Status of Women Committee on Jan. 30th, 2018

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I call the meeting to order.

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our first status of women committee for 2018.

Today we have a very special group with us that has come back to join us with more details. To begin, I just want to do a couple of housekeeping notes on a few things.

First of all, I'd like to welcome our new clerk for the committee, Kenza Gamassi. She's our new clerk and she will be with us. As well, Stephanie Kusie, from the Conservative Party, has now joined us. As you can see, she's a very welcoming person.

Today in one hour we have the Correctional Service of Canada, the Parole Board of Canada, the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

By request, Anne Kelly, the senior deputy commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, has requested five minutes to start, and then we'll continue where we left off in 2017.

Anne, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Anne Kelly, Senior Deputy Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada]

Madam Chair, hello again.

I'm Anne Kelly. I'm the senior deputy commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, or CSC, a position that includes responsibility for indigenous corrections. I'm pleased to be joined by Dr. Kelley Blanchette, the deputy commissioner for women, who is responsible for the development and oversight of programs for all federally sentenced women.

I would like to thank you and the honourable members of this committee for the opportunity to appear before you again to resume the discussion we began on November 28 with regard to this committee's study on indigenous women in the justice system. Given that I provided my opening remarks when we appeared in November, today I would like to take just a few minutes to share some recent highlights from CSC's mid-year performance results for 2017-18.

As I noted at the November meeting, indigenous women represent a significant and growing proportion of the incarcerated population, representing 39% of all incarcerated women offenders.

I would also reiterate that CSC cannot control the number of indigenous Canadians receiving federal sentences. However, our work and interventions can ultimately have an impact on the length of time offenders remain in custody, their security level, and when they go before the Parole Board of Canada to seek decisions regarding their release to the community.

It is this latter part that is CSC's raison d'être: to encourage and assist offenders in the work of preparing for release so that they safely and successfully return to society. In this regard, I am pleased to note that CSC's mid-year results show that the number of offenders who are managed in the community is continuing to increase for both indigenous and non-indigenous offenders.

In terms of discretionary releases—that is, releases on day and full parole—women have the best results, with about 81% of their releases being discretionary to date. Moreover, increased reintegration success is being achieved, with more indigenous women successfully reaching the end of their sentence in the community. This positive result reflects the concerted efforts by the women and the case management team to ensure risk factors and needs are addressed through appropriate interventions in preparation for a safe and successful return to the community.

I would also like to highlight the results of two studies completed last year.

The first one looked at whether the aboriginal women offender correctional program (AWOCP) met its objectives. The results suggested that AWOCP is successful in improving the women's skills and attitudes and significantly decreases their rates of return to custody.

The second study focused on indigenous women who have participated in section 84 releases, which is a legislative provision that applies to offenders who express an interest in having an indigenous community collaborate in their release planning. The study found that 41% participated in section 84 releases over the course of the last five years. It also found, among other things, that women who participate in section 84 releases are more likely to be released on discretionary release and to be classified as minimum security prior to release.

While much progress has been made, CSC continues to address gaps and implement initiatives that best meet the needs of offenders and contribute to our mandate of keeping Canadians safe.

At this point we would be pleased to respond to your questions on the various aspects of CSC's work and on our progress.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much, Ms. Kelly. This was very brief.

We're going to start our seven-minute rounds with Pam Damoff for seven minutes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks to all of the witnesses for being here.

I want to start by saying that I spent two days last week visiting five corrections facilities in Edmonton. The Edmonton Institute for Women and Buffalo Sage Wellness House were two of them. We can have a discussion as a committee as to the value of doing that. I certainly see it.

First I want to thank CSC for the fine work they are doing, and all of the amazing people who are working there for the work they're doing. I was incredibly impressed, especially at Buffalo Sage, with the work that's being done. I don't think you can possibly visualize a healing lodge without actually seeing it.

We participated in a circle with elder Claire with four of the women who were there. Some of my questions will be from that visit.

I heard repeatedly, over and over again, from everyone we saw, that the cuts made to the correctional service have had a devastating impact on the ability to deliver within whatever institute it was. You may not have this number, but do you know how much was cut from the budget for CSC from 2006 to 2015? If you don't have it, that's fine. Maybe you could provide it to the committee.

[Anne Kelly]

Yes, I can certainly do that.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I don't know if you want to speak at all to how you've had to deal with the cuts that were made to the budget, because they have impacted.... Obviously in an operational division such as CSC, you rely on the budget to deliver the programs in the facilities, right?

[Anne Kelly]

Yes. What we did, actually, and we did it for men.... When I appeared before, I spoke about what we created, which are called “aboriginal intervention centres”. Basically they're intake assessment centres. We do the assessment of the offender, but we also start programming right when they come to us, and we're going to replicate it for women. In essence, we're going to be assessing women. They're going to be starting their program as soon as they come to us.

The other thing is that we have what we call “aboriginal community development officers” who are going to be placed in our intake assessment centres, or aboriginal intervention centres, so that the release planning, especially for those who express an interest in returning to an indigenous community, starts right at the outset. We don't wait until six months before the offender is about to be released.

These are some of the kinds of innovative approaches that we're using.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

We heard really good things about those, actually, and being able to get into the indigenous programming right from the beginning and not having to wait.

Something else we heard a lot about, which a number of women have been caught in, were mandatory minimums. I'm going to turn probably more to the Parole Board—no, it's not really you. Would it strictly be the Department of Justice that would make an indigenous...? Can anybody talk about that?

What we found was that there were women who.... One had been in an abusive relationship and had attacked her abuser. She's in prison and is fearful of an attack, but she got caught in a mandatory minimum and she's been sentenced to.... Among the women we spoke to, it seemed to be quite prevalent that they had been caught up in that.

Is there anybody who can comment on the number of women being caught up in that system, or should I wait until we have the Department of Justice here? Okay.

Another one that came up in terms of the Parole Board was challenges in accessing programs because of lockdowns in the prisons. Whenever there's a lockdown, programming stops. I met one woman who should have been eligible for parole but couldn't access programming because of the number of lockdowns. Do you see that a lot, or do you know about it?

[Suzanne Brisebois, Director General, Policy and Operations, Parole Board of Canada]

I couldn't comment specifically on that particular case, of course.

We do know that the logistics within institutions can be complicated and complex. Again, from our side, from the board's perspective, board members take into consideration a lot of information as part of their decision-making, programs being one of them, in terms of an offender's participation in programs, their responsivity, but there are other factors as well.

We work very closely with CSC. I know that CSC has developed a number of modified programs over the years to target offenders, so I think that's probably an area that Anne could speak to.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I don't mean that as a criticism. I understand the logistics—if a prison is on a lockdown, you have to deal with that—but when you have women who are trying to access the basic program that they need in order to go for a parole hearing, and they can't because of the number of lockdowns, it's frustrating.

Go ahead.

[Suzanne Brisebois]

I have just one note.

Participation in a program isn't necessarily a requirement to see the Parole Board. For offenders, part of the consideration is whether they were able to participate in the full program or have completed it. It would be up to an offender to decide whether or not they wanted to waive their hearing or their review. It would be on the offender's determination, based on the review. It's just a factor I wanted to bring up.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I think they were a little concerned that there was no sense going if they hadn't completed it.

Sorry, I lost my train of thought there about the parole hearings.

A number of the women are learning to sew. I talked to them about gender-based analysis of careers. The men were learning carpentry and framing. Sewing is a huge thing, which is not really setting them up for success.

Have we done a gender-based analysis on the career training that's happening within the corrections facilities?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 20 seconds to respond.

[Anne Kelly]

Maybe Kelley can speak to that, but what I can say is that certainly with CORCAN, which is our employment centre, even in Okimaw Ohci, if I'm not mistaken, now the women are learning more skills in construction, and not just the sewing. I know that at EIFW as well, they have—and I can't recall what it is—a different type of skill that they're learning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

It's time to move on.

For our next seven minutes, we have Stephanie Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

It's a pleasure to be here. I'm so proud to be here as a member of the status of women committee at this special time when we're seeing harassment come to light, very much touching our own government and our own cabinet, so it's a very important time to be here. In addition, it's also about the choices that women are making and about the Canadian summer jobs program. I feel it's a very monumental time to be here, and I'm very proud to be here as part of this committee, so thank you very much for having me.

My first question is for Ms. Kelly.

The previous Conservative government increased funding towards rehabilitative programs for prisoners for things such as healing lodges. Have you seen these types of rehabilitative programs benefit prisoners, and specifically aboriginal women?

[Anne Kelly]

Yes.

We have a healing lodge. We have the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge, which has 60 beds—

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

As residents?

[Anne Kelly]

Yes.

We also have the Buffalo Sage Wellness House. We just increased its capacity from 12 to 28 beds. Definitely for women who decide to follow a healing path who are interested in their culture, in teachings, in circles, in ceremonies, the healing lodge is a good place to be.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

I'm glad to hear that.

Would you say that there are benefits involved in including aboriginal elders and community members as well in the rehabilitative process?

[Anne Kelly]

Absolutely.

In our healing lodge and in our institutions, we contract with elders from the community, so the offenders get to know them. If they go back to their community, the elders can continue to work with them.

It's very important as well that our elders provide teaching and counselling, but they're also part of our program delivery. For women, they are there 100% of the time for the program delivery. Absolutely, it's very beneficial.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

That's lovely.

What investments in the last decade have you made to improve programs specifically for indigenous inmates? You're talking about these incredible results that you've seen, like the 81% reintegration, and the 39%....

To what do you attribute these specifically?

[Anne Kelly]

Definitely, some of it is our programs.

Just recently, the OAG asked us to do an assessment of our programs, and we did. What it showed is that it improves the skills and attitudes of women as well as their motivation. They're more likely to get discretionary release, full parole.

In terms of a program for women, we have what we call the circle of care. There's a self-engagement program that's for everybody. There's also a moderate and high-intensity program. Then there's what we call a maintenance program both for women who are in the institution and in the community.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much.

My next question is for Ms. Brisebois.

In your experience, does involving the victim in parole hearings benefit the victim and give them more ownership of the process?

[Suzanne Brisebois]

I would agree with that. I think victims are an integral part of the criminal justice process and conditional release.

For the board itself, board members consider information that's provided by victims. We've had victims observing at our hearings, and even predating the introduction of the Victims Bill of Rights in 2015 the board had, by way of policy, enabled victims to present at its hearings. This enables victims to identify any concerns they have with respect to the offender's conditional release and also to identify the impacts of the offence on themselves and their families and to identify, if it's applicable, whether or not they would recommend to the board the imposition of any special conditions.