Public Safety committee  Again, it's a question of priority. I think this was raised previously. How do you balance interdiction measures with rehabilitation and harm reduction? My view is that, upon admission, the bulk of the prison population requires some substance abuse treatment. When we spend the amount of money that we are spending on corrections, we should have state-of-the-art treatment right from the beginning and sustained throughout the incarceration.

Public Safety committee  It's my pleasure. Thank you.

Public Safety committee  No, because sometimes they can be there for years. It is at the exit that we have to prepare people and make sure that they have, for example, their birth certificate, so that they can apply for a card.

Public Safety committee  Federal services pay for their medical care when they are incarcerated in a federal institution.

Public Safety committee  This is one of the issues we have been documenting for several years and it still doesn't seem to be fixed. When we talk about putting the community first in a part of the Correctional Service's budget, it's for things as simple as that. When people leave the penitentiary, they should have all the identification cards they need to get medical care and social assistance, or to get a driver's licence to work or anything else.

Public Safety committee  Thank you. I'm glad to hear that there has been some progress with respect to some of the ID cards. For me, the frustration is that some parts of the service do that very well—there are some best practices—but it is not nationally available. The challenge for the service is to implement best practices, so that the ID card issue is resolved.

Public Safety committee  One of the things I mentioned was corporate culture. I think fundamental changes need to be made to make the culture more open. That would also improve accountability. I would like to see an openness to our recommendations as well as those of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, among others.

Public Safety committee  I'd say there's a lot of misinformation out there. Countries that have implemented such programs have seen, for example, a large reduction in incidents of accidental needle sticks. I think people are misinformed about this. But the reality is that assessments from other countries show a significant reduction in such incidents.

Public Safety committee  Corrections has spent an inordinate amount on interdiction measures to try to prevent drugs from going into penitentiaries. We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on all sorts of initiatives, and those initiatives have not yielded the results that we would expect. The evidence shows, for example, that random urinalysis tests that are positive have not changed dramatically or significantly since we spent this inordinate amount.

Public Safety committee  After five years, what has happened in terms of food management is quite extraordinary. There are more and more inmates who use their own money to go to the canteen because they want to avoid eating the food offered by the penitentiary. Some wardens have told me that they rarely cook for 100 per cent of the prison population, but for a quarter or a third less.

Public Safety committee  I'm sorry. I didn't—

Public Safety committee  EIM is the engagement intervention model. The question is that the implementation of it is problematic. We've made the recommendation. It's actually an Ashley Smith recommendation we made many years ago that was finally put forward and the service finally accepted in the case of Matthew Hines.

Public Safety committee  In line with best practices applied in other countries internationally, this type of program is managed by the health centre. Nurses and doctors are in charge of it. The Correctional Service of Canada has implemented another way of doing things that focuses on safety issues. Risk assessments must be completed before a candidate can benefit from the program.

Public Safety committee  It should be called upon the government under the Inquiries Act, completely independent. Your committee could then review an independent...where there is no perception or risk of being self-serving. When I reviewed the investigation conducted by the service on Saskatchewan Penitentiary, I made the call that, following a riot in December 2016, the investigation was self-serving.

Public Safety committee  I think it was in New Brunswick. I would have to dig it out.