Thank you very much. I wanted to pick up where Senator Busson left off. One of the questions raised by some who have spoken to us about the bill is that there are an awful lot of people to whom the mental health provisions in particular might apply. One of the reasons for that is the fact that the mental health system has not been able to keep up, and when they have not, the prison system has been used. Do you see that as a viable reason, either morally, legally or ethically to continue the practice of keeping people in prison?

You pointed out, and I’m happy to have the other witnesses also join in on this, but you pointed out that when Minister Goodale was considering this bill, there was a significant allocation. In fact, there was a special application to the government to have a Royal Recommendation for funding for mental health services. The understanding was it was to contract services through existing exchange of service agreements with provinces and territories to have additional mental health beds. To your knowledge, has any of that happened?

The types of mental health beds that you just spoke about, Ms. Kish, those are accessed through treatment orders as part of the conditional release provisions. Is that correct?

Thank you. My understanding is those aren’t through section 29; those are treatment orders as people are becoming eligible for escorted passes and unescorted passes. But we can certainly ask that if we have an opportunity.

What were the provisions before Bill C-83 and the creation of the SIUs? What was the definition of “segregation,” and what kinds of oversight mechanisms existed prior to that?

Would you agree that prior to this the definition of segregation was, basically, anyone not in the general population, and it could be administrative segregation if it were disciplinary? They also had a right to counsel as well.

We saw the overuse of administrative segregation as a way to avoid the accountability required for disciplinary segregation. Do you agree with that?

I don’t know about that, but I do want to pick up on the point that Senator Simons raised about the definition. Because Bill C-83 amended the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to remove segregation, the definition that we have put back in, which was actually a definition we looked at when we were looking at the amendments — the CCRA back with the Senate amendments to Bill C-83 — was to actually require the structured intervention unit definition to include what segregation used to be. So in fact, the ghost cells and hidden cells would be covered, because it’s the condition of confinement and not necessarily the name that’s attached that defines something now. Under this bill, it would define it, then, as a structured intervention unit.

If you see some ways to improve that, I would be happy, but the only other option that we saw through the law clerk was to go back to the old definition. That would be a whole other series of amendments, so we chose to redefine that.

In addition to the issues you’ve raised, Ms. Campbell, about access, since the SIUs have been put in place, there have also been ongoing changes to the phone system. You said, “find a phone.” When people are locked in their cells, there is no phone in their cells. Am I correct? Yes. In addition, there’s usually a card that people have that has to have all approved numbers on it. So in addition to the issue of whether you know a name and a number, it first has to be prior approved. With this provision, there could be — in the general access numbers that people have access to in prison, there’s supposed to be a Legal Aid number. So I’m very interested in your proposal. If you have suggested wording, Mr. Spratt, about how to do that, it would be welcome.

Finally, because we know that the funding that was approved for outside-contracted beds has not actually been utilized for those purposes, I would be interested, Ms. Campbell, on other ideas you have about funding and how it could be reallocated, as well as any other examples of times when there have been attempts to impose accountability. I can speak of deputy commissioners for women, for instance. If you have other examples that would benefit us, that would be useful.