Public Safety Committee on Feb. 10th, 2023

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

That's a very good question. This is of great concern to me.

With respect to the effectiveness of the office, I would point out that we only have the power to make recommendations, which is not binding on Correctional Service Canada, the government or the minister. That's the appropriate approach.

In terms of effectiveness on the ground, when my investigators meet with wardens, the success rate is very high. We're able to settle cases with them. Over the years, I've always had a great deal of respect for those in these positions. They are very strong, very professional, and things work very well.

The problem arises when I make more systemic recommendations, as I do in my annual report, that are directed at the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, the minister or the Government of Canada. It's clear to me that in such cases our effectiveness rate drops significantly.

I also state in my report that sometimes when Correctional Service Canada refuses or ignores our recommendations, they do so at their own risk. We document various issues and concerns very thoroughly, and that documentation is used by counsel in court. Recently, only two weeks ago, minimum sentences were rejected in Supreme Court of Canada decisions, and these decisions were based on three reports from the office. The reports are cited in both Supreme Court decisions.

The same can be said with respect to dry cells. The government now has to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act due to litigation. We raised this issue over five years ago. The same is true for administrative segregation. In court proceedings, class actions and trials like that, our office's work has been cited extensively. It's the same thing with issues like needle exchange, transgender people and the difficulty of making accommodations based on people's gender identity or expression. At some point, it catches up with them.

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

So it always has a positive effect.

Should the office be given a little more power?

With respect to the way things work now, as I understand it, you are relatively content to have the power to make recommendations only. Because you visit facilities, there could be a lot of issues not raised in your report specifically because they are resolved directly with those running the institutions. Some things move forward without the need for Correctional Service Canada to intervene.

I take it that's a very good thing. I thank you for that.

You addressed the issue of dry cells. By the way, do the French terms “cellules sèches” and “cellules nues” both refer to dry cells or are they two completely different things?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Dry cells are used when it's suspected that a person has ingested drugs or concealed them in body orifices. They wait for them to be flushed out. These are cells with dry toilets.

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

With respect to dry cells, you recommended prohibiting any indefinite placement for longer than 72 hours. I visited the Port‑Cartier Institution last summer. It was my first visit to a prison facility. I was accompanied by Ms. Damoff. We saw what they looked like. I believe that Minister Mendicino had issued a directive about dry cells a few days earlier.

What happens when a directive like that is issued? Does Correctional Service Canada have no choice but to make the changes? There didn't seem to be a deadline for acting on the directive.

Do directives of this kind help you in your work?

What happens when the minister directly intervenes on issues for which you have made recommendations?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

In this case, it was a Supreme Court ruling, a decision the government had to act on within a certain timeframe. So clearly the minister was being proactive until such time as new guidelines are put in place to mitigate the problem at hand.

I will give you an example of what I'm a little disappointed about. It's the second time that mandate letters have been issued by thePrime Minister to the Minister of Public Safety and by the Minister of Public Safety to the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada.

The letter to the Commissioner is excellent. It's absolutely extraordinary, because it reflects all the problem situations that my office has been documenting for several years. Despite the tremendous content, the problem with letters is they don't include deadlines or action items. It's hard to hold someone accountable if you don't have a concrete timeline or a deliverable.

If I had one recommendation to help my office, it would be that a Correctional Service Canada-approved action plan accompany proposed actions to meaningfully demonstrate how to improve the situation. Otherwise, we end up with four years later and don't see much progress.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Zinger and Ms. Michaud.

We go now to Mr. MacGregor for six minutes, please.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Welcome, Dr. Zinger. It's great to see both of you here.

For quite a while, our committee has really been sidelined with Bill C-21, and I think this is an important reminder of just how big the public safety portfolio is and how important your work is. I am glad we are doing this important change of topic.

I want to talk about reducing harms in the context of drug use. I come from British Columbia, which, in many ways, is the epicentre of the opioids crisis. In my community in the Cowichan Valley we have a really big problem. I have spoken with people who are on the front lines of this crisis. My Conservative friends like to underline the importance of treatment, and I agree with them, but my counter to that is that you can't treat a dead person.

Right now, we have so many people who are suffering from trauma. They are going out and playing Russian roulette every time they buy street drugs, because of the levels of fentanyl. Many of them are just not ready for treatment. There is a staged process for someone to be successful at treatment.

In your prisoner profile, you highlight the number of people who have substance use issues, and the mental health crisis. My first question to you is this: When it comes to reducing harm in our prisons, can you just put that in the context of what the overdose rate is like in our prisons?

The fact is that inmates, many of whom have substance abuse issues, are going to find a way to use drugs. That is just a fact. Drugs will make their way into prisons. I have talked with staff at the Kent Institution and at the Mountain Institution. Drugs will find their way into the prisons.

In terms of reducing harms and just trying to keep these prisoners alive so that they can, maybe, one day, successfully get into a program, I would like to hear more context from you on this really big issue.

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Thank you.

This is something that certainly plagues the Correctional Service of Canada. I'm very preoccupied by it. In order to be effective, you need to have a wide spectrum of initiatives to try to reduce the drugs coming into the penitentiaries, as well as the demand. We call “interdiction” all the measures that are applied to try to prevent drugs from coming in. On top of that, if you're balanced in your approach, you have outstanding programming in terms of reducing addiction, and then you're proactive in harm reduction as well. You need to have all of this.

What we see with the Correctional Service of Canada is that they are still focused on basically a zero-tolerance approach to drugs. That's what we wrote in my annual report. The policy on the strategy of the service dates back to 2007. That is extraordinary. It is so out of date. It doesn't even reflect some of the positive steps taken by the service. We spend an inordinate amount on interdiction—it's extraordinary how much—and it doesn't work. Interdiction itself, the zero-tolerance approach, just doesn't work. It doesn't work in our society. It doesn't work among countries. It just doesn't work in our penitentiaries.

There are some real issues and some new issues—for example, the issue around drones to try to prevent drugs from coming in—but drugs will always come in. That's why you need to have an outstanding ability to reduce the demand. The only way you can do that is by having a very accessible and very top-of-the-line addictions program. The service doesn't have that anymore. They used to have core programming that specifically targeted addiction. Now it's wrapped up with their new integrated model whereby you can treat anything. Whether it's family violence, anger management or addiction, everything is in one single program.

That's just not appropriate. Given that substance abuse can sometimes be years of abuse, you need to have one-on-one, professional counselling. You need to have groups and all sorts of measures in place. Some jurisdictions have even introduced a drug-free prison, where people commit to trying to help themselves. There are all sorts of things you can do for that.

On the harm reduction side, Harm Reduction Canada is at the forefront, on paper, with a prison needle exchange, but when we did our annual report, we did a snapshot: Only 46 people in the last fiscal year were involved in the prison needle exchange, and you have 3,000 who are on methadone and Suboxone. They are struggling with addiction issues. As I say, it's the most common area of concern.

It just doesn't work. There's only one pilot program, which is the safe injection site at Drumheller. Kudos to the service for trying, but when it comes to the implementation, there are many barriers. As somebody mentioned, some of those barriers are real. There is a lot of fear, but we have to change the approach. The approach is unbalanced and ineffectual. It's not serving anybody.

Our prisons remain sieves, I'm sorry to tell you, when it comes to the introduction of drugs. It's not by pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into trying to make them airtight that you're actually going to succeed. We have to take a different approach, and that's what—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Zinger.

We go now to our second round of questions.

Mr. Shipley, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here today, Dr. Zinger, and thank you for your report.

I'm probably going to carry on a bit where Mr. MacGregor left off, because I find that a little fascinating and a little alarming to know.

I toured a federal penitentiary a long time ago, and I haven't spent a lot of time in them since—thankfully, right? I have some questions, though.

The first one will be very basic. Is tobacco legal? Can you smoke tobacco in a federal penitentiary?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

The answer is no. Tobacco is considered contraband, and you can be punished.

Tobacco is obviously a legal substance in Canadian society. When introduced in penitentiaries, a pouch of tobacco can go for as high as $800 in the underground market—

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you.

I have very limited time, and I'm sorry to interrupt.

I'm glad I asked that, because that wasn't the answer I was expecting. I thought it was legal.

My next question was going to be if marijuana is legal, because it's now a legal product, but obviously it's not legal in penitentiaries either.

What I am finding a bit hard to get my head around is a stack of releases from Correctional Service Canada. This is from just January. Of all the contraband that has been seized, some going in—which is good work, obviously—but much of it is while it's in there.... One of these seizures even had 10 cell phones and 13 chargers. This is a long list. There are 45 grams of THC and 1.8 grams of methamphetamines. I'm not going to read it all, but it is just mind-boggling how much is getting in there.

You mentioned in your last comment that federal penitentiaries, to quote you, are “sieves” for drugs getting in there. You also mentioned at the beginning that our staff-to-prisoner ratio is.... I don't think you used the word “excellent”, but it's very good, and we're spending a lot of money. What can we do to try to prevent some of these items from getting in there in the first place?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

We have to look beyond the drug trade and at conditions of confinement in general if we're going to impact this.

Part of the problem is that if you had programming that was meaningful, addressed substance abuse issues and reduced some of the demand, that would be very helpful.

Also, if you had meaningful vocational training, if you had good food so that you don't have to use the few financial resources you have to complement your diet, and if you had inmates' pay that was higher, because inmates' pay was set back in 1981 at $6.90, and only very few of them per day—

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Doctor, I need to interrupt, because you're mentioning things that are all internal. Is there nothing we could do externally as a correctional service, as a government, to keep it out?

You're mentioning things that would all be programs to help them want it less, and I understand that. Is there nothing we can do to keep it from entering?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

What I can tell you is that we spend an inordinate amount of money per prisoner per year. Could that money be better used to try to address substance abuse in the community? That would be one way of dealing with it.

If you were more proactive in the community in addressing chronic addiction issues, because substances are often used to manage mental health problems, if you had fewer mental health problems, better addiction services and treatment available in the community, that would reduce the—

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt once again, but we're talking about getting them off it. Can't we do something like check everybody coming in?

I'm trying to simplify this for myself and for people watching. Can we not just be checking every parcel that comes in and every person who comes in? This is a confined area, and I'm not trying to make this a little issue, because it's not. I'm trying to get my own mind.... I'm sure other people are trying to figure out how it gets in there.

All the things you're mentioning are about trying to get people to not want it anymore or to reduce it. I agree with you, but I am talking about the one step of reducing it from going in. Is there no way, even around these facilities—and you've studied them, you've talked to the workers there—or any other ways we're not implementing to try to keep contraband of all sorts out of the facilities?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Many countries have tried, and it's virtually impossible unless you shut an institution down completely.

Human ingenuity, greed, will always be a step ahead of you.

I think that question you can certainly ask to the commissioner of corrections. She may have some views on this.

I've visited prisons all around the world. The latest one was a week ago. I was in Austin, Texas, and I visited a jail there. I will be visiting one in Rome at the end of the month.

The availability of drugs is always an issue in any correctional facility I've visited around the world.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Shipley.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Chair, can I just say quickly, if he needed someone to go to that Rome penitentiary with him, I'd be willing to attend. I'm just saying, I could maybe learn a little.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We can carry your bags. It'll be fine.

Mr. Noormohamed, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Dr. Zinger and Madame Miron.

You were talking about the ingenuity of some of these individuals in terms of getting drugs into the prisons. I'll point out that Mr. MacGregor and I had a visit on a very hot, 40-degree summer day outside of Vancouver, to Kent, and the staff there told us about drones, people trying to use drones—this would be interesting to Mr. Shipley. Despite everything the prison guards were trying to do, folks were trying to use drones to drop drugs, and the staff there successfully interdicted them.

We appreciate, I think, that it's quite a difficult task to keep these things out.

One of the things you mentioned was something that—again, I don't want to speak for Mr. MacGregor—I think both of us were struck by. This was issues related to nutrition and food. The fact that cuts were made and a number of policy changes were made under previous governments—and that is not to cast aspersions on the previous government; it's what we were told—made it impossible for local prisons to access locally sourced food and things that would be less expensive. They were forced into a model of, “This is the food you must serve on this date, and it must come from a central facility,” which, of course, led to nutrition issues, which led to some of the other challenges you've talked about.

One of the things that struck me was the impact of the poor conditions in what we saw, as well as these types of factors, on staff—staff morale, staff's ability to do their jobs well. There were also the concerns they had about the well-being of the prisoners, so that they would be able to improve and hopefully one day enter society.

When we talk about things like dry cells and about issues like mental health supports, in your estimation, what are some of the things you have seen that have been mandated by the minister on CSC and others that are some of the easy wins that we should really be focusing on and looking at to ensure that these conditions improve in prisons, not just for prisoners but also, by extension, for staff and hopefully, by extension, for better outcomes on re-entry?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Let me just go back, because I want to make sure, proactively, that I'm not getting into trouble.

I am going to Rome, but all the expenses will be paid by the International Development Law Organization, and it's to provide legal training on human rights and develop material that has been sponsored by the American Department of Justice, of all places.

What exactly are you looking for, in terms of your question? Are you on the food thing or...?

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

No, there's a list of things that the minister's asked the CSC to do. There's obviously a list of issues that you've identified. You've identified food; you've identified mental health; you've identified a number of these different challenges.

What would be good for me to know—and I suppose others who have been in these places to at least take a look, but not to stay, thankfully—is what are the things that are some of the easiest steps that CSC could be taking to address that they perhaps have not?

I think that's a good starting point.

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Let me start with some of the number one complaints that we receive, and how things haven't really moved on those things.

Those two are food and inmate pay. Again, inmate pay was set in 1981. That's more than 40 years ago. It hasn't been indexed ever since, and only a very few people get the top rate of $6.90 per day.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I'm sorry to interrupt, Dr. Zinger. Just to clarify, there are people out there who say, “Oh, they're in prison. Why should they get paid?”

Can you explain in that context why this is actually important?