Debates of Feb. 26th, 2019

Corrections and Conditional Release Act

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to know what my colleague thinks of the fact that many of the inmates who are put in administrative segregation for an indeterminate amount of time, sometimes up to 23 hours a day, suffer from mental health problems.

In my opinion, it would make more sense to give them access to mental health services and programs to address the root causes of these problems instead of exacerbating them by placing the inmates in administrative segregation. In fact, when they are released, they pose a public health threat. It makes no sense to propose such a solution in our prisons.

Should the government not review these measures, which have also been deemed unconstitutional?

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, again, we are assuming they are mutually exclusive. We can have adequate mental health services along with appropriate segregation that keeps a prisoner from harming himself or others. However, at the same point, we need adequate personnel to provide the human contact the prisoner needs, not only to protect the prisoner but to actually engage in rehabilitation and treatment programs.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, a quote from one of the CSC officers says, “We are the ones working the ranges, day in and day out, 24-7, yet we have to wait for a decision from our managers as to whether we're going to act or respond to a specific behaviour”.

In the public service survey 77% of correctional service officers said their work suffers because of overly complicated or unnecessary procedures imposed by the government. My colleague talked a lot about the lack of consultation on the bill. I wonder if he could expand on that and how it is hurting such issues at hand.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I said in my comments earlier, I used to represent the riding where Grand Valley prison facility is housed, but the changes to the boundaries in the last election moved that. It is currently not in my riding, but it is next door. I have had the privilege of visiting the Grand Valley institution on a number of occasions and speaking with the front-line workers there. I have also had the privilege of speaking personally with Jason Godin, the chief of the correctional officers union. I know one of their major concerns is their own safety.

When we implement these kinds of changes without consultation with them, this is where the big problem lies.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the debate on Bill C-83, a bill dealing with some of the rules around incarceration in Canada. I want to make a few general points about the principles that should guide our approach before I move to the particulars of the legislation itself.

Our approach to criminal justice should affirm the dignity of the human person, which includes personal responsibility and the capacity to change. Both are key elements. Its primary goal should be rehabilitation and the protection of society, which obviously go together. If people are rehabilitated, then they no longer present a risk to society. If they are not rehabilitated, they can be a risk to those around them, even when they are in prison.

It seems to me that both extremes in the criminal justice debate deny in some way the dignity of the person. Some believe individual criminality is necessarily the result of social factors as opposed to bad moral decision-making. Social factors can obviously contribute to a person's situation, but the extreme leftist analysis, which reduces everything to social factors, denies the dignity and agency of persons who are in vulnerable situations.

No matter people's circumstances, they do have a choice. They have a choice to try to make the best out of their situation or on the other end, a choice to engage in criminal activity. It seems that this recognition of dignity, and therefore responsibility, is the necessary grounds of rehabilitation. People must recognize their own agency in order to turn their lives around.

We also reject the extreme that those who commit crimes cannot turn their lives around. Some would want us to write people off too easily. However, our own life experience should teach us that people can change their patterns of behaviour for the better. Many people who have committed crimes can change, and there is a public interest and moral obligation for us to do all we can to help with the process. This means maximizing incentives and supports to people who are on that journey.

A criminal justice policy that fully affirms human dignity, recognizing personal responsibility for crime and the ability to change, would assign sentences that are both tough and variable. Tough and variable sentences is an approach that ensures people who are rehabilitated can get back into society and contribute. However, people who refuse to take the steps necessary to turn their lives around remain in prison until they do. Providing strong incentives and program supports that maximize the chances of turnaround is indeed in everybody's interest.

Our approach to sentencing should also take scarce resources into account. If people who are no longer a threat to society remain in prison, they are consuming resources that could be better spent on crime prevention programs, policing and rehabilitation. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has shown us that the average cost of incarcerating someone is about $115,000 a year. The average cost of segregation is $463,000 for a year.

Incarcerating people, or putting them in segregation, should never be done lightly in any event. Even for guilty persons, we should only incarcerate them to the degree that the cost of their incarceration would more effectively advance public safety than any other expenditure of the same funds. Clearly because of the costs, the system should have an interest in avoiding incarceration and segregation whenever effective and less costly options exist.

This analysis is not to penny-pinch for its own sake, but it is to recognize that there is an opportunity cost associated with any expenditure. Proactive policing and effective crime prevention is good for victims and public safety, so striking that right balance is indeed of critical importance.

Some will point out that we can never know for sure if people will reoffend, which is true. However, when the likelihood to reoffend is very low, perhaps resources would be better used for other kinds of interventions, like more policing, which are more likely to advance public safety than continued incarceration.

About a year ago, I had the opportunity to visit a prison in my riding and have some good dialogue with employees and inmates. A few points stuck with me from that visit. One is that there are a variety of programs available to people who are in prison and a variety of not-for-profit organizations, including many churches and other faith-based organizations, involved in connecting with and supporting inmates while in prison.

The process of transition from prison to life back outside of prison can be a real challenge. Prison life is structured and regulated in a way that life outside is not. There are far more services inside than outside. The process of transition back to normal life often involves economic challenges and pressures, as well as the temptation to fall back into old social groups and patterns of behaviour.

It seems to me that we need to look more at the area of transition and post-prison supports. How can we help people leverage new skills and experiences to find meaningful employment and develop a new peer group? How can we better partner with faith communities and other not-for-profits, recognizing that post-prison ministry is just as important as prison ministry?

Speaking of skills that help with transition, the prison in my riding offers inmates the potential opportunity to seek trade certification. Inmates who get a trade certificate almost never return to prison, according to the staff I spoke to.

That made me wonder. What if we built into our criminal justice a system a mechanism by which sentence lengths would be automatically adjusted if an inmate acquired a specific employment-related qualification? Inmates acquiring employment-related qualifications in areas of skill shortages in particular would help the economy, It would employers have a greater incentive to hire former inmates in cases where there would be a skill shortage. Therefore, perhaps there is an opportunity there for a win-win.

There should be positive incentives associated with rehabilitation and with making choices to turn one's life around. There also needs to be negative incentives associated with bad and disruptive behaviour that creates problems for the rehabilitation and for creating an environment in a prison setting that is conducive to rehabilitation. That brings us to the question of administrative segregation.

Bill C-83 would replace administrative segregation with something called, “structured intervention units”. We know that one of the Liberals' favourite things to do is to change the names of things, be it the universal child care benefit to the Canada child benefit. The workers' tax deduction had its name changed. Many existing programs had their names changed and the process relabelled under the current government.

Certainly the critics of administrative segregation do not see a meaningful or sufficient difference between the old and the new forms of segregation. However, there are some specific differences. Whether they are sufficient is a question for us to debate.

I will note the differences. The legislation would require that the person in the new Liberal rebranded form segregation to have a minimum of four hours per day out instead of two. It specifically mandates meaningful human contact.

What is frustrating for me is that the government does not seem to have a plan associated with it to actually link these objectives with the resources that are required. So often we see the government's desire to brand itself on something. The Liberals are eliminating administrative segregation. However, they are simply making an adjustment with respect to the name, but there are not sufficient resources associated with the commitments they have made to deal with the reality that having four hours instead of two is significantly more costly from a policing and administrative perspective. If they mandate it without having the resources in place to deliver on that commitment, they risk the inmates and the prison itself. They risk creating an environment of much less safety in the prison because they have a requirement for people to be out of a segregated environment when they may be very dangerous, yet they do not have the resources to ensure that is policed in an effective way.

It is interesting as well to have legislation that mandates meaningful human contact. It is interesting for the state to even be in the business of trying to define what is meaningful human contact and to mandate it. There are probably many people who are not in prison, who for various reasons with respect to life circumstances would like to have that much meaningful human contact and do not. The goal of rehabilitation should be to get people to a place and disposition where they are able to reconnect with and have meaningful connections with people in their lives. Although it is a laudable objective, I question what the legislation could mean and how the government would propose to operationalize this requirement of meaningful human contact.

I will close with this. In the area of criminal justice policy, there might actually have been an opportunity for some cross-party co-operation if the government had listened to the arguments we were making and understood the need for balance; that is a criminal justice policy that affirms human dignity, recognizing personal responsibility as well as the ability for people to change and recognizing the need to properly resource the proposals it is putting forward. Instead, we have an inadequate bill that serves to meet a branding exercise.

The Liberals want to say that they have done away with a particular aspect of prison life when they do not have a plan to resource it, they do not have a plan for public safety and they are not interested in the kind of meaningful, substantive reforms that people across the spectrum are looking for, the kinds of sentencing reforms on which we could potentially co-operate on. Again, we are not seeing those ideas proposed by the government.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is worth noting that the courts in both British Columbia and Ontario have struck down the administrative provisions for segregation. If those laws take effect, which they are scheduled to do in the coming months, it would make segregation no longer an option. I find it extremely concerning that the Conservatives continue to support this approach.

The member talked about rehabilitation and how much the Conservatives were in favour of that. He even went on to talk about maximizing supports and incentives. That is interesting. If we look back at the last Conservative government and its legislation and policy, it did the exact opposite. The Conservatives removed things like prison farms, which were incredible at building social, valuable life skills. That was the testimony of many inmates who had been in and out of prison. After going through that program, they developed those skills and were able to become positive contributing members of society.

I am curious if the member could expand on that and share a little about these maximizing supports and incentives that the previous Conservative was able to bring aboard. If not, maybe he could suggest what some of those could be with his suggested policy.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect to the member, his question betrays a real lack of understanding of what our role is as members of Parliament and what we are supposed to be doing. We are here to advance our own views about policy issues and to outline ideas and visions for moving us forward. That is exactly what I have done.

With respect to the member's criticisms, as well as those of other members of the government, about criminal justice policies that were pursued in the past, most of the policies around mandatory minimum sentences were supported and voted for by the Liberal caucus. It is very interesting to hear those members complain about some of the effects of that. They complain about money allocated to build new prisons and so forth, but then in every case, they voted for the sentencing bills around mandatory minimums that came forward. We unfortunately see a lot of hypocrisy from the government on this issue.

I want to comment on what the member said about administrative segregation. The courts have quite rightly criticized cases in which the administration of segregation was not effective. This does mean that it cannot be administered effectively and certainly it would be administered less effectively with a government mandating policies that it does not have a plan to resource.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague's opinion on the follow remarks by Senator Pate.

I will read a few excerpts.

Bill C-83 also maintains the status quo regarding a lack of effective external oversight of correctional decision making. Under the new legislation, all decision making regarding when and how long prisoners are to be segregated will be made by a CSC administrator without the review of any third party.

She adds:

This change represents another step away from Justice Louise Arbour's recommendation for judicial oversight of corrections following the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks of that.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is right to say that the government is not moving in a particularly dramatic way, that it wants to say it has eliminated administrative segregation but has rebranded it. The system is relatively similar except the Liberals are mandating a greater number of hours for which the resources are not sufficient to address that.

The member's proposal is one that I would want to study further before taking a definitive position on, but it is certainly an interesting idea for exploration. The principle of oversight to some degree makes sense. It is just a question of the logistics around its use in the particular way in which she has discussed it.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is good to be here this afternoon. It is unfortunate that we do not have a stronger bill with a little better content in it, but we will deal with what we have today. As usual, this is the kind of thing we have had to face with the government. It should be no surprise to us that it is in the chaos it is in, because we see a fairly consistent presentation that leads to bills that are this weak. I will talk about those weaknesses later.

The bill is basically a knee-jerk reaction to two Supreme Court decisions. The Liberals decided to play both sides of that game, so they are appealing those decisions at the same time as they are bringing forward whole new legislation. I think the public needs to understand that. Unfortunately, on this bill, they have missed the boat both on content and knowledge. We heard that from witnesses who came forward at committee. Witness after witness said that, first of all, they were not consulted, and second, the bill was not going in the right direction and needed to be reworked or thrown out, set aside or whatever.

One of the things the Liberals have done consistently since they have come to power is bring things forward and then actually look at them and decide whether they are worth bringing forward. Then they start to get people's opinions and they find out that they are on the wrong track. Then they start to backtrack and begin to amend their legislation. Once it comes back in here, they start forcing it through. We are here today on a bill with time allocation. The Liberals not only brought in time allocation at report stage but have already brought it in for third reading as well. We have seen this many times before, and we are seeing it here today. Fortunately, on some of these occasions, the Liberals have actually set bills aside and decided that they were not going to see them through. I guess electoral reform would be one of those that was obvious. Bill C-69 is another one that people across this country are begging the Liberals to set aside, because it would basically destroy the energy industry in Canada if they brought it through. Sometimes they can listen, but usually they find it very difficult to do that.

It is ironic that we have time allocation today, because had we had petitions today, I wanted to bring one forward. It is an electronic petition, E-1886. I found it fascinating that over 10,000 people signed this petition. It is an electronic petition from people across Canada, and it has to do with this issue.

This morning I asked a question of the public safety minister. He has been here for a long time. He was here before I was. One of the things he was part of before I came here was an attack on and actually the jailing of western Canadian farmers. These were farmers who had said that they would like to sell their own grain. One of them had donated one bushel of grain to a 4-H club in Montana. The public safety minister was one of those ministers who led the charge against those farmers. By the time they were done, they had five departments of the government working against individual Canadians. The CRA was involved. Justice was involved. Immigration was involved. The RCMP was firmly involved. Members can read stories of what happened in a couple of books by Don Baron. He writes about raids on people's farms in the middle of the night and their trying to confiscate their equipment, and those kinds of things. The public safety minister was then the agriculture minister. I asked him why it seems that every time we turn around, he is going after regular law-abiding Canadians.

We see this again with the initiative coming from the other side on handguns, which have been very restricted since the 1930s. People in Canada use them for sport. Many people across Canada have gone through the process to be licenced. This government seems bound and determined to try to make some sort of criminals out of handgun owners across this country. Again, my question to him was why he continued to come after law-abiding citizens, especially when on the other side, they are not all that interested, it seems, in actually protecting people from criminals.

That brings me back to my petition. Everyone is familiar with the case of Terri-Lynne McClintic, who was convicted of first degree murder in the horrific abduction, rape and murder of eight-year-old Tori Stafford. She was moved from a secure facility to a healing lodge without fences, where the government confirmed the presence of children. She is not eligible for parole until 2031. The Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge, which happens to be in my riding, lacks the necessary security measures to ensure the safety of local citizens in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan and surrounding areas.

Over 10,000 people across Canada called on the Government of Canada to exercise its moral and political authority to ensure that this decision was reversed and could not be allowed to happen again in other situations. We all know that it took the government weeks before it would acknowledge that there was a problem with this transfer, and in the end, it semi-reversed that transfer.

The interesting thing is that some of the same things are in Bill C-83. Right at the beginning, subclause 2(1) says, “the Service uses the least restrictive measures consistent with the protection of society, staff members and offenders”. There is no sense of some sort of disciplinary activity taking place in our prisons. The government says it has to find the least restrictive and most friendly way to treat people being held in our prisons right now.

I could go through many of the provisions of this bill. It talks about prisoners receiving the most effective programs, but when the minister was asked if there was a costing for this, he said that the government had not done costing on the bill. We can talk all day long about effective programs and health care, which this bill does, but if it was not costed before it was brought forward, how would the government even know what it would be expected to provide?

The bill talks about the criteria for the selection of the penitentiary. It says that it must be the “least restrictive environment” for the person. Correctional Service Canada has to deliberately run around and try to find the least restrictive place to put people. Many of these people are very dangerous individuals. Some of these people are actually bad people. I heard some heckling from the other side basically implying that they are not and that they can all be reformed if we treat them well, and if we ask for their opinions, they will give us good, solid opinions, we will all get along and we can hold hands and sing songs. The reality is that there are some people in these prisons who are very bad people and do not deserve to be running around as they choose.

One of the strange changes in this bill would allow the commissioner to designate a penitentiary or any section of a penitentiary as any level of security he or she chooses. That is very strange. The Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge is a minimum security prison on the edge of the Cypress Hills area. It is a beautiful location right at the edge of the trees. There are no fences around it. There is a series of cottages. The women right now spend time in the cottages. They have programming in the main lodge. Does that mean that the commissioner can designate one of those cottages a maximum security unit without changing the security level of the facilities or anything else and just say it is now a maximum-level unit, and someone can be put there who is supposed to be in a maximum security prison? All of us would put our heads in our hands and say that this is a crazy idea.

Within prisons there are some people who do not want to be in the general population. They are okay with being segregated. There are a number of reasons that might happen. One is that they may get hurt or injured themselves. The second is that they may hurt or injure someone else. They do not want to be put back into the general population of the prison. This bill basically says that the department has to continually work to do everything it can to put them back into general population.

A common theme throughout Bill C-83 and legislation on crime the Liberals keep bringing forward is that they want to try to make life easier for the most difficult prisoners. They should be looking at public safety. They should look at the people who work in the prisons. Why do Liberals not ever seem to focus on them instead of trying to find a way to hug a thug. They seem to really enjoy doing that.

This bill contains a lot of rhetoric and very few specifics. We were told that it was not costed. Once again, it is a demonstration of how soft the Liberals are on crime and how willing they are to close their eyes to reality. This is a series of promises that again will not be kept. This bill should be set aside. It is unfortunate that the government has moved time allocation for the 60th or 70th time to force this bill through.

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

Madam Speaker, I have heard members of the opposition say that this is a branding exercise, that there are not dramatic changes and that it is just a lot of rhetoric. I have to say that having studied this bill, I could not be more proud of it. I actually believe, firmly in my heart, that years from now, not only federal institutions but provincial institutions and institutions around the world will be looking at Canada for the way we have ended segregation.

When the minister appeared at committee, he was asked if it had been costed. That was prior to the fall economic statement, when $448 million was allocated to implement the revised SIUs.

I am wondering if any of the members have actually read the bill to see that there is oversight in it. It is actually my amendment. If this is such a terrible plan to end administrative segregation in prisons, what would you propose we do?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Again, I would remind the member to address the questions to the Chair.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, we understand that you would certainly have the capacity to answer that question, if you chose to.

Once again, the Liberals are hiding, as my colleague pointed out a little earlier, by changing the name of something and making it pretty much exactly the same thing. The Liberals are going to change what used to be solitary confinement to structured intervention units. If there is one thing the government is good at, it is finding acronyms and these kinds of things so that it can disguise what is actually going on.

The reality is that it is not going to change things a lot. The other reality is that the government is actually appealing the decisions made by the court. Apparently, if it wins, the Liberals will go back to the other system anyhow.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, I do not believe the member and I would see eye to eye on many things on the issue of public safety and corrections. One thing the member mentioned in his speech on which we could agree is that the changes the government is proposing to solitary confinement are really cosmetic, and they did not get the support of witnesses who came to the committee.

I also want to remind the hon. member that many of the issues we are facing around safety in corrections, for both staff and inmates, have come from years of underfunding and from over-incarcerating people, particularly indigenous people from our province of Saskatchewan.

I have two questions for my hon. colleague. First, does he support the Supreme Court ruling that solitary confinement, or the euphemistic term, “administrative segregation”, is unconstitutional? Does the member agree with that?

Second, does the member agree with the evidence that shows that for those people who have mental health issues, and that group of people in prisons in extremely large, solitary confinement, or administrative segregation, actually exacerbates people's mental health symptoms and causes more harm than good?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, obviously there are a host of issues involved in that question, but I appreciate my colleague's question.

The bill talks about programming. It talks about setting up programs for every single prisoner who is in prison. I think we are probably going to agree that there is a lot of rhetoric in here the Liberals never have any intention of fulfilling. They lay these things out. They make it look like there is going to be some great change, but they are not actually going to see this through.

Again, I think this is virtue signalling. The Liberals are basically replacing the names of things, and we are basically going to end up with the same structures and the same prisons we had before. Those same issues my colleague talks about will probably be left unanswered and will not be dealt with.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona, Public Services and Procurement; the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville, Carbon Pricing; the hon. member for Saskatoon West, Housing.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to stand and add my voice in support of Bill C-83, a piece of legislation that would make a number of changes to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. I am pleased to lend my support, as my colleagues have also done.

Bill C-83 proposes a number of important things. It creates the concept of patient advocates, as recommended by the inquest into the tragic death of Ashley Smith. Many of us in the House are very aware of the inquest and what happened to Ms. Smith, and the difficulties. We are very hopeful that Bill C-83 is going to help remedy some of those problems and prevent that from happening to some other young person.

The bill is meant to support inmates who need medical care, and ensure that they and their families can understand and exercise their rights. It would enshrine in law the principle that health care professionals working in the corrections system are autonomous and make decisions based on their medical judgment, without undue influence from correctional authorities.

It would enshrine in law the requirement that systemic and background factors be considered in all decisions involving indigenous people in custody, and it would expand the section of the law requiring the correctional service to be guided by respect for the diversity of the inmate population.

It would allow victims who attend parole hearings to access audio recordings of the proceedings.

It would create the legislative authority necessary for the Correctional Service of Canada to use body scanners to interdict drugs and other contraband, something that has been a problem for many years. There are people who have had to endure strip searches and so on. Having the body scanners would make it better for both the correctional service folks as well as for inmates. This technology is both less invasive than methods such as strip searches and less prone to false positives than the ion scanners CSC currently relies on.

It would also replace the current system of administrative segregation with structured intervention units, or SIUs, as they are referred to. This new system would ensure that when inmates need to be separated from the rest of the prison population for safety reasons, they would retain access to rehabilitative programming, mental health care and other interventions, something that was not happening before.

The bill deals with serious and challenging issues, and it is to be expected that Canadians and members of Parliament will have differences of opinion about them. So far, however, the Conservative contributions to this debate have been incredibly disappointing. At times, the Conservatives have blatantly contradicted themselves. For instance, in his speech, the member for Yellowhead complained that the changes made by the bill to administrative segregation are insignificant and superficial. However, in the very same speech, the very same member said that those very same changes would endanger inmates and staff. Which is it? Do the Conservatives think the bill is insignificant, or do they think it is catastrophic? It cannot be both.

At other times, the Conservatives have simply chosen to ignore the facts. They have been complaining over and over again that the government has not allocated resources to implement the bill, when they know that is not the case. On page 103 of the fall economic statement, issued by the finance minister last November, there is $448 million allocated to support amendments to transform federal corrections, including the introduction of a new correctional interventions model to eliminate segregation.

Also in November, the government sent the public safety committee a written response that went into more detail about the funding.

That response says that if Bill C-83 is adopted, the government will invest $297 million over six years and $71 million ongoing to implement the structured intervention units. The funding will be dedicated to providing focused interventions, programs and social supports and will include access to resources such as program officers, aboriginal liaison officers, elders, chaplains and others. That is in a document that all members of the public safety committee have had for over three months.

The document goes on to say that the remaining amount from the fall economic statement, $150.3 million over six years and $74.3 million ongoing, is for mental health care. That includes assessment and early diagnosis of inmates at intake and throughout incarceration, enhancements to primary and acute mental health care, and support for patient advocacy and 24/7 health care at designated institutions.

Again, this is all from a document that the Conservatives also have had since the fall, so when they complain about a lack of resources, they are either being disingenuous or they just have not had time to read the report.

The Conservatives' contributions to this debate have also been characterized by an unfortunate amount of self-righteousness. They position themselves as champions of victims, but it was legislation passed by the Harper government in 2015 that prohibited victims who attend a parole hearing from accessing an audio recording of that same hearing. Their bill said that victims who want recordings have to stay away from the hearing itself.

Parole hearings are often difficult experiences for many victims of crime, full of emotion, and the law should not expect them to retain every word of the proceedings at a time when they are immensely frightened and nervous and in an unfamiliar environment. The legislation before us today would finally let all victims access those recordings, whether they attend in person or not.

The Conservatives also position themselves as champions of correctional employees. Let me remind the House what the national president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers said in 2014. Kevin Grabowsky was head of the union at that time, and he said, “We have to actively work to rid the Conservatives from power.” He said the Harper government was endangering correctional officers with changes to the labour code, cuts to rehabilitative programming and policies that resulted in overcrowding in federal prisons.

The main question raised at committee by both correctional officers and the Union of Safety and Justice Employees, which represents other CSC staff such as parole officers, was whether Bill C-83 would be accompanied by sufficient resources to implement it safely and effectively. As I have already made clear, the answer to that is a resounding yes.

Finally, the Conservatives' interventions in this debate have been reminiscent of the very worst of the Harper approach to the legislative process. They have been actually attacking the government for listening to stakeholder feedback and accepting some of those amendments. Under the Harper government, that kind of openness was unheard of, but I am proud to support a government that lets legislators legislate.

I thank all members who have engaged in a serious study of the bill and proposed thoughtful amendments, which is exactly what Canadians sent all of us here to do.

We have before us legislation that would make correctional institutions more effective and humane, accompanied by the resources needed to implement it safely. It is important that we move forward and pass the bill at this time.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, one of the things my colleague talked about in her speech was the introduction of full body scanners. While it might seem hard to believe, there are some elements of this legislation that we do support, and that is one of them.

The irony of it is that if full body scanners are used on all visitors who enter our prison system, why in the world would the Liberals continue to implement their prisoner needle exchange program? If everyone is body scanned, there is no need to have this prisoner needle exchange program.

I am wondering if my colleague, even with the introduction of full body scanners, would continue to support the use of the prisoner needle exchange program, on which our front-line officers, whom she quoted from five years ago, are today saying there has been no consultation. All of us know that there is such a thing as buyer's remorse, and this gentleman is one of them. Many others have approached me about the promises that the Liberal government made and has now backtracked on.

Does my colleague still support the introduction of the prisoner needle exchange program?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are trying to solve the many problems that our jails are trying to cope with. We know of HIV and a number of other diseases and infections that continue to be spread. We need to try to offer ways and means for inmates to be treated for drug addiction. There is no sense keeping our head in the sand and not recognizing that it is a serious problem. Many of the people currently in jail and carrying out some of the horrendous crimes we all know about are very serious drug addicts. The safe needle exchange, yes, is an issue, but at the same time, it would provide opportunity for rehabilitation, improve safety overall and reduce the amount of disease as a result of not having safe needles.

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

Madam Speaker, the hon. member spoke about the investments being made to implement these SIUs and rightly noted that members of the opposition seem not to have read the reports that the public safety committee received. The investment of $448 million is significant, part of it going toward infrastructure and a large portion going toward mental health. When I met with the president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers and the president of the Union of Safety and Justice Employees, both indicated that these investments are needed in order to implement this legislation. The previous government made significant cuts to corrections, and we are barely starting to catch up to what was cut.

I am wondering if the member could speak to the importance of this $448 million to implement the legislation we have before us today.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my hon. colleague on the work that she has done, along with all colleagues on the public safety committee, in attempting to deal with these difficult issues. We all want our country to be safer. We do not want our communities exposed to some of the people out there, unfortunately, and a lot of it boils down to mental health issues.

Colleagues on the opposite side have indicated their concern for whether the resources were going to be put there. It is one thing to bring in legislation, but we need to back it up with the funds required. The fact is that this funding has already been committed, and the dollars are going to be there.

I am hoping that with all colleagues in the House, we will create a better environment to deal with mental health issues. Sooner or later people leave prison. They do not stay there forever, and if we do not give them the help they need to cure their particular drug addiction or help them with their mental health issues, when they leave they will carry all that negativity into society, and that is not going to help.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is great to rise this afternoon to speak on Bill C-83, an act that amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and another act, transforming administrative segregation.

The legislation would do a number of important things, such as creating patient advocates to help ensure inmates get the medical care they need, giving victims of crime enhanced access to recordings of parole hearings and enshrining in law the requirement that Correctional Service Canada considers systemic and background factors when making decisions affecting indigenous people in custody.

Of course, the main thing it would do is replace the current system of administrative segregation with structured intervention units, SIUs, for inmates who need to be separated from the rest of the institution for safety reasons, where they would have access to rehabilitative programs, mental health care and other interventions that are generally not available in segregation, which is an improvement. Importantly, inmates in SIUs would be entitled to a minimum of four hours a day out of their cells and at least two hours a day of meaningful human interaction with staff, visitors, volunteers, elders, chaplains or other inmates with whom they are compatible and can interact safely.

One of the main questions that was asked in the early days of committee study was whether the bill would be backed up with the funding needed to implement it safely and effectively. The answer is yes. The fall economic statement included a $448-million fund to implement the legislation. It includes about $300 million for staffing and other resources for the SIUs as well as $150 million for mental health care both in the SIUs and throughout the corrections system. These investments build on nearly $80 million for mental health care in corrections in the last two budgets. In short, the Correctional Service would have the resources it needs to turn the intention of the legislation into a practical reality.

However, to make sure that these resources are put to good use and that the new structured intervention units really do work as planned, the public safety committee made several amendments to Bill C-83. Yes, the committee system does work and our government committed to that when we were first elected. None of these amendments change the nature of the bill, but they add clarity to the way the new system will work.

For instance, Bill C-83 specifies that an inmate's time out of the cell will have to be offered between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. Interactions would generally be expected to happen face to face rather than through a door or meal slot. The clause that would allow hours out of cell not to be offered in exceptional circumstances now includes a list of examples, such as fires or natural disasters, to be clear that the circumstances must be truly exceptional. Also, if a warden disagrees with a medical recommendation to remove an inmate from an SIU, the matter will be elevated to a senior panel external to the institution.

However, those are the important additions that would strengthen the new system, and now at report stage, the member for Oakville North—Burlington has proposed an additional amendment that would add independent external review of SIU placements, which is something that was called for by several witnesses. The public safety minister told the committee last fall that he was open to the idea. The government has now confirmed that it will support the proposal.

Again, the role of committees is near and dear to our democracy, and it is again in Bill C-83 that we see committees doing the good work that Canadians expect them to do and that their members do with pride.

External decision-makers would get involved in three scenarios: if an inmate in an SIU has, for whatever reason, not received the minimum hours out of his or her cell or minimum hours of meaningful human contact for five days in a row or 15 out of 30; if the senior panel reviewing a medical recommendation decides to keep the inmate in the SIU; and on the 90th day of placement in SIU, and every 60 days thereafter, for as long as the inmate is there.

In the first scenario, when an inmate has not been getting his or her time out of cell, the external independent decision-maker will consider whether the Correctional Service has taken all reasonable steps to provide the inmate with opportunities for hours out and encourage inmates to avail themselves of those opportunities. If they determine that not to be the case, they can make recommendations to the service, and if, after a week, the independent decision-maker is still not satisfied, they can order the inmate removed from the SIU. The decision-maker's ruling will be appealable to the Federal Court, both by the inmate and the Correctional Service.

In the other scenarios, a disagreement about a medical recommendation and regular reviews beginning on the 90th day, the independent decision-maker will consider whether having the inmate in the general population poses a security threat or would interfere with an ongoing investigation. It will take into account the inmate's correctional plan, the appropriateness of the inmate's security classification and confinement in the penitentiary, and any other factor it deems relevant.

Bill C-83 provides extensive flexibilities to the authorities to do their jobs. In other words, inmates who currently need to be separated from the rest of the institution for security reasons spend 22 hours a day in their cells, with very little in the way of rehabilitative interventions and no external oversight. Under Bill C-83, those inmates will have twice as much time out of their cells, with a full suite of rehabilitative interventions, including mental health care, and there will be binding external oversight that could kick in after as few as five days or even sooner in the event of a health care professional's recommendation.

This is a major step forward and that cannot be over-emphasized. Bill C-83 updates issues with regard to our penitentiaries and commits the appropriate funds to do so. I am proud of the legislation. I do not sit on the committee reviewing and bringing the bill forward, but it is great to see the committee doing its work and also incorporating amendments.

Bill C-83 will also enhance rehabilitation while continuing to meet the security imperatives that must always be top of mind when we are dealing with corrections. In fact, we cannot really separate rehabilitation from security. Better, more effective rehabilitation results in better security, both while the inmates are incarcerated and, as importantly, once they have been released.

That is why I support Bill C-83, and I hope that the bill will be adopted and enacted as soon as possible by this Parliament.

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

Madam Speaker, the bill would end administrative segregation, something that all of us who read the coroner's inquest into Ashley Smith and the horrible things that happened to that young lady, resulting in her dying by suicide, would agree with.

I am wondering if the hon. member could speak to the importance of ending the practice of administrative segregation and ensuring we are putting something in place that will put the safety of those who work in corrections, which is always paramount to the government and to all of us, while acknowledging that we need to fix the system that failed so miserably for someone like Ashley Smith.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, as many parliamentarians and many Canadians would know, we all watched the images of what Ashley Smith endured on CBC and a number of news programs. We want to ensure that does not happen to any other Canadian.

We do know our penitentiaries serve the role in our society of making sure that people are held to account for their actions and are held responsible. Through the bill, we would ensure that individuals who are in penitentiaries do their time, which is one of the aspects we obviously believe in as a government, while receiving proper and humane treatment as individuals. That is something I personally believe in as a Canadian and as a person. We must prevent any other instances, such as what happened to this young girl, from occurring.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am appalled to hear the Liberals say that Bill C-83 will prevent suicides, when we know that many experts oppose administrative segregation. The bill proposes up to 20 hours a day of segregation for an indefinite period of time.

Two courts, one in Ontario and another in B.C., ruled that indefinite administrative segregation is unconstitutional. Furthermore, there is no independent oversight to assess the restrictions on freedom. Administrative segregation restricts freedom.

It has been proven that more than 48 hours in administrative isolation can cause permanent mental health effects and lead to self-harm, depression, suicide, panic attacks and hypersensitivity to external stimuli. The fact that administrative segregation is still an option is disastrous. The Liberals are just replicating what existed before and claiming to improve the situation.

The Liberals say that this could prevent suicides. However, the new measures aggravate mental health problems related to administrative segregation. In my view, it makes no sense to go down this path.

Today, the government is muzzling MPs. We should be moving amendments to improve the bill. The government rejected virtually all of the NDP and Conservative Party amendments aimed at improving the bill. That is not very professional, and it is very hypocritical. It harms inmates whose mental health problems will be aggravated and who will eventually be released and reintegrated into society.