Public Safety committee  Over the years, having been a correctional officer in the early eighties, I can tell you that the role of the correctional officers has changed significantly. In the early eighties, correctional officers were much more like the other individuals in the institution. You didn't ca

Public Safety committee  When you are aware of that—of course you've read the files—you understand the offender and you're much more protective of yourself, much more cautious. You put up a bit of a wall, and it becomes difficult sometimes. Program officers deal with these types of situations, where they

Public Safety committee  I'm not aware of any studies. Corrections would have more information with regard to that. However, on a personal note, I know of individuals who have, after traumatic incidents, unfortunately, taken their own lives. It's something we have to live with every day. You go through a

Public Safety committee  Yes, that's correct and that's why the USG is embarking on its own study of vicarious trauma and operational stress injury that is impacting our members. Hopefully, we'll be able to gather data and be able to share that with both our partners in the departments as well as people

Public Safety committee  We do have an employee assistance program and from that you can access limited counselling, usually four to six sessions. Unfortunately, with the counselling that you get through your employee assistance program, the psychologist, if it happens to be a psychologist, whoever it ha

Public Safety committee  Yes, certainly we have had staffing reductions over the past number of years. In particular, parole officers in the institutions, I can speak to that very well. The ratio of offender to parole officer has been increased significantly in our opinion. What that has done is it has r

Public Safety committee  Thank you. Some of the legislation needs to be related to workers' compensation, WSIB, WCB. We do have a federal workers' compensation bill, but it really defers the responsibilities to the provincial pieces of legislation. Unfortunately, I believe only Alberta and Ontario—I cou

Public Safety committee  I certainly think we have to look beyond the traditional view of first responders. For example, if you work inside a prison, oftentimes you're not considered a first responder, but the reality is that you are. I'll give a personal example. When I was a program officer and my ta

Public Safety committee  The following six measures would be enormously helpful to many of the individuals represented by USG. Externally commission a study by Public Safety Canada to assess the degree and extent of occupational stress injuries by non-officers and non-guards who are directly engaged in

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  Good morning. Thank you for having us here today. I started my career at Drumheller Institution in 1980 as a correctional officer. In 1983, I transferred to Edmonton Maximum Security Institution. In 2002, I transitioned to a program officer. USG represents over 15,000 employees