Thank you, both. Senator Simons, I’m going to invite you to forego the second round if we could. We started a bit late, and I’m worried that we will be noticeably inconveniencing the second panel.

The question I have in my head will work just as well for the second panel.

Maybe you can ask Senator Pate later. Senator Pate, you are the sponsor of the bill. I’m going to turn over the last set of questions to you.

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?

Not at all. I think we had a problem with deinstitutionalization and the thought that the community resources were going to be adequate to deal with the people who are no longer being subjected to custodial for mental health issues. The community was not able to keep up. The resources are just not there. So, no, I think there needs to be more resources, particularly community-based mental health services.

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?

I would say, not. I know they already had beds with Pinel institute. They used to have beds with Brockville, and I think they lost those beds. If anything, I think they’re heading in the wrong direction. Ms. Kish might know better than I do whether there are prisoners being transferred into beds.

I mean, not to any greater extent than there was, the very limited beds at the psychiatric centres.

What works, and speaking to the burden and the infrastructure, I know of three treatment centres in B.C. — and all addictions treatment centres respond to mental health because they are conflating in our experience — where federally incarcerated people are successfully transferred into treatment centres in the community from a custodial perspective and quite differently from the regional psychiatric centres. They are community-based and care-based, and the results are wonderful. So I recommend looking into what’s working and then building from there.

Thank you. Anything from you, Ms. Mitchell?

I have nothing to add. Ms. Latimer and Ms. Kish spoke well on this point.

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?

Sometimes on condition of release, sometimes earlier. At the Fraser Valley institution, the penitentiary for women, there were two treatment facilities that were accepting people with certain criteria prior to day parole. I’m not sure if this is being done through the sections that this bill addresses.

In either event, we see when individuals are placed in conditions which cause them harm they deteriorate, and when individuals are placed in conditions which support them, we’re seeing these individuals successfully navigate treatment and have productive and fulfilling lives; whereas people who are experiencing these structured intervention units are irreparably harmed.

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?

It was interesting in that disciplinary segregation had more due process protections or procedural protections than administrative segregation. The same three provisions, grounds for detention, that exist now in a structured intervention unit were there under the administrative segregation provisions, but they did get access to information about why they were being placed in administrative segregation and did have an opportunity to question whether there was a factual or evidence-based reason for their placement in administrative segregation.

Prisoners would complain that they had more rights on the disciplinary segregation side than on the administrative segregation side. But I fear that even those limited procedural protections that were there under the CCRA for administrative segregation disappeared in terms of not only of just the SIU but that proliferation of solitary confinement by different names that we’re seeing now.

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.

Yes.

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

I would agree with that. You would still have dry cells and a few other isolated confinements, but the majority of people were being placed in administrative segregation.

Thank you both. I wonder if I could bring this section of our discussions to a close by thanking Ms. Kish, Ms. Latimer and Ms. Mitchell. As usual, you made very valuable contributions to our study of the bill, and I want to thank you again for joining us.

We will now switch to our second panel of three people, and I would like to welcome each of them.

We have with us Michael Spratt, Partner, AGP LLP. Welcome, Mr. Spratt. We also have Adelina Iftene, Associate Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. Welcome, Professor Iftene. Also with us is Mary Campbell, Former Director General, Corrections and Criminal Justice Directorate, Public Safety Canada, now retired.

Mr. Spratt and Ms. Campbell are joining us in person and Professor Iftene is joining us by video conference. We will invite each of you to make presentations in that order of about five minutes each, and that will be followed by questions and discussion with senators. Beginning with you, Mr. Spratt, the floor is yours.