Status of Women Committee on Nov. 28th, 2017

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing today.

I'd like to focus my questions on the Parole Board, specifically with regard to the elder-assisted hearings. I'm interested in finding out more about them. As well, 16% were for indigenous women offenders.... When I think of 16%, it's not a great number. I'd like to know if there's a way we can increase that. If it's an effective hearing process, which I assume it is, since you've put it in your report, how do we get that number up over 16% if we have a disproportionate number of indigenous women in prison?

[Suzanne Brisebois]

Yes, the 16% represents of all elder-assisted hearings. Women offenders and indigenous women offenders are a very small proportion of the total offender population, so that's where you'll see that 16% being a smaller number. Over the 25 years that we've had elder-assisted hearings, we've had over 10,000.

Michelle may want to speak a bit further about the elder-assisted hearing in terms of its format and its function.

[Michelle Van De Bogart, Regional Director General, Ontario, Parole Board of Canada]

Certainly.

Good morning. The elder-assisted hearing consists of two portions. There's a ceremony portion and a business portion. My colleague mentioned that we contract and work with elders all across Canada. We have elders who facilitate the elder-assisted hearings. They perform the ceremony, and they also ensure that the circle—it's a circle format for elder-assisted hearings—is respected during the interview and risk assessment process.

Our elders are also there to provide information and advice to our board members about traditions or ceremonies, or things they've heard during the risk assessment portion, to be able to contribute to the risk assessment. Our elders don't take part in the decision-making itself, but they provide advice.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Do you find it's an effective means of going forward with the hearings and things like that? I guess my point is, should we have more than 605?

[Michelle Van De Bogart]

I would say that one way the board is looking at increasing the number of elder-assisted hearings is to go into the institutions—we call that “inreach”—where we speak to front-line staff and to indigenous offenders. We talk about this format. We talk about what to expect during parole hearings. We talk about the ability to request an elder-assisted hearing.

We've also developed some national communication products. We have a video that shows a mock elder-assisted hearing. We can share that with them, so they can see what to expect.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Is that available for the public to see?

[Michelle Van De Bogart]

Yes, it is.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Is it on your website?

[Michelle Van De Bogart]

It is on our website, yes.

If I may, I would say that we refocused our inreach a couple of years ago. What we found when we refocused that was an increase in the number of requests for elder-assisted hearings. This is something we have discussed continuing, so we are now looking at doing continuous inreach to the institutions to continue those conversations.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

That's your time. I'm sorry.

Mr. Shields.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Let me go first to Public Safety to clarify. Are the 100 different meetings you've had with communities on reserve or off reserve?

[Angela Connidis]

It's a mixture. There are about 640 indigenous communities on reserve and off reserve in the north, and we've worked with a hundred of them.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

You say the north. There are many reserves in the south.

[Angela Connidis]

I mean including the north.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Oh, including the north. Okay, thank you for that.

You have a mix. Do you have any idea whether it's 50:50, or 30:70...?

[Angela Connidis]

I can get back to you on the exact locations and give that kind of breakdown. I don't have those numbers with me.

It is in a sense out of our hands. We reach out to all of the communities, and it's to those who respond to us that we are able to go. We don't force ourselves upon the communities. We tend to focus on the most at-risk communities, those that need a lot of capacity building, in our outreach efforts.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

To follow up, how do you establish an off-reserve setting for a group that is reserved in one place and may have a mix of people in an urban centre? How do you find out whom to make a working agreement with?

[Angela Connidis]

It would be through outreach with some of the leaders in those communities. They would identify the members to work with. I can get more information to you on how we work in the urban centres.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That would be great. I'd appreciate it.

I'll turn it over to Glen.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My first question is for the Parole Board. We understand there have been some improvements to include the victims in your parole process. How much has their involvement increased, and what have you seen as a result of having victims involved in the parole process?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

You have a minute to respond.

[Suzanne Brisebois]

The board and the Correctional Service of Canada work with victims. They register with us to receive information about offenders. We have more than 8,000 registered victims.

Those victims can attend parole hearings and observe. They can also present statements at our parole hearings. We provide information about offenders' parole dates and the parole results. We provide copies of the parole decisions to victims.

Last year the board had more than 32,000 contacts with victims, and we had 244 presentations made by victims at our hearings.

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

Has having victims involved changed the parole outcomes?

[Suzanne Brisebois]

The information is always of value for board members. What victims identify is the impact of the offence on them. The board always could impose conditions specific to victims, such as no contact, but as part of the legislative changes that occurred last year with the victims bill of rights, victims can identify, if there are special conditions, whether they have concerns about contact, and the board will impose “no contact” conditions and those sorts of things based on the risk and the information provided by victims.

Theirs is valuable information that we're always looking to receive.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Thank you.

Ms. Malcolmson, you have the last three minutes on this panel.