Public Safety committee  The John Howard Society's position is that the abolition, the out-and-out abolition, of administrative segregation is not a good idea. Administrative segregation is a necessary tool as a short-term solution to—

Public Safety committee  Disciplinary is different.

Public Safety committee  Our view is that you need to have the capacity to immediately separate prisoners who are exhibiting violence with each other or towards the guards, any others or themselves. You need to be able to do that fairly quickly. It's an emergency short-term situation. It would be better to work with the existing framework of administrative segregation—

Public Safety committee  Pardon me?

Public Safety committee  Altogether...? Absolutely, yes. We want to see—

Public Safety committee  Many of the men I have interviewed who have been in administrative segregation have told me that they're been presented with opportunities to go to the yard at six o'clock in the morning when it's freezing cold and dark outside, and when they decline, that's it. That's the end of their opportunity to be out of their cell for the day.

Public Safety committee  That's exactly what you're hearing.

Public Safety committee  There's no chance of delivering that vision with an absence of resources to support it.

Public Safety committee  There are really three bases on which I think you shouldn't be pursuing the bill, but certainly there's no chance that you're going to be able to implement it consistent with the vision that Minister Goodale and his team presented to you unless you have the resources in place. This is an unfunded bill.

Public Safety committee  I haven't, but I am an old federal Department of Justice person. I spent eight or nine years as a PCO analyst. In my day, you wouldn't get to a cabinet committee unless you costed your bill. You're creating a downstream fiscal hit without the resources to back it up.

Public Safety committee  You have to build in due process protections. The section 7—

Public Safety committee  I know that Minister Goodale and his staff were talking about daily health care visits. There are daily visits from the health care staff now.

Public Safety committee  I think prisons are not well designed to deal with mental health issues generally. Just to give you an idea, while I have interviewed very many men who have been in administrative segregation units, some of whom have suffered from mental health issues, many of them have told me that when they tell the guards or the correctional officers that they're feeling suicidal, the guards will say to them, “Go ahead and kill yourself.

Public Safety committee  Do you want to introduce yourself, Lawrence?

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the invitation to be here to talk about this important bill that you're considering. Some of you may know that the John Howard Society provides services to support the reintegration of prisoners into communities, and other services across the country.