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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 171

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 22, 2023 01:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 171 - Mar/22/23
Ms. Kristina Michaud (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, BQ)
Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C‑283. I have been my party's public safety critic for the past few years, and I have learned a great deal about the situation in federal penitentiaries. I have learned more about Correctional Service Canada and the work of the correctional investigator, who publishes highly relevant reports each year on the various issues in Canada's penitentiaries. I send him my regards, by the way. In fact, last summer, I joined the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety for a tour of the Port-Cartier penitentiary, a maximum-security facility located in the North Shore region, in a constituency adjacent to mine. We were able to see how things are done on the ground. We observed that addiction is a massive scourge in penitentiaries, both in Quebec and Canada. I am very pleased that the member for Kelowna—Lake Country contacted me a few months ago to tell me about the bill she is introducing to propose a solution. The bill would allow inmates to be sent to drug treatment facilities. It would also allow penitentiaries to be designated as drug treatment facilities. I will discuss this in more detail later. When the member for Kelowna—Lake Country introduced her bill, she said its purpose was to end the revolving door of the criminal justice system. Those are the words she used. People entering prison get released almost immediately without getting adequate treatment for mental health issues, substance abuse or other problems. Federal penitentiaries, unlike provincial prisons, are reserved for people serving sentences of two years or more, although inmates may serve a much shorter sentence. That said, the meaning of my colleague's words are clear. In a system that values rehabilitation, it is unacceptable for someone to be released from a penitentiary with the same problems they had when they entered. For there to be rehabilitation, a minimum effort must be made to try to improve or resolve offenders' problems. As I said, substance abuse is a very real problem. Let us use the current situation in Quebec penitentiaries as an example. In 2014, 58% of inmates in federal penitentiaries had a substance abuse problem. This data comes from the Correctional Service of Canada, the CSC. According to the CSC, drug addiction is a major problem in the prison system. According to experts, drug addiction is what drives most of the people who end up in prison to commit a crime in the first place, and that is what brings them back to prison, where drugs are very easy to get, despite what people might think. In 2021, Frédérick Lebeau, president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers for the Quebec region, said, “There's a major issue, a problem of delivery [of drugs and other prohibited items] inside the penitentiaries. It's too easy. It's got to get harder”. With the advent of drones, it is easier than ever to deliver drugs into prisons. By 2020, officers at Donnacona's 451-inmate maximum security penitentiary had detected 60 drones, but they estimated that was just the tip of the iceberg. To address this emerging issue, penitentiaries are working to implement new drone detection technology, but we must not kid ourselves. We know that drugs are still getting into prisons and will continue to do so, despite the efforts that are being made. This really is one of the biggest problems in the prison system in Quebec and Canada right now. That is why people are right in saying that incarceration does not solve drug abuse problems, quite the opposite. If we want my colleague's solution to work, then we need to ensure that it is more difficult, if not impossible, for the program participants and all inmates to access drugs in prison. Recidivism rates among drug addicts is very high. When they get out of prison, many immediately try to obtain drugs and often turn to crime to pay for their purchases. There are many programs for addicts, such as the federal drug treatment court funding program. Drug treatment courts, known as DTCs, offer eligible offenders with a substance use disorder the opportunity to complete a court monitored drug treatment program as an alternative to incarceration. Provinces and territories are eligible for federal funding for the development and delivery of these drug treatment courts. It is important to note that offenders serving sentences in provincial prisons have usually committed less serious crimes—they are therefore sentenced to a maximum of two years less a day—and that alternative sentences may be more appropriate for these offenders than for inmates in federal penitentiaries. The DTC program has a few conditions, including that the inmate remain in the program for as long as it takes, usually 12 to 18 months, and that the inmate have no further criminal convictions. DTCs have existed in Quebec since 2012 and have been so successful that they served as a model for a pilot project to address recidivism among drug addicts in France. According to a study by CIRANO published in 2019, Quebec is an example to the world when it comes to rehabilitating its inmates. I have cited this report in the House before because Quebec truly is a role model. According to the study, Quebec's reintegration programs for inmates in Quebec-run prisons reduce the risk of recidivism and perform significantly better than elsewhere in the world. These reintegration programs, which are not only aimed at drug addicts, reduce the recidivism rate from 50% to 10% among participating inmates. Participation in the program is, of course, voluntary. In comparison with Quebec programs, it bears mentioning that federal penitentiaries are doing a poor job in facilitating the rehabilitation of inmates. In the Correctional Investigator of Canada's 2020 annual report, and this is something that comes up nearly every year in the correctional investigator's reports, federal inmates do not get training or learn skills that are job relevant and they do not have access to adequate care. In short, they are very ill-equipped to reintegrate civil society. It should also be noted that indigenous peoples are overrepresented in federal penitentiaries. They account for less than 5% of the Canadian population, but they account for over 32% of the prison population. Substance abuse and the lack of effective treatment programs partially explain this indigenous overrepresentation. That is where Bill C‑283 may make a difference and have a fairly positive impact. Let us take a closer look at the bill. It has three separate parts and would provide additional tools to help offenders overcome addiction. It adds the possibility for a convicted offender to ask the court to serve their sentence, or a part of it, in custody in a penitentiary designated as an addiction treatment facility if the following conditions are met: The offender was in trouble with the law because of their problematic substance use; the offender consents to participating in the program; the court is satisfied that the request has merit; the offender has not been sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 14 years or more; and the offender has not been sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 10 years or more for an offence that resulted in bodily harm, involved drug trafficking or involved the use of a weapon. The court would then make a recommendation to the Correctional Service of Canada that the inmate be placed in an addiction treatment facility if the inmate meets the criteria mentioned earlier. The bill would also amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. It would provide for the designation of addiction treatment facilities in the act. I was going to talk about that a little more, but I see that I have little time left. Therefore, I will say right now that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the bill at second reading because it is a bill that would actually help rehabilitate inmates. I would remind members that federal penitentiaries have done a very poor job in the area of rehabilitation. I therefore commend my colleague and thank her for proposing this bill, which I hope will be a step in the right direction for offenders in Quebec and Canada.
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Context: House Hansard - 171 - Mar/22/23
Ms. Kristina Michaud (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, BQ)
  • Mar/22/23 7:41:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know if my colleague will agree with me, but as I sit in the House tonight, listening to the various debates and the various speeches, I feel like I am watching a pointless contest. It just makes no sense. One party says, “We asked for it first”, and the other party says, “No, we asked for it first”. Each accuses the other of being the most partisan. This is ridiculous. I am trying to convince young people in my riding to take an interest in politics and look at what goes on in the House of Commons, because there are some debates worth watching. Tonight, I would tell them to turn off their television. This debate is outrageous. It is like listening to children argue over whose dad is stronger. We have been talking about this for weeks. The NDP has obviously just woken up in time for the Conservatives' opposition day. What we are hearing now is that we all agree that the government should be held accountable. Since we all agree, why can we not work together to hear what the government has to say for itself to the opposition and to Canadians?
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