My question relates to what Ms. Campbell just said.

Ms. Campbell, when you talked about the fact that there hasn’t been a systemic change in 50 years, I’d like to link that with what Ms. Latimer told us earlier, that a review of the law should have begun in January 2023 and that we were being invited to undertake that work, here in committee.

If I understand correctly, we haven’t done, in the prison field, what we had to do in the labour field, i.e., move from a regime where work accidents were physical accidents, to the reality of today, where the problems are mostly mental health problems.

In the same way, have we refused to see that in prisons, it’s the same thing? Mental health problems are a major concern in the prison world. In your opinion, is a radical change needed in the way we look at these issues in the world of federal penitentiaries?

[English]

I would certainly argue that radical change is needed. As people here have said, so many people in prison have mental health issues or other cognitive challenges. At the same time, some of them have done things that are truly harmful to individuals and society. Which do you address first? You want society to be safe for everyone, yet some of the people appearing in the courts — many of the people — are there because they didn’t have any control over their behaviour. I’m not speaking of everyone. There are some people, obviously, who knew exactly what they were doing and need to be out of society for a period of time or potentially forever. They simply can’t manage in society.

However, I think we do need to rethink how we are treating people at the margins of society, because it’s just far too easy to send them to prison and forget about them. That’s why the Office of the Correctional Investigator was created 50 years ago. It was so closed in the prison, and when the riot happened at the Kingston Penitentiary, it was this outburst of rage and anger. I visited Kingston Penitentiary about eight years later, and they had kept the one range as it was, and you see porcelain fixtures that had been pulled out of the concrete wall. It makes you wonder how enraged a person had to be to do that. The Office of the Correctional Investigator was created in large part to provide an outlet for prisoners to bring some light to bear — to give them some access to a remedy.

Fifty years later, we haven’t come that much further. People say that if an inmate is not happy or something is going wrong, they can call a lawyer. Well, first of all, they have to find a phone. This is so prosaic — find a phone. They have to find the name of a lawyer and find the phone number. They have to find a lawyer who will take their call. If they’re just left to their own devices, access to remedies is formidable. I’m not sure everyone realizes that.

Again, I’m not saying that everyone inside is suffering from some disability or deficit, but so many of them are, and they’re just cast aside.

Thank you, both.

Thank you all for your testimony and for your work. I’ve been a poverty law lawyer, not a criminal lawyer, so I’m learning quite a bit. I understand about the intersectionality of issues and the social determinants of health, but I didn’t really understand. You know, you could read statistics, but going into a prison is when you actually learn.

To your point, Ms. Campbell, when I went into Grand Valley Institution, I actually spoke to a correctional officer — correctional personnel. She said she had been off on mental health leave and was just returning. It just felt like it was the fragile-looking guarding the even more fragile. It just felt like there was so much fragility. It just felt horrible and unsafe for everyone. It’s a tough gig, and it’s tough every which way.

Mr. Spratt, you said that judges are aghast at how their sentences have been interpreted in practice. I wonder if that has been translated into support for this or how we could use that to support this bill. That would be my question for you.

Professor Iftene, you have published extensively. It’s impressive. In your opening statement, you referenced one report. If there is one report that we could look at to support this bill, which one would it be? I didn’t see it, so could you address that?

We’ll start with Mr. Spratt.

It’s always hard to get judges to publicly comment on things like this, but I think we can take some guidance from some of the judicial commentary about the state of our institutions. Quite often, we hear judicial commentary about the state of our provincial institutions because that’s where many of the accused people are before they come before the judges. We’ve seen a trend over the last number of years about judges increasingly speaking out about conditions that people are housed in. I think there is an increasing recognition that jails and people in custody is an admission of the failure of society and of taking care of each other.

The first time I noticed this was a decision from — I think it was — 2019. I think it was Justice Schreck from Toronto commenting on the Toronto South Detention Centre, which is a provincial reformatory but suffers from many of the same problems that this bill seeks to address. I’ve never seen a judge speak more frankly about conditions in custody — about soiled and bloodied linens, inadequate food, access and the deliberate political choice. It’s a secret to many, but not to people in power, about what’s happening. To hear a judge talk about the deliberate political indifference to those conditions was shocking. We’re seeing that more often.

One of the benefits we have here is that this committee is not indifferent. There’s a bill before this committee that could make a difference and will require change that will be hard to implement. But if fixing jails, prisons and conditions had been easy, it would have been done already. Just because it’s hard and may require reflection and change isn’t an impediment. We’re seeing more of that commentary in judicial decisions going forward. I think you can take some keys from that.

I think the one you’re mentioning is the one that I submitted to you as appendix A. It’s a report called Do Independent External Decision Makers Ensure that “An Inmate’s Confinement in a Structured Intervention Unit Is to End as Soon as Possible”?

The reason I directed you toward that is because one of the big issues we’ve heard tonight comes down to the way that Correctional Service Canada finds ways and loopholes, and does not actually often abide by the legislation; they find ways of abusing a lot of the powers they have. That comes down to a lack of accountability and transparency. That’s what the provision regarding judicial oversight, both in SIUs and as a remedy, will help with.

I think this report is very clear. It’s using data from the CSC’s first year of running these structured intervention unit. It shows that when the Bill C-83 was passed, creating the structured intervention units, their big claim — what gives legitimacy to this — is the fact that there is this external, independent decision-making structure in place that will ensure accountability and prevent abuses.

Unfortunately, using the data that CSC has, it’s shown that it actually has not made a difference in terms of the abuses people have suffered. That really drives home the idea that just because it’s external or called independent, it is not actually going to be enough to ensure the accountability and transparency that we’re looking for, so we might need to look further. And the only next step is a court.

Thank you. We’re going to have to forego Senator Klyne’s and Senator Cotter’s second-round questions to ensure Senator Pate, as the sponsor, gets to do cleanup.

Would it be possible to invite you to communicate those thoughts in writing, if you have any? We’re running right up against the time when we need to wrap things up. Would that be acceptable?

Yes.

Yes.

We appreciate it.

Colleagues, this brings us to the end of our meeting. I’m constantly effusive about the quality of our witnesses, and the help they provide to the committee. In that sense, I’m extending the collective feeling of the committee in expressing appreciation for the contributions you have provided today to the work we’re doing. Thank you very much, Mr. Spratt, Professor Iftene and Ms. Campbell.

We will continue deliberations with respect to this bill, but we have other business tomorrow in relation to a different bill; we will be doing clause-by-clause consideration of it.

(The committee adjourned.)