Public Accounts committee  I'd be happy to.

Public Accounts committee  First of all, I think it's important to understand the almost unique context in which the Office of the Correctional Investigator exists. It's been given a very particular mandate by legislation that Parliament awarded to it, and it's been given a policy framework by government,

Public Accounts committee  The executive director is currently employed by the office in that capacity, and his duties and responsibilities were reviewed, along with all of the management control practices in the office, post the receipt of the 2004 briefing on the first audit from the Auditor General and

Public Accounts committee  I took those conclusions from the auditor very seriously, as you can imagine, and they became the immediate focus of my review. There is absolutely no evidence that there was any form of collusion or that those payments were made in any untoward way. Those payments were made and

Public Accounts committee  I visit the institutions on an infrequent basis. I try to be in each region at least once a year, so that would be five or more institutions, and I don't conduct first-hand investigations—

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members, thank you very much for your invitation to appear before this committee and for the opportunity to provide the views of my office on the impact of Bill C-25, the Truth in Sentencing Act, on federal corrections. Let me begin by first telling yo

Justice committee  I'll take a shot at answering your question, but I also note that you will be hearing from the Commissioner of Corrections later in the proceedings. He may have more accurate figures on the number of those admitted to federal corrections who had previously spent time remanded in

Justice committee  My observations are based on the analysis of the intake, admission, and discharge in federal corrections, and I've looked at it both in terms of snapshots, a daily count, as well as trends. This is certainly not a new or novel conclusion on my part and the part of my office that

Justice committee  Well, the daily count on May 10 was 13,353 in custody, about 500 of whom were women. If you take a look at that daily count and at trends in terms of admission and discharge, which have been relatively stable, then it's easy to see how, if you're double-bunked right now in 650 or

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I very much value your time. We will try to keep our opening comments concise, but we will definitely go more than the standard ten minutes. I appreciate your indulgence. I'll get right to it. We sincerely congratulate you on your decision to

Public Safety committee  Thank you. I want to focus now on the issue of mental health in corrections. First, it's important to remember that the Correctional Service of Canada is legislatively mandated to provide health care to offenders through the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. Federal off

Public Safety committee  I last did a quick census on program access for the Correctional Service of Canada on May 10. That day, there were 13,353 men and women inside the 58 facilities. Of those 13,353, only 3,190 were currently assigned to core correctional programs. This means that in every region of

Public Safety committee  The Correctional Service of Canada right now has empty cell capacity of maybe between 800 and 1,000, scattered across the country. So if you were to take a very high-level look and you say, gee, we've got empty cell space, so if more people come into a penitentiary, we must be ab

Public Safety committee  My understanding of the research is that the most effective correctional programs take place when offenders are motivated to be involved in those programs, which is usually earlier in their sentences rather than later in their sentences. Those programs can be effective when offen