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Business of Supply October 2nd, 2018
Madam Speaker, we are saying that the rule of law must be paramount and that micromanaging individual offender decisions is not following the rule of law. The minister has asked for a review by the commissioner not only of this transfer but also of the overall policies and procedures that are currently in place, and we will wait for a report.
Business of Supply October 2nd, 2018
Madam Speaker, we can only begin to imagine what Tori Stafford's family has been enduring the last nine years. The crimes committed against her were vicious and heartbreaking, and the people who committed those crimes deserve the life sentences they are serving in the custody of the Correctional Service of Canada.
When we hear Tori's father read his words, it is clear how raw his pain and anger still are. Of course they are. None of us has any difficulty understanding why he feels the way he does. At the same time, people who have not experienced what he has experienced can never truly understand. He, like the rest of Tori's friends and family, has every right to speak out, and we are listening.
The Minister of Public Safety has directed the commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada to undertake a review of the transfer decision in this case to ensure that it has followed the service's policies and procedures, and additionally, to evaluate whether the policies themselves are indeed still appropriate. The commissioner has named three people to conduct a review: Dr. Carmen Long, director general of CSC's offender program and reintegration branch; Dr. Andrea Moser, director general of interventions in CSC's woman offender sector; and Doreen Oakes, councillor for the Nekaneet First Nation and a professor at the First Nations University of Canada. The commissioner has been unequivocal that following the review he will make any necessary changes.
However, let us be absolutely clear that offender management decisions are within the purview of the Correctional Service of Canada. The government does not have the authority to intervene in these decisions, nor should it. According to section 6 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the commissioner of the Correctional Service has the control and management of the service and all matters connected with the service under the direction of the minister.
The very same language is used in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act about the public safety minister's relationship with the commissioner of the RCMP. In neither case does it mean the minister is entitled to micromanage the day-to-day operations of the agency. He cannot tell the commissioner of the Correctional Service which offenders to incarcerate where, anymore than he can tell the RCMP commissioner who to investigate or arrest. We do not need a justice system that is vulnerable to politics, and that is why the rule of law is so important.
This has been tested in court. In 1987, when considering whether the minister could direct that a particular inmate be placed in segregation, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that this language about the commissioner serving under the direction of a minister merely recognized overall ministerial responsibility, but does not authorize the minister to order the segregation of a particular prisoner. That may be why, when he was minister of public safety under Stephen Harper, the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis said, “I do not control the classification of individual prisoners”. Even if it were legal, having governments make these kinds of operational criminal justice decisions would be a dangerous precedent. That may be why Stephen Harper's former staffer, Benjamin Perrin, said over the weekend, “I'm concerned with politicians being the ones who decide how any particular individual offender is treated”. He is absolutely right.
No two offenders have the same experience in our corrections system. What is more, thousands of major and minor decisions concerning the management of their cases are made every day across Canada.
There are dozens of different institutions, and each one is organized in its own way and has it own institutional culture, its own level of security, and its own types of interventions and programs. It is to be expected that offenders will move through the system over the years. They may start out in a maximum security facility at the beginning of their sentence and then move to a lower security facility, which is what happened with Terri-Lynne McClintic in 2014.
Offenders may get transferred within an institution, or from one institution to another. They may spend time in a mental health facility, or they may go to a facility with more of an indigenous focus. They will probably move through various programs, classes and institutional jobs, and occasionally be given different privileges or punishments.
It is the professionals in the Correctional Service of Canada who evaluate offenders on a regular basis, and use their training and expertise to determine the best correctional path for each individual.
I will not go any further into the specifics of the particular case referenced in today's motion. As I said earlier, the minister has ordered a review, and that review is under way. I will use the remainder of my time to discuss some of the roles of a healing lodge within our correctional system, because recently in this chamber, there have been some very unfortunate mischaracterizations of them.
Healing lodges are, first and foremost, correctional institutions. Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge is a medium-security institution. We have nine healing lodges, four run by the correctional service itself and five run by indigenous community organizations.
Healing lodges are not a free ride. The programming at these institutions is rooted in indigenous culture and practice, but offenders are still subject to restrictions and security measures, and they are still held accountable for their actions.
Let me reiterate, Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge is a medium-security institution. There are security cameras monitored 24 hours a day. There are daily searches of the facility and of offenders. Offenders are counted four times daily. There are regular security patrols all night long. Security staff has physical restraints and pepper spray. Importantly, there has not been a single escape from Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge in the last 10 years.
To correct the misconception about children at Okimaw Ohci, all women's institutions in Canada have mother-child programs for inmates with children younger than school age. This has been the case since 1997, and no child has ever come to harm as a result of this program.
To correct the very unfortunate language some of the members have been using when they refer to the healing lodges as “condos”, these are not luxury accommodations. The living quarters are actually comparable to other medium-security quarters in other women's institutions. Medium-security inmates at Grand Valley or Edmonton Institution for Women, for example, live in what is called an “open campus design”. There are houses around a courtyard. Each house has a small common area and a dozen small bedrooms. The set-up of all these institutions, Okimaw Ohci included, is the same now as it was under the Conservatives.
Let us talk about the purpose of healing lodges. As members know, indigenous people are significantly over-represented in Canada's correctional system. Approximately one-quarter of the male prison population and one-third of the female prison population are indigenous. About 90% of these indigenous women have been physically or sexually assaulted.
About 80% of them have serious problems with substance abuse.
Healing lodges are not a panacea or a quick fix, but they have show an ability to deal with complex and deep-seated problems. They are not the only answer, but they are certainly part of the answer. The correctional investigator has repeatedly recommended making greater use of healing lodges and the Standing Committee on the Status of Women recently recommended that the Government of Canada ensure access to healing lodges for indigenous female offenders with a medium-security classification. Not one Conservative member dissented from that recommendation.
Therefore, I urge my colleagues across the aisle to stop denigrating healing lodges. They are an important element of our correctional system and have a record of successfully holding inmates accountable for the most serious of crimes by reinforcing that seriousness in the eyes of the community and of the offenders themselves.
Determining which offenders those are is the role of the trained professionals who work for the Correctional Service of Canada. They make their determinations following a thorough risk assessment with institutional and public safety always top of mind. It is not, nor should it be, the role of politicians to make these decisions. With this motion calling on the government to micromanage the operations of a criminal justice agency, the opposition is asking the government to act in violation of the law. Of course, that is not something we can support.
The minister has acted to the full extent of his authority by directing the commissioner of Correctional Service Canada to review both this particular transfer, as well as the appropriateness of the service's relevant policies in the interest of the effectiveness of Canada's corrections system and in the interest of public safety. We will follow the law and act deliberately and thoughtfully to address this issue and we await the report of the commissioner of corrections.
Justice September 28th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, as media reports today confirm, the decision on which institution to place an inmate in cannot be made by the Minister of Public Safety. It must be made by Correctional Service Canada.
Justice September 28th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, our hearts do go out to the family of Tori Stafford for the loss they endured.
The Minister of Public Safety has requested that the commissioner of corrections do a review of that placement, make sure that all policies and procedures were followed and ensure that the policies and procedures in place are indeed appropriate. The offender is currently housed in a correctional institution equipped to provide programming in a medium-security environment.
Justice September 28th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, the minister has asked the commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada to review this case to ensure that all decision-making was properly done in accordance with the law and long-standing policies that stretch back more than a decade.
To correct the public record, I want to confirm that CSC's correctional facility has both minimum and medium-security capacity. This particular offender was classified as medium security back in 2014.
Justice September 28th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, it is important that we understand what the requirements are, what the policies are and what the legal actions available to all ministers and members of government are. Section 28 makes it quite clear that the authority to make a different placement decision rests with the Correctional Service of Canada. That power does not belong to a minister.
Justice September 28th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, all Canadians share the grief and the pain of the family of little Tori Stafford. That being true, the minister has asked the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada to review this case and ensure that all the policies and procedures that are in place were appropriately applied. He has also asked her to review to make sure that these policies and procedures remain appropriate.
Justice September 28th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, I will repeat again. Section 28 of the Corrections Act says that inmate placement decisions must be made by Correctional Services. That act was created in 1992 by a Conservative government and Parliament decided that the power did not belong to a minister. Section 28 was last updated by the Harper government. As much as he might like to, the Minister of Public Safety cannot simply overrule laws created.
Public Safety September 28th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, I want to reinforce what I said earlier. We have introduced national security legislation that will clarify once and for all that advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression are not activities that undermine the security of Canada.
Bill C-59 was developed with the most extensive consultation we have ever done. It will reflect the needs and desires of the Canadian people.
Public Safety September 28th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, we are undoing Harper's Bill C-51. We have a proposed piece of legislation that will be before this House, Bill C-59, which will make improvements that people have been demanding. We have had the most widespread consultation on this proposed piece of legislation, and we are confident that it will reflect the needs and desires of the people of Canada.