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EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, June 20, 1995

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[English]

The Chair: I'd like to call the meeting to order. This morning we will hear from Correctional Investigator Ron Stewart. In a minute I'll ask him to introduce those who are with him.

This morning's meeting is being held to consider the main estimates of the Correctional Investigator. Because we were involved with the gun control bill day after day for a couple of months during the period of the estimates, we weren't able to deal with these estimates at that time. We are now dealing with them under Standing Order 108(2).

I want to inform the committee that the steering committee met yesterday. You will be receiving a complete report. We decided that there was no time for additional meetings this week, so this will be the last meeting before the adjournment.

On the other hand, in the first week that we return, we'll have at least one meeting with the four individuals who have sponsored private members' bills. We've also started our planning and our work on phase two of the Young Offenders Act, and we'll be sending you a note to ask if you have witnesses to suggest for the phase two hearings or suggestions for facilities or projects that you think would be interesting for us to visit and observe. So that is coming.

Now I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Stewart. He has an opening statement. I also want to remind the members that the bells will ring some time towards 10:30 a.m. and that we have a -

Mr. Bodnar (Saskatoon - Dundurn): It's postponed until 6:30 p.m., Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Well, if it's off, it's off. Anyway, it's a half-hour bell and we would have to bring our proceedings to a close within a half an hour if the bell does ring.

Mr. Stewart, the floor is yours. Please introduce the other people with you and then give us your opening statement.

Mr. Ron Stewart (Correctional Investigator of Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have with me today members of my staff, Ms Nathalie Spicer, Mr. Jim Hayes, Mr. Ed McIsaac and Mr. Todd Sloan. We will attempt to address any questions raised by the committee members.

I have a short opening statement. I appreciate the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to appear before the committee again this year as a part of the estimates process.

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Appearing under a separate program within the context of the estimates process, besides reinforcing this office's independence and specific accountability to Parliament, affords me an additional opportunity to meet with lawmakers to review major issues of concern arising from our investigations.

These issues are outlined in my 1993-94 annual report, which was tabled by the Solicitor General on October 27, 1994. Our 1994-95 annual report will be submitted to the minister within the next 30 days.

Although the Office of the Correctional Investigator has been around since 1973, it was encased as you know in its own legislation in November 1992, with the coming into effect of part III of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, a copy of which is appended to the annual report.

As I indicated last year, while the act did not significantly alter either the authority or the role of the office, it has clearly established the function of the Correctional Investigator as that of an ombudsman, and it has clarified the authority and responsibility of the office within a clearly defined legislative framework.

The mandate of the office is presented in section 167 of the act, which states:

Operationally, the primary responsibility of the office is to investigate and to attempt to bring resolution to individual offender complaints. The Correctional Investigator as well has a responsibility to review and present recommendations on the Correctional Service Canada's policies and procedures associated with those areas of individual complaint to ensure that systemic areas of concern are identified and appropriately addressed.

It must be noted that in fulfilling this responsibility, the office operates as neither an agent of Correctional Service Canada nor as an advocate of every complainant or interest group that lodges a complaint. The office investigates complaints from an independent and neutral position, considering thoroughly the service's actions and reasons behind it, and either endorses and explains the action to the complainant or, if there's evidence of unfairness, makes an appropriate recommendation concerning corrective action.

The office, over the course of the fiscal year 1994-95, received 6,800 complaints from offenders. Investigative staff spent 254 days at federal penitentiaries and conducted in excess of 2,000 interviews with offenders and half again that number of interviews with institutional staff. All of these numbers are consistent with our operations from the previous year.

An investigation can be initiated in response to a complaint or at the initiative of the Correctional Investigator. Full discretion rests with the office in deciding whether to conduct an investigation and how that investigation will be carried out.

The office, in carrying out its duties, is afforded unfettered access to all CSC facilities and information held by the service. All communications with inmates during the course of our investigations are confidential. The observations and findings of the office, subsequent to an investigation, are not limited to a determination that a decision, recommendation, act or omission was contrary to existing law or established policy.

As detailed in section 178 of the legislation, a determination can be made ``that the decision, recommendation, act or omission...was unreasonable, unjust, oppressive or improperly discriminatory''. Given the complexity of the penitentiary environment, this range of determinations is important in effecting resolution.

Upon determining that the problem exists, the Correctional Investigator, as detailed at section 179, ``may make any recommendation that the Correctional Investigator considers appropriate''. As well, you will note that within this section in concert with other ombudsman operations the recommendations of the Correctional Investigator are not binding.

The authority of this office rests in its ability to thoroughly and objectively investigate complaints brought to our attention and to put forth recommendations designed to respond to the problems identified.

In this regard, the effectiveness of our operations or any ombudsman operations is in large part dependent on the responsiveness of the agency being reviewed. As is evident from the content of my annual report, the responsiveness of Correctional Service Canada continues to be, specifically at the national headquarters level, excessively delayed, defensive and non-committal to specific action.

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I stated last year that from my perspective the service is facing operationally a crisis situation in two interrelated areas: overcrowding and institutional violence. The results of our investigations into offender complaints and our review, as required by section 19 of the legislation, of the service's investigative reports on incidents resulting in death or serious bodily injury over the course of the last year have not altered that perspective.

The commissioner has indicated in testimony before this committee that there has been no significant increase in institutional violence as a result of the increase in prison overcrowding. I do not have figures to dispute this claim, but what I do know is that with one of the highest per capita incarceration rates in the western world and with that population increasing, the Canadian federal system has had one of the highest, if not the highest, rates of deaths in prison amongst western jurisdictions. I further know that the number of investigative reports on incidents of death and serious bodily injury referred by the service pursuant to section 19 of the CCRA continues to increase. Whether the data shows a stabilization or not, the fact is that the level of violence within our federal penitentiaries is and has been totally unacceptable.

I fully appreciate the fact that no one factor can be viewed as the cause of institutional violence. I as well appreciate the fact, as I indicated last year, that no one action on the part of the service can itself address this situation. But I continue to believe the service's non-action in a number of significant areas, as detailed in my annual report, has contributed to maintaining an institutional environment that cannot help but promote an increased sense of helplessness and desperation.

As we discussed last year, the impact of excessive overcrowding extends far beyond the provisions of a comfortable living environment for inmates. Overcrowding impacts directly on the service's ability to provide timely rehabilitative programming, which in turn impacts on the service's ability to thoroughly prepare cases in a timely fashion for conditional release consideration, which results in a further increase in the prison population. This cycle must be broken.

Again, as with the issue of institutional violence, there is no single quick-fix solution. But I do suggest that until such time as the service has thorough and reliable data related to the timeliness of programming and conditional release consideration, its efforts in addressing this matter will continue to be directed at the symptoms rather than the causes of overcrowding.

As I stated in the 1993-94 annual report:

Five thousand inmates double-bunked, and in some cases triple-bunked, in cells designed for one person is an intolerable situation. It is also a situation, given this country's level of incarceration, that cannot be reasonably addressed through the acquisition of more prison cells. I suggest that the protection of society in both the long and short terms is not well served by a continuation of this situation.

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I'd like to conclude this brief opening statement by acknowledging that there are numerous government efforts currently under way designed to address the issue of overcrowding, and I urge all those involved in these activities to keep in mind the urgency presented by the current situation.

That is my opening statement. We'll now attempt to field any questions the committee has.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Stewart. In answering the questions, of course, you can refer them to any of your staff you wish.

[Translation]

Mr. St-Laurent, you have ten minutes.

Mr. St-Laurent (Manicouagan): Mr. Stewart, do you feel that people take your reports into account?

[English]

Mr. Stewart: I'm not quite sure what's happening with this committee with respect to my annual reports that are tabled here. I think officials at the Correctional Service are listening to what they're saying. They have certainly got back to us about our annual reports and the criticism in them.

We see limited response in dealing with the issues, but they certainly know what the issues are. So as far as solutions are concerned I think the response is delayed, but I think they realize what the issues are.

[Translation]

Mr. St-Laurent: I am going to be more specific, Mr. Stewart.

Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator 1984-85:

Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator 1986-87:

Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator 1987-88:

Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator 1998-89:

Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator 1989-90:

Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator 1990-91:

Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator 1991-92:

In the course of the year under consideration, the number of inmates double-bunked increased from 1,200 to 1,700...and so on. We continue to decry a system of double-bunking.

Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator 1992-93:

I am getting to the end.

Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator 1993-94:

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In this year's report, which is even more detailed, you say regarding double-bunking:

You go on to say:

So let me ask you again: Do you feel that people are paying attention to your reports?

[English]

Mr. Stewart: Our office took the position that we weren't in favour of double-bunking some years ago, as was indicted by the member. However, we thought that if they were going to double-bunk they could double-bunk in those cells where inmates were out of their cells for most of the day, rather than double-bunking in special cells where inmates were in there 23 hours a day. We felt that two individuals in a very small cell was as inhumane a position as there was.

It's more than just being in the cell for a certain period of hours. In special cells they're in there for the whole day. We brought that to their attention. It took them some time. They finally cleared it up at one institution, but the number of inmates kept increasing. We asked them to look at why they were increasing. Was it a front-end load from the courts? Was it a back-end load from a parole situation? The numbers kept growing whatever the reasons were, and as you indicated, we have been making that recommendation for the past several years.

I think the position now has changed from double-bunking being unacceptable to double-bunking being a matter of fact in the western world. All the other countries are in the same position, with the increase in the number of inmates. They're trying to do something about it.

I think it has been a vicious circle. The problem wasn't looked at seriously enough several years ago. Each year the number sort of doubled from 200 to 600 to 1,200 to the present situation of some 5,000 inmates being double-bunked. It's like playing catch-up in sports. It's hard to do much in the ninth inning.

I know there have been some programs where they've been utilizing spaces designed for other things, in some cases recreation or whatever, trying to find spaces for the inmates. They're using their federal-provincial agreement to try to utilize some provincial spaces in provincial institutions that aren't being utilized.

I think they have a real problem on their hands, and there isn't an easy solution. I think they're listening now; I don't think they were listening five or six years ago.

[Translation]

Mr. St-Laurent: That strikes me as ironic. Triple-bunking wasn't an issue five years ago but now it is going on in the Leclerc Centre and Donnacona. In 1984-85 there was talk about putting an end to double-bunking and yet it continued. Yet in this year's report, you aren't focussing on double-bunking because you're sounding the alarm about triple-bunking. It seems to me that this means that double-bunking has become commonplace and that we should therefore concentrate on triple-bunking.

Just where will all this end, Mr. Stewart?

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[English]

Mr. Ed McIsaac (Executive Director, Office of the Correctional Investigator of Canada): If I could perhaps return to your earlier question of whether we get the feeling we're not being listened to at times, I think given the litany of non-action, the answer is obviously yes. There are times when we feel we are not being listened to or we are being ignored.

In terms of your question of where this is going, we are not really in a position to respond to that. It's Correctional Service Canada that needs to specifically address the matter. As Mr. Stewart indicated, the numbers continue to rise. I think we made reference last year before this committee to the fact there were certain institutions in the country that from time to time were housing three inmates in a cell. Although it is a terrible situation and needs to be addressed along with the general overcrowding matter, it is not something that has just occurred in the last month or two.

[Translation]

The Chair: Your time is up.

[English]

Before I go to Ms Meredith, I think I should remind the committee of what the Correctional Investigator says on page 4 of his brief. While his recommendations are made as an independent agency and are made publicly through his report, they are not binding. Consequently, it's not only up to the Correctional Service to take them up, but when this committee and members of Parliament generally see the report and the recommendations made, it's up to us and members in the House, in Question Period and through whatever other means we have at our disposal, to raise these issues in a political way and press for answers.

I guess one could say the same about the press and other independent bodies outside of Parliament, whether it's the Canadian Corrections Association, the John Howard Society or whatever. This is what they try to do. It is the same with all ombudsmen. They investigate and make recommendations, but they're not binding. It's up to the political process to move them ahead or whatever. That's why we're having this meeting today, and if you wish, we can always have further meetings on any of the points raised by the Correctional Investigator.

Ms Meredith (Surrey - White Rock - South Langley): I'll be up front with you. My position on the Correctional Investigator hasn't really changed over the last year, after going into the prison system, talking to inmates and receiving letters from inmates about problems.

I want to refer to your annual report for 1993-94. Three of the main issues you have raised that are inmate concerns are special handling units, inmate pay, and the grievance process. I want to deal with two of those initially.

The first one I want to deal with is inmate pay. This isn't the first time you have recommended that the inmate pay be increased. You state that with a view to resolving the erosion of the inmates' financial situation, you feel it needs to be dealt with. I'd like to ask you if you are aware that there has been an erosion in Canadians' take-home pay over the last 10 years. Canadians have been taking less home over that 10-year period, with a 36% increase in inflation. What makes you think Canadians would accept any increase in inmate pay when they themselves are facing this erosion of finances?

Mr. Stewart: Again, my job is to bring problems of inmates to the minister and to both Houses of Parliament. If it's a problem with inmates it may not be something that is politically acceptable, but it still remains a problem. I can't ignore it. So I put it in my annual report. They haven't had any adjustment in their pay level since 1986, if I am not mistaken. It's very difficult in an institution, for instance, if you smoke and you get only $1.60 a day, with cigarette prices the way they are.

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Again, it's the problems of the inmates I am to bring to the minister and to Parliament. It's not that it's my belief. I am the third party. I am the party bringing the problem through the reporting function.

Ms Meredith: So you don't see where there is any problem with your investigative position, your agency, promoting inmate pay when the people who work in the institution have had a freeze for, what, five years, and their pay freeze is going to continue for another two years. Yet they see an agency that is promoting a pay increase for the inmates. You don't see that it would create a problem within the institutions.

Mr. McIsaac: Perhaps I could expand a bit on this matter. We are certainly well aware of the economic situation outside and the fact that most salaries have been frozen and many people have lost their jobs. Part of the difficulty with inmate pay, part of the difficulty in having a level that is insufficient, is that it fosters an underground economy inside, which aids in maintaining and creating unrest within the institution. You get loan-sharking. You get bartering. You get a number of activities.

On the other end of it these individuals are released back into society, and I think the hope of all of us is that the reintegration will be smooth and it will be successful. The level of pay they are receiving during the period of incarceration relates to the amount of money they are going to have available to them on their release.

So it's not just the ability to buy inside or even to finance or send money home to their families, which many of them do. It is the fact that on release many inmates - and we are receiving more complaints and concerns expressed in this area - are leaving the institution with less and less money. If your pockets are empty when you walk out, the chances are that you may not be out there for very long. I don't believe that is in anyone's interest.

Ms Meredith: Do the inmates who leave the prison system not have access to social assistance programs that are available to any other Canadian who finds himself in a similar position?

Mr. McIsaac: Obviously social assistance programs are run by the province, so it varies from province to province. I am not aware of what the eligibility is for those programs. I just know the offenders are leaving today with less money in their pockets than they were leaving with four or five years ago.

Ms Meredith: I think that is reflective of what is happening in society.

I want to move on to something else you mentioned in your report, that 2,100 complaints were premature. Does that mean they didn't go through the internal complaint grievance procedure with the inmate grievance body and what not?

Ms Nathalie Spicer (Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator of Canada): For the most part, yes. It usually means there's been no effort on the part of the offender to meet with some staff at the institutional level in trying to address the concerns raised. So when we state ``premature''...we usually refer the offender, if there's no urgency to the problem, to either the institutional complaint process or more informal levels by meeting with the staff member.

Ms Meredith: But there is another process even before that, and that's the inmate committees themselves, which tend to deal initially, do they not, with most complaints, if they are of a nature such that they can complain, or they go to the inmate committee first and then they go to the staff if the inmate committee cannot resolve those issues.

Mr. McIsaac: No, the individual complaints are not generally dealt with by the inmate committees. General concerns are certainly part of the mandate of inmate committees. If an individual is having difficulty with his pre-release program or his access to mental health programming or a transfer or whatever, they will generally either contact our office or go by the grievance process.

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Ms Meredith: Moving to another comment in the third issue, it was the handling of the grievance process that you felt needed to be improved. As I understand it, there has been three studies over the last five or six years seeking to find an improvement in the system. What do you consider would be an improvement in the grievance process?

Mr. Stewart: I think there would have to be more of a commitment, especially at the third level. At the institutional level and at the regional level, complaints move along fairly quickly.

We have currently a sizeable backlog. Inmates are waiting 60 days, 120 days, or whatever the case may be, and they're not getting their responses back.

The old grievance process was fine as far as we were concerned; it was the commitment or the lack of commitment to it. They've revised the grievance process again, running some pilot projects, and that's fine. But again, I don't think it was the process that was at fault; I think it was the commitment, especially at the third level, to deal with these complaints.

Ms Meredith: On page 23 of the annual report, you say the current grievance process:

Is this really any different from the grievance process for the correctional staff themselves in the institutions?

Mr. Jim Hayes (Director of Investigations, Office of the Correctional Investigator of Canada): I am not that familiar with the grievance process for staff, but certainly the excessive delay in responding to inmates in a timely fashion as well as the content of those delays has been an ongoing problem for years within the service.

As you mentioned, there have been three studies within the last five years trying to revamp the process, and so on. Our position has always been that there is little wrong basically with the process that is in place right now. As Mr. Stewart said, it is management's commitment to that system. We find that particularly evident at the national headquarters of the Correctional Service.

As I say, I am not familiar with the time delays or the content of the grievances that staff submit. There may well be a relationship, but I am personally not very familiar with it.

Ms Meredith: When I went on tours of the prisons, one thing that struck me was that one of the main problems seems to be the underemployment or lack of employment opportunities for the inmates. That seemed to cause more problems than anything. Do you believe providing adequate work for the inmates would probably resolve a lot of their need for grieving other issues?

Mr. Hayes: There's no doubt that with overcrowding being such a significant problem, the jobs just aren't there, therefore pay rates are affected, therefore the bartering system can kick in.

People don't have money upon release, and people are idle. There's not much to do. There's a lot of confinement to cells. Transfers are delayed. For reception centres, for example, what is supposed to be a six-week process can take upwards of three to four months.

People not working, no meaningful employment...there are jobs, but the question becomes one of how meaningful the employment is. What is the relationship between that employment and subsequent release to the street?

It is a very difficult problem to address, and in our opinion, I would suggest that for meaningful employment, given the numbers of offenders who are presently incarcerated, the numbers just don't gel and match at all.

The Chair: Mr. Bodnar, for ten minutes.

Mr. Bodnar: First of all, Mr. Stewart, I would like to thank you for your report. You haven't beaten around the bush in many parts of this report. You've come down and said what you think, and I hope there are other things you could tell us with respect to parts of this.

In particular, on page 5 where you refer to Correctional Services Canada, you've indicated it continues to be excessively delayed, defensive and non-committal to specific action. I take it you've recommended certain action for them to take and they have not taken it, or are you just waiting for them to come up with initiatives?

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Mr. Stewart: As an ombudsman, I don't think it's my position to tell them how to solve their problems. The first thing that happens when you do that is you get some inmate complaining about ``who came up with this stupid idea?'' It's me. So that doesn't work.

Again, we bring the problems to their attention. It's up to them to try to solve them.

Thank you for your comments about being straightforward. I think in this business you have to be tough and hard-nosed, call a spade a spade, and never mind all the smoke and mirrors we get from time to time; just get on with the job. It's a tough job running the Correctional Service. It's a tough job being a warden running a prison. We're the third party there, trying to bring the problems of the inmates to the warden or whomever, and we think at least we deserve a responsive answer in a timely fashion. That's one of the biggest problems we have, and it runs through all the issues in the annual report: there seems to be a great delay in dealing with problems from our office.

Mr. Bodnar: I have always believed if people are kept busy, whether it be people in jails or young children at home, or members of Parliament, they don't have time to get into trouble.

About adults, I had the privilege last year of meeting on the airplane a person by the name of Chief Roy Bird, of the Montreal Lake Indian reservation in Saskatchewan, who was the first chief to bring in taxation on his reservation, and also a work-for-welfare program. When he did both of these, the substance abuse and the incidence of crime on the reservation went down. He attributed it to young people working. They enjoyed doing it. They took pride in what they did. He believed this was one step towards a solution.

When he no longer ran as chief and these programs were eliminated by his successors, it reverted back to the old system of a higher crime rate and more substance abuse. Again, it's idle people tending to have to find something to do with their time.

In jails there's the problem of a structured society that's been created by statute or by administrators. I'm wondering, because I have never believed in the incarceration of people to the great extent that we incarcerate people in this country, especially for non-violent offences, whether a solution, or a partial solution, would be getting the majority - I'm not saying just a small number - of people out of our institutions and if not completely integrated into society, at least partially, through halfway houses, so the individuals can work. Many of them have to learn to work, learn how to get up in the morning, and learn basic labour, so when they're released from an institution....

Of course this would take care of the wage problem, because they could be paid more because they're doing constructive work. Eventually when they leave jail, they are one step closer to being integrated in society without just being sent out the door of an institution in the same condition as they were in when they entered the institution.

Any comments? Or can you make a comment on something like this, as a possible way of looking at correcting our overcrowding?

I don't believe in double-bunking either. I'm not sure I believe in one person being in a small cell, encaged the way they are caged now. Perhaps most people being in a different environment, whether it's in a rural environment, working in a farm annex, as in the Prince Albert penitentiary, or other facilities like that....

Mr. Stewart: Certainly in our annual report the inference is that we keep too many non-violent inmates in past their parole eligibility. If we could move some of these people out.... As I think Mr. Hayes said, we wait for programming in order to get by the parole board. A lot of that programming is available on the street. Maybe we should be looking at that aspect of it. But certainly earlier release for the non-violent people would be a partial solution.

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I had a meeting with the commissioner of corrections on Friday, I believe. He was telling me the Correctional Service is looking into ways to enhance employment opportunities, trying to get companies involved. It's one thing to be a construction industry trying to get people in some of the outlying areas, where maybe there isn't a workforce, but it's always difficult trying to compete with other companies that are manufacturing some goods to have inmates, with their subsidized housing and subsidized wages, competing in that market. I know they're actively pursuing ways to get more people employed, and I think it would be helpful.

But again, I agree with you. We keep too many non-violent people in jail for too long.

Mr. Bodnar: With the shortage of social housing we have in this country, of course we have an untapped resource here in the federal penitentiaries; and we also have to put that resource to work. If we don't, it's lost on a daily basis. Do you see any need for exploring the possibility of taking certain aspects of the Correctional Service, such as the on-work training, or whatever you want to call it, and privatizing that aspect of Corrections Canada?

Mr. Stewart: Again, it's not my job to -

Mr. Bodnar: I'm trying to corner you on this.

Mr. Stewart: - tell the Correctional Service how to solve their problems. My job is to bring the problems to the minister's attention and to the public at large and have the Correctional Service deal with it.

There are certainly lots of areas that need looking into. I can't speak for the Correctional Service. I don't know how actively they're pursuing this. I'm told they're looking at it. I hope they find a solution.

Mr. Bodnar: You have indicated on page 6 that no one factor can be viewed as the cause of institutional violence. I would simply agree. But one factor that leads to institutional violence, I believe, would be overcrowding, as well as the fact of idleness, and also mixing a few extremely violent people or people who are prone to violence in a population of non-violent individuals. Could a good part of this problem be solved by trying to get as many of these non-violent people as possible away from a very violent population, or a few very violent people? Have you looked at that aspect?

In other words, we have people who are serving perhaps five years in a penitentiary on related fraud charges. They are completely non-violent. Even offences of violence...I believe many people who commit some of your more serious offences of manslaughter or murder can generally be termed to be non-violent, except for that one moment in their life when they did something extremely stupid. Should these people be housed in the same institution where you have people who are psychopaths, people who have committed multiple violent offences? Should we have them in the same institutions, or should we have them out of there completely?

Mr. Stewart: The point is well taken. They certainly should be segregated. But with the situation we have of serious overcrowding it's sometimes very difficult not to mix violent and non-violent offenders. The overcrowding impacts on every program in the institution, whether it's jobs or programs or whatever.

Mr. McIsaac: The fact that the prisons are so crowded has certainly cut down on the options available to the service in moving individuals. In his report, the Auditor General highlighted the large number of offenders housed in institutions at a higher security level than the individual security requirement showed as necessary.

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Again, that is a by-product of too many people and not enough spaces. People who have been classified for medium and minimum security are spending excessive periods of time either in reception units or within maximum security institutions awaiting bed space. So you don't end up with the ideal mix, and it certainly adds to the difficulties you've identified.

The Chair: Your time has expired, Mr. Bodnar.

Mr. St-Laurent.

[Translation]

Mr. St-Laurent: I would like to pursue the same line of questioning as my colleague, Mr. Bodnar; you mentioned that too many people are incarcerated for minor offenses and that we are faced with a serious problem of overcrowding.

Did you ever contemplate, Mr. Stewart, recommending a reform of the Correctional Service to better prepare it for the 21st century?

[English]

Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, if you read the annual reports over the last few years, all we have been doing is recommending reform of corrections, reform of the way they do business, reform of the time frames for programming. So I think we have made those recommendations.

In my conversations with the Commissioner of Corrections, that certainly has been something that's in the forefront. What are you doing about these things and when are they going to take place?

There is a certain lack of directness in doing some of these things. They tend to like to study problems. They come up with a study, and down the road it's abandoned for whatever reason and they come up with another study. Quite frankly, I have indicated that they study these things to death. It's time to take some action on these things.

There's no question that we have recommended that they reform the way they do business. They keep too many people, non-violent people, in the institutions for too long. They should look at getting them programming so they can get out when they're eligible for parole and reduce the overcrowding.

Does anybody have anything to add to that?

[Translation]

Mr. St-Laurent: Mr. Stewart, I read here, on page 5, something that seems to me to be somewhat paradoxical. You repeat the claim that there has been no significant increase in institutional violence, adding that you do not have figures to dispute this claim. And then, just a few lines further down, the following page, you state:

If the rate of death is higher, doesn't this indicate increased violence? I know that, in jail, people do not always die of stabbing, but nevertheless, relatively speaking, there must be some correlation between violence and the increased rates of death in the penitenciaries.

Ms Spicer: It is stated on page 5:

We do not have figures to prove this but in our opinion and according to our frequent visits to institutions, there seems to be an increase in institutional violence.

Mr. St-Laurent: Therefore, you consider that violence has been on the increase.

Ms Spicer: In our opinion, yes.

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Mr. St-Laurent: The Laval Complex is comprised of four or five federal penitentiary institutions (the Saint-François Complex, the Leclerc Complex, etc.) and holds 1,200 inmates. Very recently, the nursing services have been downsized and there's only one on the night shift. Have you received any complaints on this from inmates or staff members?

Ms Spicer: Yes, some complaints have been brought to our attention regarding the lack of services at night. There was the case of an inmate at Montée Saint-François who experienced some problems and who wanted to see the nurse. He had to be taken to the Leclerc institution.

Our investigation proved that the correctional supervisor acted diligently to make sure that the inmate would be taken to the Leclerc institution. In an emergency, the supervisor had the authority to call immediately for an ambulance. Since none of the complaints we received dealt with an emergency or the need for hospitalization, we were in no position to recommend that management reinstate the service.

[English]

The Chair: Next is Ms Torsney's five minutes.

Ms Torsney (Burlington): I have a couple of questions, so maybe it will be easier to put them all on the table and then you can figure out who's going to answer what.

We've been talking about the issue of inmate pay, and I noticed that in your report it's kind of vague. You talk about increases, you talk about it being frozen for a decade. How much money are inmates getting? What are the kinds of jobs? On a daily basis, what are they getting paid? What are they leaving with? Is there some kind of average prison employee?

I've had complaints from my region, where they administer the welfare, and they're very upset that people seem to be dumped out of the system onto them. They're quite insistent, quite rightly, that they get welfare immediately because they're in an emergency situation. My region says, wait a second here, why have you had these people for all these months and why aren't they able to provide for themselves for at least a week or a month?

Second, I wanted to ask you about the whole issue with P4W. We had the incident there last April, a year ago now.

The initial report from Correctional Service Canada said that the emergency response team acted completely appropriately; there was no problem. Then you made a report, and I wonder who initiated that, if you did or if the Solicitor General did. You described the actions of the emergency response team as ``an excessive use of force and, without question, degrading and dehumanizing for those women involved''.

I can't understand how there could be such a discrepancy between the two reports, and I wonder how cooperative Correctional Service was with your investigation, whether you had help from the citizen's advisory committee or from the Elizabeth Fry Society.

I wonder if the situation at P4W wasn't aggravated by the fact that people had been isolated for eight months and that there were no jobs. Again, money is part of the problem. It's part of the whole issue of the most marginalized people ending up in increasingly marginalized positions because they have no resources to help themselves.

I wonder how as a body you can continue to make recommendations without providing at least some options for implementation. If your recommendations are hitting a brick wall, or a prison wall in this case, why don't you advocate two or three ways to implement this? How do you cope if you just keep making recommendations and they just keep hitting that wall?

The Chair: Are you finished with your questions, Ms Torsney?

Ms Torsney: Yes.

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The Chair: With respect to the Prison for Women, since there's another inquiry going on, a third one initiated by the Solicitor General, I think it's quite in order for Mr. Stewart to answer questions with respect to his own investigation without commenting at all on the other investigations or trying to compare his with the others. That will probably be done by the inquiry of the Solicitor General. But I think it's totally in order for Mr. Stewart to describe all the steps and procedures he took in his investigation, what cooperation he got, what he saw that was wrong, etc. In other words, he can talk about his own investigation.

On the last point you made, the Correctional Investigator says it's not for him to suggest solutions to the overcrowding problem, whether it's to build more prisons or to release more people into society.

I think that's where we come in. It's up to us, when we examine Mr. Edwards, the head of Corrections, or the Solicitor General or the Minister of Justice, to explore solutions with them. We're the legislators. We're the ones who vote the budgets. Mr. Stewart can answer that question again, but I've heard him asked about suggesting solutions many times.

Ms Torsney: Perhaps he could indicate what action he would like us to take.

The Chair: Well, he may not want to answer, but I'm suggesting that we have a role here too in taking up his report and trying to solve problems with the minister.

Mr. Stewart, several questions were put to you by Ms Torsney. You can try to deal with them in order.

Mr. Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will ask Mr. Hayes to deal with the first question on inmate pay.

Mr. Hayes: Briefly, Mr. Chairman, I believe there are approximately five levels of pay for inmates within Correctional Service Canada. As well, I understand there are some pilot projects in certain institutions where they are probably paid a minimum wage. But for the most part, there are far too many offenders paid at the lower levels.

Level one, for example, is $1.60 a day. That is usually for people who are confined and not able to get out for whatever reason or for whom there is perhaps no job available. There is a policy that wardens are to review on a bi-weekly basis those who are segregated and receiving $1.60 a day for consideration for level two pay, which I believe is about $4.50 or $5 a day. I think the top end of that scale is $7.50 a day.

Obviously, with so many people incarcerated and with reasonable and meaningful employment simply not available for very many offenders, there definitely are going to be people released with little or no money. I believe there is a base amount of money each individual has to maintain, either by himself or with the assistance of Correctional Service Canada, prior to release. I think it's $80. That won't go very far in this day and age when you're trying to find accommodation.

Generally speaking, I have no idea what the relationship is with the recidivism rate, but one would suspect that if people have no money, get downtrodden and have nowhere else to go, they may revert to former behaviour. It's obviously a revolving door.

There are some inmates for whom it wouldn't make any difference, no matter how much money they have. Crime has probably become a way of life for them. But for the most part, the pay rates have not increased since the last pay raise in 1984-85 in terms of the federal minimum wage. I think it's about ten years ago or somewhere in that vicinity.

I would certainly let Correctional Service Canada speak for themselves. I believe at the present time they are trying to encourage inmates to get involved in programming. They are getting paid for being involved. For example, if they take a sex offender program, they receive a certain wage for attending that program. That would be part of their correctional treatment plan for the period of their incarceration. The difficulty is that you can't give them those programs, so we have a catch-22.

There is no doubt about it. The numbers are seriously affecting the programming and the money is just not there. We've recommended for years that the whole pay issue be reviewed. I think in the long run that money given now would certainly be a great saving in the future, because if you put too many people, as Mr. Bodnar noted earlier, in such a situation, to use one of the old sayings, idle hands can create problems. At least if they have some dignity and some sense when they leave the penitentiaries with a few dollars in their pocket beyond $80, maybe pride and dignity could take over and they could have some place to stay reasonably and try to obtain some meaningful work. But pay certainly is a serious problem within the system.

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Mr. Stewart: On the Prison for Women question - I think you asked about the initiation of it - our business is a complaint-driven business. We had people down at the Prison for Women prior to April of last year. There were excessive delays in responding to grievances. You have all three levels, minimum, maximum, and medium security, housed in the same building. Some of the placements and some of the placements in segregation were questionable, and we were getting a number of complaints, so we went down and we're dealing with the situation. So that was driven by complaints and certainly not by the Solicitor General.

After assessing all the complaints we had, we decided we should make a report on this. We had difficulty in dealing with the Correctional Service. They did not respond. They delayed. We asked for a copy of their inquiry into this incident that happened in April, and I think we got our copy in November. It was far too delayed. We asked for copies of the video through the summer and the fall. I think it was January 30 when we finally got a copy of the video. So they weren't very helpful in enabling us to do our job.

We certainly got cooperation from the citizens' advisory committee, and that is mentioned in our report on the Prison for Women, and certainly the Elizabeth Fry Society was right on top of this and helped us as well, gave us good cooperation.

As for discrepancies, I think the video tells part of the story. When somebody is so disruptive that you have to wake them up in order to shackle them and strip them, and take the beds and search their cells and remove everything, because apparently the inmates on the way into segregation hadn't been searched and so they were worried about weapons, again the video tells part of the story. But the punitive conditions that the women had to live through after the emergency response team was brought in...and that lasted about seven or eight months. They were on video cameras constantly for that length of time. They got pretty well no amenities. They were treated in a punitive way. Early on they weren't allowed to contact their lawyers. They couldn't get sanitary products, etc., etc. All of these things have been investigated.

I think the report goes into it in quite a bit of detail, and we're certainly anxious for Madam Justice Arbour's inquiry to begin and deal with all the problems at the Prison for Women.

Did that answer all the points you raised? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms Torsney: I wanted to make one comment on your statement. It's the same taxpayer in the end, whether we give them the money now or they rely on social services later.

Mr. Ramsay (Crowfoot): This is another report from another group of people who simply tell me that the system isn't working. We had a witness here some time ago - I think it was on Bill C-41 - who said in 1958 the prisons were only half full but now we're triple-bunking. We have a situation where we're squeezing three people into a little room, and we also hear that they don't even test them for diseases such as HIV. If you ever want to look at a possible lawsuit...when you force an individual into that kind of condition, and where the institution does not compel inmates when they arrive or are transferred from other institutions to undergo a full medical investigation, that's not ongoing.

We hear that the drug problem is so severe that their only recourse within the institution is offering bleach to wash needles and so on.

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I only have five minutes. From what you've told us today, I think that back in 1973 what the government did was to create rather a toothless organization. An ombudsman committee, I think, should be made up of MPs. I think that's our duty and responsibility, and I can tell you that if an all-party committee of MPs were looking into matters, you'd better believe the Correctional Service would respond to us when we ask them for reasonable information, documentation, and so on. We have the right, as MPs, to enter any institution, demand to see any prisoner, and demand reasonable accommodation and support in our request for documentation.

It seems to me to be absurd that we have created your organization and you're bumping heads with the Correctional Service itself.

As far as money is concerned, my goodness, the two senior levels of government spend billions of dollars on goods and services; surely some of those goods and services could be purchased by programs within institutions, even if it is subsidized to a degree where the services perhaps and the goods purchased could be purchased at a lower level outside of those institutions. Surely we should be looking at that.

Why can't the government, which is spending billions of dollars of taxpayers' money, do that? We hear complaints all the time of their giving contracts to their friends, and so on. Why couldn't the provincial and federal governments institute a program where they're buying services from the inmates and giving them an opportunity to work and earn money? I think the answers are there.

I think what we have seen in the last 25 years is an expansion of a criminal justice industry that's not working. If it were working it would be great. I don't see it working.

You're reporting to us, and in your report you report something that is obvious - it's obvious to the Correctional Service - and that's overcrowding. They know about the overcrowding. We hear about the overcrowding. When we visit these institutions as members of Parliament they tell us about this, and that type of situation can't be hidden.

So how do we deal with overcrowding? If it's not to build more facilities or let those people out who perhaps would not be a danger to society, what is the answer? If we can't stem the flow in the front gate, what's the answer to overcrowding?

The answers are there. Either we stop bringing so many people in, we expand the facilities so that there are more rooms, or we start letting them out earlier.

In Bill C-41 we're looking at the alternative measures, and yet that provision within Bill C-41 is of a great concern to many people because it is not segregated just to non-violent offences. Violent offenders can have access to the so-called alternative measures in that new bill.

So the answers are there, whether it is with regard to your having problems getting information that you ought to have, because you don't have the power and the authority to demand that....

The great ombudsmen in our society are our elected representatives, and we're not doing that. If you're going to remain, you should have the authority to do your job. What's the point to making a recommendation? If members of Parliament made a recommendation, you'd better believe it wouldn't be deep-sixed by people working for the people of this country, for the government. It wouldn't be done. As far as the money is concerned, the money is there. These people are prepared to work.

The Chair: Mr. Ramsay, I want to alert you that you have a minute to go, but you can use it however you want.

Mr. Ramsay: I'm frustrated with what I've heard today and what I've heard before about our system, not only our system of justice but our penal system. The answers are there. What we need is not to create a correctional investigator without teeth, without authority, who can be flouted by the very components of the system we have created. This is wrong. There's something wrong with the system. There's something wrong with the thinking.

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So I'm saying yes, if overcrowding is a problem, if we can't get cooperation from the very people who are running the system, and if we can't divert some of the money from the federal government into programs to purchase services provided by these people to give them a job and to give them an income, then something is wrong.

The Chair: Now your time is up.

Would you like to respond in any way to Mr. Ramsay's comments?

Mr. Stewart: I'm not sure whether he asked a direct question. I have to agree with a lot of what he had to say. Certainly the legislative arm was responsible for setting up the office back in 1972, as you will no doubt recall, and certainly responsible for passing the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

The role of the ombudsman - and it's an international role - has been around for hundreds of years. It works well in a lot of areas where people can't fight government by themselves, and they use the ombudsman to help them solve their problems.

In my conversations with ombudsmen around the world, especially correctional ombudsmen, we all have the same problems. None of us have powers to install programs. We're all set up in the same manner. I guess our tools of the trade are to be tough and try to negotiate and try to bring about a resolution to inmates' complaints.

Your comments on government purchasing goods and services and using inmate labour is something that should be looked into, I think. We don't get too many complaints about HIV testing, or bleach, or other things. I agree with you that the system isn't working the way it should be.

Those are just my comments on some of the issues that you touched on. Thank you.

The Chair: Before I go to Mr. Lee, again I want to make it absolutely clear that this committee, as a result of a motion or a decision of the committee, can at any time investigate the situation in any prison or any group of prisons or within the penitentiary service. In the past, that has been done many times. I was a member of this committee when Mr. MacGuigan was the chair. We had a wide-ranging investigation into prison conditions. Before that, it was done into the Kingston Penitentiary. It was done into incidents at St. Vincent de Paul when it was open.

So I leave it to the members of this committee that if they think at any time we should investigate the situation in any one prison or any series of prisons, we can do that.

On the other hand, I have to tell Mr. Ramsay that I've been on committees where we've had unanimous reports and these reports were just as deep-sixed as the Correctional Investigator's. The fact that a group of parliamentarians in a committee come to a conclusion unanimously doesn't always work. It depends on the dynamics of the political situation and how much we pursue it in all our parties, in the House and elsewhere.

With respect to ombudsmen when this was set up, I don't think ombudsmen anywhere in the world have the power to implement. They're not administrators. They investigate, make reports, and it's up to the political process to take up their reports and run with them or not run with them.

Mr. Lee, you're next.

Mr. Lee (Scarborough - Rouge River): Mr. Stewart, in looking at the raw numbers in the estimates, I note that your office has not taken a big hit in terms of reduction of resources. I think the difference between 1994-95 and 1995-96 is about $10,000, which is roughly about a 1% reduction. That's either a sign that there's not much fat in your organization and you're doing a good job, or a sign of great stealth on your part.

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But I wanted to look at one of the headings, entitled professional and other services. In fairness, it's only about $30,000, but what would that category be used for?

Mr. Hayes: We hire somebody to help us with our computer system in the office when needed. We pay that person, or anyone else we might need on a very short-term basis, a per diem to help us with problems within our office that we're not capable of dealing with. Speaking for myself and one of the other members at this table, when it comes to computers we're in bad shape.

Mr. Lee: Fair enough. I also took note that you appear to have your own legal adviser. Is that person a lawyer?

Mr. Hayes: Yes.

Mr. Lee: So you have a lawyer on staff.

Mr. Hayes: Yes.

Mr. Stewart: He's present at the table. A few months ago we had three lawyers on staff.Mr. Sloan, Ms MacLeod and I weren't hired as lawyers. Mr. Sloan was hired as an investigator, and we gave him the added responsibility of doing some of our legal work for us.

We're constantly in an argument with Corrections and its Justice lawyers about all kinds of legal problems, so it is really advantageous to have someone on staff and not have to go out to the private sector, which we've done in the Prison for Women. We've had to hire an outside firm to represent us. We can't be represented by the Justice lawyers.

Mr. Lee: So the legal adviser may do other tasks related to the work of the Correctional Investigator.

Mr. Stewart: Maybe Mr. Sloan could tell you what he does.

Mr. Lee: That's a good idea. Mr. Sloan, why don't you tell us what you do.

Mr. Todd Sloan (Legal Counsel, Office of the Correctional Investigator of Canada): With our office being the size it is, we are limited in the resources we can apply to various tasks.

I perform our legal functions, which are to offer opinions on issues to other investigators and management, liaise with Justice counsel for the Correctional Service and the minister, and assist when it's necessary to hire outside litigators to bring our perspective to that process. I also carry an investigative caseload, which is pretty much up to the level of most of the other investigators.

Presently, in addition to my legal duties, I am the investigator for Stony Mountain Institution, Rockwood Institution, the special handling units, Saskatchewan Penitentiary, Riverbend Institution and the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon. So in all modesty, I think you're getting a bang for the buck from me.

Mr. Lee: It sounds more balanced than what shows up on paper. I thank you for that.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. St-Laurent, do you have other questions?

Mr. St-Laurent: Yes. It might be a good thing, but I didn't see any mention of the provision of services in the language chosen by inmates. From time to time, my office receives complaints from francophones held in anglophone provinces who have some difficulty obtaining services in their own language.

I also heard that in Port-Cartier, in Quebec, it's the reverse. Have you had any complaints regarding access to services in either language in the various institutions?

Ms Spicer: I know that in Quebec, for Anglophone inmates, accessing programs in their own language is a problem. This has already been pointed out to the Deputy Commissioner in the past and the situation seemed to improve. However, following the transfer of 42 inmates from Kingston to Port-Cartier, there are indeed problems in terms of services and programs in English and it seems that there are undue delays in producing an English translation of documents.

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We looked into the complaints and we drew the Warden's attention to this matter. We are going to follow this up when we visit Port-Cartier this week. If the problem is not solved, we'll bring it up again with the Deputy Commissioner for the Quebec region.

Mr. St-Laurent: Concerning Port-Cartier, do you still get complaints about the distances people have to travel to go and visit a member of their family? In 1988 or 1989, when the institution opened, the situation was really catastrophic. Admittedly, over time, people got used to it, but I still get a number of complaints about that. What about your office? Do you get many complaints?

Ms Spicer: As the investigator for the Port-Cartier institution, I noticed that the number of complaints about this has dropped significantly. Most inmates who now have the opportunity to be transferred to Port-Cartier volunteer. Usually, they go there because their family can relocate in the area or because they have no visitors. So, this is not a problem.

From what I heard, most inmates who were transferred from Ontario to Port-Cartier had no objection, and those for whom the transfer was a problem still agreed to go to Port-Cartier.

Mr. St-Laurent: I'll end with a question the answer to which I already know, but I can't help asking it. Mr. Stewart, would you feel more confortable if you had - quote, unquote - some decision-making powers, or are you happy with things the way they are?

[English]

Mr. Stewart: We've been set up as an ombudsman organization. One of the tenets of that is you don't make decisions. Who is going to check the ombudsman's decisions? In other words, we have a bureaucrat who we think has made a wrong decision. The ombudsman comes in and makes a worse decision. Who's going to check on him? I think that is why traditionally we don't have that power.

We have the power of recommendation, the power of trying to convince the bureaucrat he's wrong and he should change his policy. So some days, believe me, I wish we had the power to just go in and say let's get rid of this. But stepping back and looking at it realistically, it's not that I'm happy with it, but that's the way these organizations are set up. I'm pretty well forced to accept the role of the ombudsman.

It's not a brick wall every time we turn around. We're dealing with a lot of complaints and a lot of people. There are a lot of good people who work in Corrections. We have great cooperation at the institutional level. When we go in and find a problem, we talk to the warden and we can usually solve it. If we go to the region the same thing applies, and we can usually solve the problems.

It gets a little dicier at the national headquarters. Sometimes I'd like to make some decisions up there, but again it's not all bad. We do get good cooperation at the lower levels. We've traditionally had problems at the national level and I imagine we'll continue to do so.

No agency or department likes to be monitored by another agency. We have the advantage of having an annual report where we report our findings. Corrections doesn't have that available, and I think that bothers its officials in some respects, but again that's the situation.

The legislation is there. We work within the legislation, and it's a tough job. It's tiring. I know staff members are exhausted after one of their trips into institutions, spending a week in there dealing with some pretty difficult people, dealing with some pretty difficult staff on occasion. But every now and then a little ray of light comes in and we are able to turn some of these things around; we are able to help some of these people.

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Again, we are the advocates for fairness in the system. We're not advocates for the inmates or for special interest groups. We are advocates for fairness, and there's always room for that.

The Chair: Ms Phinney, five minutes.

Ms Phinney (Hamilton Mountain): My questions have to do with what recourse an inmate has when he believes the CSC has inaccurate information on his or her file. Could you go through exactly what steps an inmate can take? Is it within your mandate to come in and settle this problem or to help with this problem at some point?

If it gets as far as the material prepared for consideration by the National Parole Board and the inmate thinks the information is incorrect, are you authorized to investigate what has been put into that file? I'm asking this particularly because I have a case where an inmate has gone through certain processes and I can't quite figure out whether he's repeated these processes a number of times, whether he goes through the whole process and then there's another process for getting it in writing, or whether there's any process in here for him to go to you.

Can you go through it? Then maybe I'll go back to this individual case.

Mr. Hayes: The Correctional Service has a policy on file correction or dealing with misinformation on a file. I'll try to elaborate correctly.

The offender can bring it to his case management officer and discuss the nature of the misinformation, and it can be corrected informally at that level. If he is not receiving satisfaction, he can take it one step higher, probably to someone within the facility, a unit manager or a coordinator of case management. One of those people can help and review the case again for whether there is a need for the information to be corrected, or certainly to explain it to the offender's satisfaction.

If after that process he is not satisfied, he can have redress to the offender grievance system. He can file a grievance about the misinformation. He can proceed through the steps of that process. Theoretically, it should happen in a timely fashion, but that obviously is a problem.

If he remains dissatisfied, he could certainly bring the matter to our office and we would try to assist on where the problem specifically is. The offender can also take it outside the system completely, to the privacy commission. That office can review and comment on the information itself.

If in the final analysis the offender is not satisfied with the redress given, no matter where it is, he is entitled to write his own opinion, and it is attached to the information he believes to be erroneous and it will be tagged with his file.

As to your comment about whether we have the... Our mandate is to intercede and assess the information and address the offender complaint all through the process. In the question of the case before the National Parole Board, all the material that is presented to the board for decision is that which is produced by the Correctional Service. Yes, we can review; yes, we can help; and yes, we can give advice about the information he believes is wrong, which may have a negative impact in terms of conditional release or whatever case he is presenting before the board on his own behalf.

Ms Phinney: Your fourth point was to bring it to your office. How would an inmate sitting in his cell contact you?

Mr. Hayes: There are 1-800 lines across the country in some institutions. It's beyond my limited capability of understanding. They have collect lines they're allowed to telephone us on. For instance, if someone wants to contact Mr. Sloan from Stony Mountain, all they do is get permission to use the telephone and it's automatically routed to his office.

It's similar with all of our people in the country, because we have our investigators divided up regionally. When it comes into the office, it's just placed with a particular investigator to review. All the people in the office are very well aware of policy and have much experience in the business, so questions about misinformation or file information will be relatively easily handled from a distance.

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If the individual is not satisfied with what has gone on and so wishes, somewhere along the line we will meet with the offender during our regular visits to the institutions. For example, Ms Spicer is going to Port-Cartier tomorrow, and if she had a complaint she's been dealing with on the phone which was not easily addressed on the phone for reasons of time or content or whatever, she will meet with the offender and further review the matter and give him advice or help him address his problem.

Ms Phinney: Do I have a little bit more time? Do I have another question?

The Chair: You're in your last minute if you can just put your final question. You have a few seconds, that's all. You don't have time for a new subject.

Ms Phinney: No, I don't have a new subject.

On the same subject, in this particular letter I have it says that this man - I'll call him Joe Smith - believes the information was incorrect in his file and the institutional authorities didn't agree with him. He addressed this through the inmate grievance process and his grievance was ultimately denied at the national level. Which of your points was the national level? The offender grievance system?

Mr. Hayes: Yes. There are three levels within the system itself. The first level is the warden's level, the second level is regional headquarters, and level three is national headquarters. So it's been denied by the Commissioner of Corrections.

Ms Phinney: Then it says that the CSC officials have responded to his questions by advising him of his right under the provisions of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to request a correction to his file information, which presumably he's already requested, and saying that a procedure follow to ensure that his concerns are documented. Wouldn't this have already been done if it's gone all the way up to the correctional level?

Mr. Hayes: I'm only speculating in this case, but if indeed it gets to the end of the redress system within CSC and he still maintains that his position is correct and for some reason or other he doesn't want to take it to the Privacy Commissioner, he can write his own opinion and it would therefore be attached to the document with his information. So when the reader reads this information, they must then read this information. That's the theory.

Obviously when we have so many copies of things floating around, sometimes A doesn't get married up with B in this file and so on and so forth. Theoretically it's not a bad system. Practically, it is not as easy to address.

The Chair: Ms Meredith.

Ms Meredith: I'd like to go back to your report on the riot at the Prison for Women, P4W. Your report gave a completely different version from the Correctional Service report. You have just said that as an ombudsman you feel your role is to advocate for fairness; you don't feel you're an advocate for the inmates. Do you feel your report was a neutral third party's perspective, or do you feel your report was more an advocacy for the inmate population?

Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, again it was a report to the fairness of the situation. We're a complaint-driven organization; we investigate those complaints and where we find they have some substance to them, that's when we put the report in.

Had our investigations or inquiries not been able to establish some of those things, we might not have put the report in, but again we're a third party. We deal with fairness and we bring the problems of the inmate to the Correctional Service.

Ms Meredith: I'm not saying it's not, but I'm finding it really hard to understand why a neutral third party has been brought in to investigate one more time and to come up with a report outside of the correctional report and correctional investigative report. I don't see why they found the need to spend more tax dollars to have a third report by another neutral third party when, from my understanding, how you perceive your position is that's where you sit.

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I know from conversations on my tours of these correctional facilities that the front-line correctional people generally, across this country, view your office as an inmate advocacy group that is antagonistic towards correctional staff. Is that how you want to be perceived? Is this how you feel you can best operate as a neutral third-party ombudsman position?

The Chair: Excuse me, there are two questions there. There's no problem with the last question. The first question, as to why it was necessary for the Solicitor General to have another investigation, is a very good question, but I don't know if it's one we should put to the Solicitor General rather than to you. It may not be in your power to explain why the Solicitor General decided to have another investigation. You may or may not want to answer that.

Mr. Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Section 193 allows the Correctional Investigator to make a special report when he investigates an urgent matter that in his judgment won't wait for the next annual report. That was the situation here, and I reported to the minister and he's obliged to deliver that report to both Houses. I wasn't part of the process of resolving the situation, so I can't answer that question.

The Chair: What about the second question?

Mr. Stewart: On the advocacy-for-inmates role we play, we've been in this game for quite a while now. I don't know whom you spoke to or what institutions. I think most of the institutions we go to or the people we talk to - hopefully a lot of them, anyway - know the role of the ombudsman and know that we are an advocate for fairness and not for inmates. We present this in our annual report. Where we have complaints from inmates that can't be justified, we go back and tell the inmate, you don't have a problem that we can deal with.

There are prisoners' rights groups out there. There are advocacy counsel out there. There are all kinds of people in that business, but that's not the business we're in.

Ms Meredith: That's my concern, because that's how the people within the system, the front-end workers, see you. They see you as being just one more John Howard Society or Elizabeth Fry Society. They see your relationship to them as being very adversarial, very antagonistic. So they don't see you as this neutral third party. They see you as another John Howard and Elizabeth Fry.

My question to you is, is that how you want to be perceived by the people in Corrections with whom you are dealing?

Mr. Stewart: No, it isn't.

We spend a good deal of time at the institutions in discussing this very thing, with both staff and inmates. We've been doing it for the 18 years I've sat in this position.

If that is the perception you saw at a particular place or several places -

Ms Meredith: Across the country, actually.

Mr. Stewart: If that's the perception.... How many people would you have spoken to?

Ms Meredith: A couple of dozen in probably six or seven institutions.

Mr. Stewart: I think, in all fairness, some people acquaint themselves with whom they're dealing with. Certainly the annual report is available in the institutions if people care to read it. I think who we are comes across; we explain that in almost every issue of the annual report.

We certainly think that's a bad rap, and we wouldn't want it hung around our necks that we are strictly advocates for inmates. We prefer to be advocates for fairness.

Ms Spicer: I think it's a matter of education among line staff. Unfortunately, in the past years there have been fewer investigators in our office, with a fairly large caseload. So we go into institutions and, because of limited time, we meet with the offender, and maybe in previous years we haven't spent as much time with the line staff in explaining our role. In more recent years there have been a few more investigators in our office.

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I don't know if you have visited any institutions in Quebec. It is certainly not my opinion that line staff in the Quebec region feel that way about our office.

As recently as a couple of weeks ago I was at Donnaconna and spent an hour at a line staff meeting, explaining the role of our office, that we have a power of recommendation, we're not working on behalf of the offender but on the issue of fairness. We explained exactly what our role was.

It is not my understanding that within that region that is the way we are perceived. But for those who may not be familiar with our role, yes, that may be the first impression, because we come in and we meet with the offender first. Then we negotiate with the warden. If we are recommending against some action the line staff may have taken, they may perceive us as being on the side of the offender. However, there are some offenders who, if we don't bring a resolution to their concern, feel we are working on behalf of the administration. So at times our position can be quite complex.

The Chair: On that very same question, I read in your report last year you had 6,800 complaints. Of those, what percentage would you have dismissed as not being justified - even a rough figure? My understanding is you don't always side with the inmate; very often you tell the inmate their complaint is not justified.

Mr. McIsaac: It is shown in table G, on page 15 of the report. The number of not-justified last year was 716. Again, a number were beyond our mandate. So as you indicate, Mr. Chairman, we're not a 100%, or even an 80% or maybe even 75%, advocate on those complaints that are brought to our attention.

The Chair: I know you are a bit like the Auditor General, in that there are public servants who don't like anybody looking over their shoulder, checking to see whether they're doing right or wrong, whether it's the Correctional Investigator, the Auditor General, or the Privacy Commissioner. But public policy has decided that this is a good thing for fairness reasons, and whether they like or not, sometimes it's necessary.

Mr. MacLellan.

Mr. MacLellan (Cape Breton - The Sydneys): Mr. Stewart, thank you for coming, with your officials. It's good to see you again.

I want to ask you how many of those inquiries you deal with are drug related. Do you have quite a large number?

Mr. Stewart: Are we speaking about the number of complaints we get on drug issues?

Mr. MacLellan: Yes.

Mr. Stewart: I don't think we break that down. If you go to table A in the report, no, we don't break them down into drug-related. But inmates normally wouldn't complain to our office about the drug problem in an institution.

Mr. MacLellan: No, but problems the inmates may have...do you feel there may be some relationship to drugs with these problems? I know drugs do not come within your ambit per se, but they are becoming an increasingly difficult problem. It's a problem where if you ask questions you really don't get an answer. It's just that it's being looked into.

One can imagine where the drugs are coming from, but to my knowledge there really hasn't been any detailed overall account of this problem and why it is increasing, and, frankly, whether we can do anything about it, given the nature of the system. To me that's alarming, because a lot of what we want to achieve we can't achieve, because it's going to be counter-productive as long as we don't look at the problem with drugs. Even if it were being reduced somewhat...and it's not staying even; it's increasing in seriousness and frequency.

I wonder if you could offer help to us in this area. I know the limits to which you can go on this question.

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Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, drugs certainly are a problem within the institution. There doesn't seem to be a problem in getting drugs when you're in an institution, and I think the Correctional Service is aware of that.

I am going to ask Mr. Hayes, because I think they're doing some kind of an ongoing study right now, are they not?

Mr. Hayes: Yes, they have a drug strategy with respect to dealing with substance abuse.

I suppose, to go one step further, maybe in anticipation of a secondary question, it's a question of identifying those who have a problem with substance abuse and then the programming should be there to address those issues, and so on.

Very frankly, I think an awful lot of the offenders coming in - and I don't know what the data says, but certainly it suggests that people who are incarcerated suffer from or have great long histories of substance abuse problems.

In regard to the question of those who are actually using, obviously it makes the press - heroin in facilities and so on, and police involvement. Those are the cases that certainly get the publicity, and perhaps deservedly so.

On the other hand, there are a great number of offenders, and by far the vast majority of those who have a history of substance abuse, who wish and want programming to address their problem in a timely fashion. Our experience has been, in terms of complaints received, that this is not being done.

Of course, it is circular and it goes into Mr. Bodnar's earlier comments with respect to overcrowding, idle hands, that kind of thing. Certainly we get an awful lot of complaints indirectly about drugs in a sense that the programming is not there to help them with their problem.

Mr. MacLellan: I have one more question, if I may, Mr. Chair.

I can appreciate that Corrections Canada is an ongoing program, but this ongoing program has been ongoing for some time. I wonder if we can reasonably expect that this program is going to tell us anything or come out with any kind of information that is going to be helpful in dealing with this, or is it just a program for public consumption? That's my concern.

Mr. Hayes: You are asking me to predict the future with respect to what that agency is doing, and very frankly, I think there's a lot of fingers-in-the-dyke approaches going on, and I think there's good philosophical effort.

As to the significant approaches, I think they've made some steps, some rather Draconian steps, with respect to addressing the issue, and frankly, short of locking people away and never letting them around people again, I do not expect the problem to be addressed in a reasonable fashion. I just don't see it being done, and I think it will continue to increase. You can bring in dogs and you can have fancy machinery and so on, but human nature being what it is, that will be violated and people will continue to get injured, and of course it's compounded again by the overcrowding.

Certainly I think they have a massive problem on their hands, and there is no easy solution. I don't know what the answer is.

The Chair: I have a few questions myself.

Last year, as you know, Donzel Young was murdered at Collins Bay penitentiary by certain inmates. I guess it's still under investigation, but did you ever receive complaints from Donzel Young, or were you ever involved in any way in the Donzel Young case?

Mr. Stewart: No. As I have indicated, no, we haven't.

The Chair: All right. There was another case as well, and it's before the courts now too, but Robert Gentles at the Kingston Penitentiary was also killed and charges are pending. Had you ever received any requests from Robert Gentles with respect to the situation at KP?

Mr. Stewart: Yes, we did, Mr. Chairman. We were concerned about the make-up of the inquiry team, right off the bat, and we made what I thought were helpful suggestions to Corrections. I don't know whether they were ignored, but they weren't actioned and they had their inquiry.

When there's death or serious bodily injury, we of course get a copy of the report, which we did in the Gentles case. We reviewed it and we corresponded back with Mr. Edwards, I believe. Is that right, Ed?

Mr. McIsaac: Yes.

The Chair: Gentles was at the Kingston Penitentiary, and I noticed from your report - it sticks right out - that the number of complaints you received at the Kingston Penitentiary in the last year was 489; at Warkworth, 557. These are much higher than the numbers of complaints received at any other institution in Canada. For example, Joyceville had 281, as compared with the Kingston Penitentiary. Collins Bay had 282.

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How do you explain that there's such a high level of complaints at the Kingston Penitentiary and at Warkworth?

Mr. McIsaac: There were probably two factors.

First, both of those institutions hold a large number of inmates who are waiting for access to treatment programming. The backlog is long. We receive numerous complaints in terms of offenders from both of those institutions having to waive either their parole or day parole hearings because of their inability to get into programming.

The other factor is that Warkworth Institution is probably the most overcrowded institution in the country. Overcrowding generates complaints.

Until very recently, the Kingston Penitentiary also had a large number of offenders double-bunked, and anyone who has visited that institution will know that those cells do not lend themselves very well even to single-bunking in many cases.

So, off the top of my head, that would be the cause of the high numbers at both of those institutions.

The Chair: I noticed from the estimates that you have a staff of only seventeen people, and of those eight are investigators. You have five regions and you had 6,800 complaints last year to be dealt with by eight investigators.

If I understand correctly, you don't have regional offices, and while they are regionally targeted, you all work out of an office in Ottawa. Is that correct?

Mr. Stewart: That's correct.

The Chair: The two busiest regions are Quebec and Ontario. Could you tell me how the eight investigators break down? You have the Atlantic region, Quebec region, Ontario region, the Prairies region, and the Pacific region. How do you break down your eight investigators as to regions?

Mr. Stewart: I will ask Mr. Hayes. He's the one who breaks it down.

Mr. Hayes: We try to place one investigator in the Pacific region and one in the Atlantic region. We have two in the prairies. Given Mr. Sloan's legal caseload, we give him half of the prairies, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and we have one other person, of native descent, whom we assign to Alberta. With Quebec and Ontario, we have basically two full-time in each, and sometimes we rob a little bit from here and there to help if there's an overload in one province or the other.

We also try to accommodate people who are off on leave for extended periods. For instance, at present one of our staff persons is seconded for four months. We had no one to backfill, so we had to cover that off by the staff we already had, using either myself or one of the other people in the office.

So basically, with the exception of Quebec and Ontario, the rest are assigned one investigator.

The Chair: With 6,800 complaints, it seems like a pretty full case-load. As Mr. Sloan said, these people seem to be earning their money.

Have you had an increase in the number of investigators or a decrease over the last two or three years as a result of budgetary considerations?

Mr. Hayes: Actually, our staff complement is sixteen. It says seventeen, and I suppose we could do that. That's our allotment, but the money is just not there, so we operate with sixteen.

I think it was around the CCRA when we received an increase in investigative staff, about 1992.

We started out, as you are probably very well aware, having all inmates dealing with our office by correspondence, so we had some handle on what was going on. Now, with the telephone lines, we are receiving up to 700 calls a month from the offenders, as well as the travel. When somebody joins the office, we make it a condition of employment, and they first look at travel as being wonderful. It doesn't take them very long to suggest to themselves that's not where they want to be. Travel is not a great thing in our office.

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The Chair: It is 700 calls a month, you said?

Mr. Hayes: Yes.

The Chair: There must be some backlog in dealing with these calls. As members of Parliament, we all get 200 calls a week. Some of them we never get around to dealing with for three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, because we just don't have the resources in the staff.

You were talking about how your recommendations to the Correctional Service don't get dealt with quickly enough. What's the situation? Are you yourself frustrated in dealing with these calls coming in, 700 a month? How quickly are you able to deal with them, with only 8 investigators for the entire country and a staff of 16 for the entire country?

Mr. Hayes: At best.

The Chair: How many inmates, 14,000?

Mr. Hayes: Plus those in some provincial facilities, as well as those who are on parole.

It is extremely difficult. Perhaps Ms Spicer would care to comment, because I know what her telephone lines are like; or Mr. Sloan. They're the people who actually do this on a daily basis. How they survive, frankly, is beyond me. To use the telephone in our office is -

The Chair: I would like to hear.

Do you deal with Quebec, Ms Spicer?

Ms Spicer: Yes.

The Chair: How many calls do you get a day?

Ms Spicer: I would say probably on average fifteen a day.

The Chair: An average call is fifteen or twenty minutes to explain the case, or half an hour?

Ms Spicer: It varies. We're quite familiar with the policy. If there's no obvious violation of policy, we just let the offender know what the policy is and that the complaint at this point is not justified. However, if there is a justified complaint, then you have to inquire from the offender what he has done to resolve or address his concern.

But it is very frustrating. Not only do we hear complaints but we hear complaints about offenders waiting on the line because we have only five lines to cover all the penitentiaries across the country. So while we're busy we're being paged, two are waiting, three are waiting. At some point you have to stop taking calls, or else you can't address what you're supposed -

The Chair: They telephone their member of Parliament.

I realize it's frustrating. Mr. Stewart said sometimes he feels like going in and saying do this or do that, but I hope it's realized that as ombudsman, if you had the power to do that, you would become the administration; and once you become the administration, you lose your raison d'être as ombudsman. It would be like giving the Auditor General the right to come in and decide to run the Government of Canada, which isn't really the role.

Mr. Ramsay: When we visited the Edmonton ``max'', the question of drug trafficking within the max was discussed, and the warden told us that yes, there was a serious problem. There are only two sources to get drugs into the max - into any institution - and it amazes me we have a problem at all. If we can't keep banned substances out of an institution that inmates can't get out of, it seems we don't have much hope of battling the importation of drugs into Canada.

Nevertheless, there are two sources of drugs. There are two routes by which drugs can enter an institution. One is, of course, through the guards, the staff who work in the institution. The other is through visitation rights. We were assured by the warden that the vast majority of drugs, if not all, going into the Edmonton max was entering through the policy of visitation rights.

If I were a warden, I would say, well, if we want to rid the institution of drugs and all the aftermath of it...and he pointed out that it creates a danger. The rehabilitative programs aren't worth a hoot for those who are using drugs. They are just proceeding with the way of life they brought into the system and adjusted to the restrictions within the system.

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However, if the warden were to do that, if he had the power to restrict visitation rights or least to put them behind glass where there is no contact with the drugs that are being smuggled in - and he told us of many devious ways that are being used, including in the diapers of babies and so on - I suppose there would be complaints to your department and you'd be there fighting for their rights. Am I correct in that?

Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, it would certainly increase the workload of our office. We'd have hundreds of wives and family members complaining about the treatment they're getting in the visits area.

We just deal with inmate complaints. The inmates would probably complain as well that their wives and families were either having closed visits or were being strip-searched or something like that. But that's the policy with the institution. We don't make policy.

Mr. Ramsay: So we then have to face the problem of dealing with drug trafficking within an institution versus the contact rights visitors have, rather than going back to the old system of them not having physical contact.

How do you feel about that? How would you weigh the benefit of the contact with those who do make physical contact with their families and their children? How would you weigh the benefit of that policy against the detrimental effect of this being the key source through which drugs are entering the institution and causing the problems within the system that are being caused now, particularly the debilitating effect it has upon any rehabilitative program that might be introduced within the system?

Mr. Stewart: I'll let our legal counsel field that one.

Mr. Sloan: Mr. Chairman, with respect to restriction of visitation entitlements, the act and the regulations already include many provisions that provide the institutional head with the authority to do so in circumstances where security or safety interests or the prospect of use of the visits for criminal activities is reasonably believed to be about to take place. The act provides, albeit in the least restrictive manner commensurate with dealing with these concerns, that the restriction can take place on an individualized basis for as long as the concern continues to exist.

Our office's policy with respect to CSC's approach from this perspective on drugs has been that we too recognize that the importation of drugs into institutions is very definitely a problem of offenders that must be addressed. When an inmate or the relative of an inmate complains to us with respect to a restriction on visitation rights emanating from this, we will certainly take into account the safety of other inmates of the institution and of the public in dealing with our response to it. But we will also address questions as to the administrative fairness, the advisability of the extent of restriction that has been implemented, and so on.

But the short answer is that yes, restrictions are possible, and yes, we are aware of the need for those restrictions, provided they are fairly implemented and implemented in accordance with the requirements of the act.

The Chair: Mr. Gallaway, you have five minutes.

Mr. Gallaway (Sarnia - Lambton): I have basically one question.

You've made the observation that the rate of incidence of death and serious bodily injury has been increasing. You've characterized Correctional Service Canada as being ``excessively delayed, defensive and non-committal to specific action'' and you've noted that your role is ``to ensure that systemic areas of concern are identified and appropriately addressed'' within our prisons.

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We know that serious bodily injuries are increasing and that you're dealing with an institution that is basically inert. What do you foresee in terms of change occurring in the system? Or do you only see increasing numbers of complaints being brought to your attention? In other words, are you going to become busier all the time or is there any real hope for some change within the system?

Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, hope springs eternal. Certainly we haven't been very optimistic in the past number of years as far as change is concerned. All we can do is maintain our level of reporting of the problems to the minister and turn to the members of both Houses. Hopefully somewhere along the line we'll get some resolution in some of these areas that we don't feel have been dealt with within a reasonable length of time. Some of these problems have been sitting around for five or six years.

The increases in deaths and in serious bodily injuries add to our workload because we get the inquiries. We underestimated how many we would get. We had no idea. We're receiving many more than we thought we would. Again, where does that end? I don't know.

Mr. McIsaac: I think one has to be optimistic in order to stay in this business. I think the office has detailed, over the years, a number of very specific recommendations in some of the key areas. I'm thinking specifically of transfers, inmate pay, which we have discussed at some length today, and recommendations with regard to the internal grievance process, which if operating effectively will hopefully assist in alleviating some tension inside and maybe draw some of the workload from our office. We've also made recommendations in terms of access to mental health programming and in terms of case preparation.

The delay Mr. Stewart referred to has been the delay by the Correctional Service in responding to the specifics of the observations and recommendations made, or in following up on past commitments they've made in terms of what they perceive to be the appropriate way to deal with the problem area we identified. There is room for action. There is room for the Correctional Service to move on a number of very specific areas, and we are hopeful that it will happen.

The Chair: Ms Torsney, you had a short question. Mr. Gagnon, your question will be next.

Ms Torsney: I want to talk about this issue of drugs in the penitentiaries and visitation. Drugs are also coming into the institutions when they are lobbed over the fences at night and inmates go out and pick them up during the day. Because of the cutbacks in staff, it's hard to patrol that.

When we went to the prisons we learned that about only one-third of the inmates receive visits. We're talking about reintegrating them into the community, and on the other hand, we're going to cut them off completely from their families and treat them worse than dogs. Even dogs need human contact.

It is absurd to suggest that you could somehow reduce the demand by cutting off the supply of drugs and to suggest that the conditions these people are living in are not part of the problem - the pay issues, the issues of items to barter and trade or services, etc. We talk about this and about limiting human contact, but it is just mind-blowing to think that people don't think about the implications for the spread of AIDS and what have you, that they rally against condoms being available and needle exchanges being set up, and that they don't see the interrelation.

Do you want to comment? It's a wonder to me. We should be encouraging more people to have visitors rather than fewer people to have visitors, because there's no contact with the outside world. When you're talking about people who have been incarcerated for a long time, those sisters or spouses or whoever who visit are their only contacts.

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Mr. Stewart: A lot of those inmates just live for visits from their families, their wives and their children. I don't know how many hours a week I spend with irate family members who say their visits have been terminated for some reason. Again, we have to check with the inmate. Sometimes it's a case where the inmate is seeing two women and he doesn't want to see this one. There are all kinds of things that can happen. You fall into those traps early in this game, so you always check back.

After checking to make sure it's a legitimate contact and going through the process of trying to get visits reinstated, I agree with you; it blows your mind to look at the whole situation with the drugs coming in. Certainly that was a problem at the Prison for Women. The drugs were being thrown over the fences and picked up in the morning by whomever.

It's a very difficult organization to run and they have lots of problems. I think that's my only comment.

The Chair: I agree with you.

Mr. Ramsay, ten minutes, followed by Mr. Gagnon.

Mr. Ramsay: I'd just like to follow up on that a little. Inasmuch as the family visitation system is a central part of the overall rehabilitation system, that's fine, but when that rehabilitation system is not embraced by the inmates to the point where they're using it and abusing it to commit criminal offences, and in this case drug trafficking, then surely if those inmates are not going to embrace a program that will rehabilitate them, what's the purpose of extending it further to them if it's simply going to be a means by which they commit criminal offences?

We asked the warden this question at the max. He said we shouldn't shut down the whole system for people who are having visitation rights and not abusing them and are embracing them as a form of rehabilitation. Of course not, but if a rehabilitation program is introduced and it's simply being abused, then what's the purpose of extending it to that particular individual when it's having no impact whatsoever? Why aren't those privileges, rights or entitlements not reduced for the overall benefit of the rehabilitation programs within the system?

If drugs are coming in through a handful of individuals and spreading once they get inside to whatever degree they do spread, then why not deal with that?

We discussed the urinalysis testing. If people are abusing a program granted them, an entitlement and a privilege granted them for the purpose of aiding their rehabilitation, what's the purpose of continuing to extend it to those individuals, having it abused and having no effect whatsoever upon those individuals, while at the same time placing the safety and effect of other rehabilitative programs and the overall rehabilitative program at risk? I just don't see the sense in that.

I think the inmates who go in there have a right to be protected against the violence and other dangerous aspects of the drug culture that exist within our institutions now, as described by the warden. We asked him whether there is a problem with drug abuse and drug use, and he said there certainly is. It creates a very real danger, not only for the security staff but for the other inmates as well who are trying to make the best of the programs available to them.

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Would you like to make a comment on that? I suppose you're the wrong people to be asking, because you're there to respond to the calls of inmates who might have their visitation rights reduced or physical contact eliminated. So perhaps you're the wrong people to be talking to.

The system is not working. We now have a penal system in which drugs are so rampant that the only alternative the authorities have is to grant a means whereby the spread of disease through the use of needles and so on is reduced. In lots of cases, the authorities may be accused of aiding and abetting the spread of drugs - criminal behaviour - within institutions by providing them with bleach for needles and so on.

I think there's something wrong with the thinking behind the system. I just don't understand it. If someone is abusing a rehabilitative program, and it's not having that impact upon them and at the same time endangering the opportunity of others who are on that program to receive the full benefit of that program, then surely those privileges should be denied for the benefit of all.

Mr. Stewart: I agree with some of the points raised by Mr. Ramsay. Certainly, if you're caught bringing in drugs, there are sanctions to deal with that. So I guess the trick is to catch the people. But there are certainly sanctions there to penalize people, whether they are on visits or whatever.

As to some of the other points about drugs, I think you hit the nail on the head: you are talking to the wrong people. I think you should be addressing those concerns to the Commissioner of Corrections, because it's more in that bailiwick to do something about it.

We would be the ones bringing complaints from inmates who are not dealing in drugs, yet their visits are cut off too. We would be trying to convince the warden that perhaps this inmate's family hasn't been involved. There's nothing to suggest that they were involved, therefore this inmate shouldn't be part of a general sanction against that.

Mr. Gagnon (Bonaventure - Îles-de-la-Madeleine): I'd like to hear what you think we should do with elderly inmates. We're told, according to a number of reports - I'm especially referring to an article in The Globe and Mail of yesterday - that killers, especially elderly ones, are the least likely of all convicts to reoffend, yet society is making it harder for them to get out of jail.

You've also stated in your report here that we've now reached intolerable levels of incarceration. It's one of the highest in the western world. It's next to the that of the United States. It's somewhat comparable to that of Russia.

Do you think that by allowing older convicts, depending on the case of course, to leave prisons and be released into society we would probably solve a lot of our problems in terms of double-bunking and triple-bunking?

Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, I read the article in The Globe and Mail and was quite interested in the figures.

I don't know if we'd be that intent on going to bat for elderly offenders, but certainly, as for non-violent offenders, whether they are elderly or not, it's always been our policy that we keep too many non-violent people in jail and that we should get them through the system further to cut down on the overcrowding.

I don't remember the numbers and whether they'd make a significant difference. They talked about lifers in there. What were we talking about? Was it 300 or 1,000?

Mr. Gagnon: It was approximately 300.

Mr. Stewart: Was it 314? I vaguely remember the numbers on this.

I certainly think it is an area that could be looked at so that we could move some of these non-violent senior citizens out of the institutions and provide some more cell space for other offenders.

Mr. Gagnon: But you also add that you continue to believe that the service's non-action in a number of significant areas.... I'm not saying that you're accusing Correctional Service Canada, but there appear to be other problems related to the courts and the public's perception of inmates. It's not only the CSC's fault or problem; it's also the way in which these people are treated in the courts and the public's perception. Wouldn't you agree?

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Mr. Stewart: I'm sorry. Was that part of that article?

Mr. Gagnon: No, it was not part of that article, but along those lines. I'm asking you what we can do to try to make it simpler, because of cost-cutting measures that are currently in place. There are more and more cuts and the inmate population is increasing significantly. As a result - and we have all of the statistics - there will probably be an increase of 25% over the next five years. Now that we've reached intolerable levels, there have been complaints of all kinds here, such as that we've gone from double-bunking, ten years ago, to triple-bunking now, and this can no longer go on and we're probably on the verge of some major problem by the end of this century.

Despite the efforts being put in place by CSC to release a greater number of inmates, there seems to be another problem, which is that due to public perception, the courts will be extending prison sentences for inmates. How do you balance the two? CSC can't do anything if the courts and the general public, including the opposition - who are not here, I should add - are not willing to cooperate.

Mr. Stewart: You always have that public perception. The Correctional Service is quick to point out that judges are giving longer sentences. I've asked Mr. Edwards for his statistics on that, but I haven't received them yet.

If instead of giving two years the judge is giving five years, that will impact on the population three, four, and five years down the road, certainly not this year. So he's saying that today they're sending him a person with a longer sentence. I'd like to see the statistics on that in order to see if we can find a way through that.

On the other end, as to public perception about releasing violent offenders, certainly they've clamped down on that, so fewer people are getting out.

So the Correctional Service does make a point in saying that to a certain extent it can't control its numbers. I think it could do a lot more early programming and get the release of a lot of the non-violent inmates and it could do something about its population.

It certainly has no control over the courts, and it doesn't have any control over the parole board, other than to have everything in place for the parole boards where they are likely to make a positive decision so we can solve the problem of overcrowding.

The Chair: On that point of overcrowding - and I've raised this before - we have approximately 1,500 non-Canadians in our institutions who will be subject to deportation as soon as their sentences will be finished. Prior to 1992, under the law, these people could be deported either during their sentences or right on sentencing. Now, because of the change in the law, these people have to serve their entire sentences in a Canadian institution, and 1,500 people means three institutions of 500 inmates each. If we could send these people back to the United States, South America, the Middle East, or wherever they come from.... We're not doing it.

Have you ever made any comment on that situation as a means of providing space in the institutions and relieving the overcrowding problem?

Mr. Stewart: I'm sure the Commissioner of Corrections is aware of every -

The Chair: I've brought this up with him, too.

Mr. Stewart: I'm sure you did.

No, I haven't discussed it with him, not the specifics of -

The Chair: Not only that, but we're also paying for rehabilitation for people whom we're going to boot out of the country and who will be going back to their own countries. It would seem to me that we should spend that money on people who are going to have to stay here, those whom we can't deport.

Ms Phinney: Do you get information about murders, natural deaths, and suicides in prison sent to you automatically? Do you have any agreement with the wardens?

Mr. Stewart: We get it from national headquarters; it comes over on a quarterly basis.

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Mr. Hayes: Actually, as a result of section 19 of the act, we get all of the investigations that have to do with death and serious bodily harm. They're all forwarded to our office from across the country.

Ms Phinney: For suicide?

Mr. Hayes: That's including suicide.

Ms Phinney: Do you get the results from the investigation that's done by the prison, or do you get materials available - maybe there's no investigation done, or is there always...?

Mr. Hayes: Those investigations require a convening authority, and we get it from the convening authority, be it the commissioner or the deputy commissioner or, in some cases, the warden.

Ms Phinney: So do you get all the information that was available to the investigators, or the report of the investigation?

Mr. Hayes: We get the report of the investigation, with its recommendations. Our problem currently is that we get them usually absent of the decisions on the recommendations. We are presently endeavouring to deal with CSC with respect to that matter. It's been a long-standing problem with our respective offices.

The Chair: In closing, I just want to refer to a point you made. Did you say your new report for 1994-95 would be out in a few weeks?

Mr. Stewart: It has to be out by the end of the month, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Yes. To get back to the original problem - how you don't have the power to enforce - you do have the power to bring matters to light and make them public, and it's up to us and the political will on this committee to pursue some of the points you raised with the minister, with the Commissioner of Corrections, with the parole board and so on.

It's unfortunate, in a sense, that your report will be coming out in the summer when the House is adjourned. I'd like to suggest to the committee that perhaps we shouldn't wait for the estimates to deal with your report. Perhaps we should be dealing with your report within weeks, if possible, after it comes out. If it does come out in the summer, perhaps we should hold a meeting in the fall at the first available opportunity to deal with the matters in your report. Otherwise they become cold news, and not only that, but the problem is lagging month after month. If we wait until next spring, for example, the spring of 1996, to deal with the report coming out this summer, a lot of those matters could become aggravated and worse.

So I'd like to suggest to the committee that maybe we should have one meeting with you, not on your estimates but on your report, as soon as possible after it comes out.

We've been discussing this morning whether you have the power or we have the power. You have the power to investigate and make public. It's up to us to try to bring about solutions. This is up to the full committee, but I think we should keep this in mind. It would be similar to the public accounts committee or the finance committee letting the Auditor General's report sit around for a year before having meetings on it.

So I think we should meet on your report as soon as possible. In a way it's too bad it comes out in the summer, because we might have been able to do it the week after the report came out, while it was still hot news.

Mr. Stewart: Perhaps I should clarify what I said earlier about the report coming out. I have to give it to the minister by the end of June, but then he has 30 days after the next sitting before tabling it. In the past there wasn't such a time commitment and it didn't matter when you gave the Solicitor General the report; it always got tabled on the last day before the summer recess. So we're back into the same ballpark.

We would appreciate being able to come with a fairly current report and perhaps seeing you in the fall to discuss the issues.

The Chair: I don't want to flog this too much, but I was the one who set up the position of the Correctional Investigator. Inger Hansen was the first one. When she had her report ready, I used to make it public as quickly as possible. I don't know what happened in the years that followed.

But we'll try to do that. It's not totally in my hands; it's up to the committee, but I think we lose the impact of dealing with this if we let a whole year go by before we bring it up.

Mr. Stewart: I agree.

The Chair: I want to thank you and your officials for being with us this morning. It's been very useful.

The meeting is adjourned until possibly next September, and who knows what will happen in the meantime. Who will be here then?

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