, even if they attack officers, but that's another point.
When one goes to medium security, once they're inside the fences—and yes, there are large fences; it's still jail, there are still cells, and the cells are exactly the same—a person's ability to roam about is substantially different. When a person is out of their cell in medium security, they can walk around to the workshop. If they're not doing work, they can use the gym. There is so much more freedom of movement, I'd say 20 times more freedom of movement, yet Commissioner Kelly is saying yes to answer that question.
I would love for the media to go into both institutions, I don't know why we wouldn't. If you want to shine a light on the difference, then shine a light. Perhaps members of this committee should go into both so they could see the difference. Maybe we could even feel the pillows.
It's “essentially the same as it would be under maximum security.” The commissioner answers, “Yes. He gets up .” That happens in both maximum and medium. “It is the same food.” Yes, it's the same food in maximum and medium. “It's the same type of cell.” Yes, it is the same type of cell in maximum and medium. The cells are the same. They're the same size, with presumably the same mattress and the same pillows. “It's the same bedding.” Yes, it is. “Many of the same things that you would have in maximum security are there in medium security.”
What it's not saying is that many of the things you have in maximum security are not in medium security. In maximum security, if a person leaves their cell or their unit, they frequently have to go through a metal detector to get through. Given the number of drones that are dropping ceramic knives, that is a huge concern to officers, because the metal detectors won't even pick up those knives, but that's another issue, and we can get to that another day. I'd love to hear from the commissioner on that point. Well, we did hear from her on that point, and her answer was most unsatisfactory.
A person in medium security can walk freely inside the unit to outside of the unit. In maximum security, the correctional officers are in what's colloquially called a bubble, which is plexiglass, bulletproof glass.
Actually, there are firearms present in there.
I could not believe this when I saw it, but in medium security, it was a horseshoe similar to the size of this horseshoe here. It was a bit more curved, and there was one officer here, one officer roughly where the chair is and one officer to the other side.
This is the interesting part. In order to get to where the officers are, there wasn't even a door. The platform was probably the level of this table. A person had to go up two steps. That's what it looked like. That's omitted from Commissioner Kelly's comments.
Offenders like Bernardo, Magnotta and others presumably could go up those two steps. Correctional Service wouldn't even put in a door to protect the officers. The officers asked for a door, and they said no. Here's the thing, Mr. Chair. On that horseshoe, they have people who are coming from behind them. They're coming from over their right shoulder if they're on the right, or their left shoulder if they're on the left. They have a panoramic mirror, but your eyes can't focus on two places, so if somebody does something in front of you and you focus there, you don't know what's coming, so what is it? There's an entrance right there, and within three feet—three feet—of that entrance is a correctional officer.
Now, I would say to anybody on this committee, I would say to Commissioner Kelly in talking about it and implying that it is the same, that is not the same. I would not turn my back on Paul Bernardo, and I would not turn my back on Luka Magnotta, but we expect our brave correctional officers to do that at a time when drones are dropping ceramic knives in like they're candy. People are getting mistaken about whether the drone is actually dropping for them or for somebody else. It's that bad. “Is that your drone or my drone?” It's actually gotten that bad. People may think I'm being facetious. I'm not. It has gotten that bad. These officers have to turn their backs to them, without a door.
With all due respect to Commissioner Kelly, when the chair, as he is now, said, “essentially the same as it would be under maximum security”, and she said, “Yes,” she did not talk about these incredibly different changes.
I would ask this rhetorical question, Chair: I would not turn my back on the Bernardos and Magnottas of the world, so why should these correctional officers have to do the same? Why?
In maximum there are high-powered firearms and all sorts of weapons. In medium, they don't have those weapons present, and corrections won't even pay for a door. It's shocking. It's disgusting. It is a complete slap in the face to the brave women and men who work at La Macaza, who not only have to deal with people like Paul Bernardo and Luka Magnotta but also have to manage them physically and deal with all that comes with managing these people psychologically.
It's no doubt an environment that beckons trauma for the people dealing with it, and corrections won't even put in a door. There would need to be—I believe there are three units—six doors, one on each side. That might make the half-second difference to prevent somebody from walking straight up those two steps and stabbing an officer with a ceramic knife or other weapon that was dropped by a drone.
That's another thing, too. Corrections doesn't want to pay for razors. They showed me the razors. Razors are typically used to make weapons. It's the most common. You take a toothbrush, melt it and insert the razor. I had an officer tell me about how bad it was to see somebody who was slashed from the ear to the mouth with one of those razors.
There are razors that are tamper-proof. They're small. They gave me one. It was tiny. I have to look into this, but I was told that corrections doesn't want to pay for those razors, because they cost more money.
Again, how many of us would work in that horseshoe with the Paul Bernardos and Luka Magnottas of the world, who can easily fashion a weapon out of a toothbrush and a razor blade? Is the safety of our officers not worth the additional cost of a razor blade that would shatter if you attempted to make a weapon out of it? Through you, Chair, I say this directly to the commissioner of corrections.
It's bad enough that drones are dropping things rampantly. If you want to talk about drones and security, it befuddles me that we do not have jamming technology, so that people like Bernardo and Magnotta don't have access to those things. The response from Corrections has been nothing short of a joke when it comes to drones. In one institution, they showed me the only drones they could jam were drones that were registered and were from the manufacturer of the jamming machine. You can't make this up. How many people who are using their drones to drop drugs and weapons into penitentiaries register the drones? It's zero, yet we expect our officers to work there without a door when it comes to the Bernardos and Magnottas of the world.
Take solace, though: The pillows aren't softer.
I'll go back to the letter now. They say that when they first got word of Bernardo's move, they contacted several politicians of all different parties.
That was a pretty wise move.
I was put in touch with an organization called My Voice, My Choice, which I'm sure many people around this table have been in touch with. These are brave women who have spoken about their traumatic experiences as victims. Not only are they victims, but they are also suffering from what I and other people would call secondary or systemic victimization, like the victims of Bernardo and Magnotta are probably going through, dare I speculate, in these circumstances, in which the system reopens that scar, that victimization, even if the scar is not completely closed. It just gets opened again and again.
I'd like to give a shout-out to the people from My Voice, My Choice. They contacted people to get things changed when it came to publication bans, and they contacted all parties, which I remembered as I was reading this letter.
The writers said they contacted several politicians of all parties. It wasn't their concern which party was better or worse but, rather, which party would listen and help get this horrible decision reversed.
We could have had six meetings to do this. In fact, the Liberals came in and said we would have six meetings. Not only would we have six meetings, but they wanted more witnesses and they would have added them. It was fairly non-partisan, I thought. The Conservatives said we wanted the meeting. The Bloc signed on for an emergency meeting, and the NDP said they wanted the six meetings, and then the Bloc inexplicably said no; they only wanted one meeting, and the Liberals gladly withdrew their witnesses and went to one meeting.
It doesn't matter which party, say the writers of this letter. They want this horrible decision reversed. However, we couldn't actually even hear from the victims on that point, because the victims were the witnesses excised from the witness list the Liberals were all too happy to agree to initially for six meetings but now only wanted for one meeting.
How is that victim-centred? How is that not contributing to secondary victimization? There is no doubt, in my view, that it is contributing to secondary victimization. More concretely, it's a complete slap in the face to the victims who were watching and, as a result, wrote this very punchy letter, which says it a thousand times better than I ever could have.
The letter goes on to say that it was very clear that day that the safety and well-being of the public is not a concern to certain people and their designated parties.
We, as parliamentarians, should be concerned. I believe I know who this letter is referring to. I'll let the public judge for themselves. We've had a few personal attacks today. I'm not going to go there. People can watch the video themselves and see who they believe acted appropriately and who didn't. They know who they are, and in their heart, I would hope they know whether they acted appropriately, especially with the dismissive language that was used, in my view.
The letter goes on to say that that personal agenda supersedes any of the victims, their rights and the crimes committed against them. In other words, these three women—victims, as defined in the Criminal Code, in my view—said that the “personal agenda” of certain members around this table got in the way of our talking about what was important, of our talking about what matters.
I'm going to say that again.
I would be remiss, too, Mr. Chair, if I might interrupt.... I know this isn't relevant, but I believe we have some young people from 4-H who have joined us as well. Is that correct? I know that a few of them are from my riding of Kamloops—Thompson—Caribou.
Welcome. Mr. Kurek is coming to say hello. I don't think he's ever had contact with an animal in his life, so—