Public Safety committee  Absolutely, you're quite correct. The countries that have introduced it have shown a great deal of success in reducing the spread of infectious diseases, but have also witnessed—and this is what's most important, but a hard one to sell to correctional staff—that it actually made the prison a safer place for correctional staff.

Public Safety committee  Okay. It's the same thing with respect to the correctional outcomes, and they are as poor. With respect to the drug strategy, 75% of our prison population has a history of substance abuse. On education, the average educational achievement of prisoners coming into the system is a grade 8 education.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd also like to thank all the committee members for giving me two hours this morning. I am very pleased to be here today. I am accompanied by Hazel Miron, a senior investigator from the Office of the Correctional Investigator of Canada. I should note that she also has the role of champion for indigenous issues.

Public Safety committee  Yes. What happened with DRAP was that the government asked departments, including CSC, to make their contribution. The Correctional Service did something; it protected its salary envelope and cut all the services to inmates. That's why we ended up with an extraordinary ratio between inmates and staff, with so few services and funding available to do things like education, programming, health care and so on.

Public Safety committee  Yes. Thank you for raising that point. This was the third systemic investigation we undertook. We looked at therapeutic ranges. The Trudeau government provided some funding to establish this initiative to try to enhance mental health services to offenders, so we actually looked at those therapeutic ranges in maximum security institutions.

Public Safety committee  Corrections officials often tell me that it's a question of resources, that they're building partnerships and running pilot projects. However, on the whole, we see that all educational activities at the secondary level are carried out using paper and pencils. However, we do not live in an era where these tools are the norm.

Public Safety committee  Well, I wrote an academic paper that looked at the 10 years of the Harper government and I'm sure I can share that with the committee. What we saw during those years was that there was a lot of tough-on-crime legislation that was put forward. The Correctional Service basically capitalized on that and asked for a lot of resources, and it got a lot of resources.

Public Safety committee  Again I would say, with all due respect, that my office has written on this aspect for over a decade, and the typical response we have from the Correctional Service is about a few pilot projects that are very great, but they've been pilot projects for years, and very little has been done to make computers accessible or make e-learning accessible.

Public Safety committee  You have to put strong policy in place. My annual report talked about legislation, but while legislation is developed, the Correctional Service of Canada can do a whole lot of things to try to prevent and detect and respond to sexual violence. In terms of engaging with respect to education and awareness and programming and specific initiatives, it's about having a strong policy that makes it clear that those who are identified as being the most vulnerable will be looked after and protected and that predators will be flagged and tracked and managed appropriately.

Public Safety committee  I think that question should be directed to the minister and the Government of Canada. In my view, the response of the Correctional Service is dismissive and unresponsive and I think now there is quite a long track record of adopting that stand. When I look at politicians and leadership in terms of the minister, the mandate letter and even the Trudeau government in publishing these mandate letters of all the ministers, I think that's great.

Public Safety committee  Certainly. I will tell you that Scandinavian countries are some of the most progressive countries in the world when it comes to corrections, so I would certainly look at them, but I would also look at some European countries. I'm sure my staff can provide you with some assistance there to point you in the right direction.

Public Safety committee  You ask me what the current situation is. We looked at the figures over a five-year period. During this period, about a dozen cases were reported each year, for a prison population of about 14,000 individuals. If we take into account the comings and goings of some inmates and the number of individuals who stayed in the penitentiaries during this period, we are talking about 20,000 people who stayed in the institutions, and only about a dozen cases were reported.

Public Safety committee  Certainly, you have to create an environment within the prison setting where it's not so hard to disclose what happens. Right now, there are so many risks and disincentives that the disclosure just doesn't happen, so it's very grossly under-reported. We know that in society at large it's an issue.

Public Safety committee  Thank you. I would be delighted to put forward two amendments to that bill. My expertise is not infinite, but there are two things that I think are important to at least hear, which are some of the concerns in my office. The first one is simply that the procedure of MAID should never happen in a penitentiary.

Public Safety committee  It would have been my preference if the response to my recommendations would have had the minister stating clearly that he directed the Department of Justice to draft legislation accordingly. That would have been my preference, absolutely, but that's not the response I got. The response I received is that the minister isn't excluding legislation, but he has made the request to your committee to study it and make recommendations, including assessing the merits of something similar to the Prison Rape Elimination Act of the United States.