House Hansard - 262

44th Parl. 1st Sess.

December 5, 2023 10:00AM

Mr. Scott Reid (Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, CPC)

Dec/5/23 7:29:36 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, on November 24, I raised a question relating to corrections. I would like to restate my question tonight. I will simply read what I asked at the time, and then I will read the hon. Minister of Public Safety's response. I said: Mr. Speaker, also on the subject of corrections, on a recent visit to Joyceville Institution, I was informed that personnel at Correctional Service Canada had been trying to introduce red seal apprenticeship programs so inmates can re-enter the workforce with real job training. After eight years of a Liberal government and of the Liberals' running Correctional Service, how many federal inmates are enrolled in red seal programs? Which programs are they enrolled in, and how many are enrolled per program? How many have graduated, and from which trades? Finally, is there a plan to assist inmates to finish their respective programs upon release? To this, the minister responded: Mr. Speaker, I will be very happy to get those exact details and provide them to the member. He then went on, adding the following comments: I can tell him that, as the member of Parliament for Beauséjour, when I visited the medium-security prison Dorchester Penitentiary, I met inmates and CORCAN staff who work on exactly those programs. I share his view that if we can give inmates the skills and ensure that, for example, they complete their high school education or a trade, it will make them much more likely to successfully reintegrate into society when they finish their sentence. That keeps Canadians safe as well. These are sentiments with which, of course, I agree. I would just observe that the nature of question period is that members get 35 seconds to ask a question and 35 seconds to give an answer. It goes without saying that it is not possible to answer the kind of detailed questions I was asking about Red Seal programs at that time. That is the purpose of these adjournment proceedings questions, where members have four minutes to answer, as well as some lead time to do the research. Having said that, I am very hopeful that, tonight, we will learn something we cannot seem to find from the Corrections Canada website, which is the answer to those detailed questions: ...how many federal inmates are enrolled in red seal programs? Which programs are they enrolled in, and how many are enrolled per program? How many have graduated, and from which trades? Finally, is there a plan to assist inmates to finish their respective programs upon release? That information would be extraordinarily useful in dealing with the critical problem of inmates returning to the community untrained, unprepared to find a job and, in consequence, likely to reoffend. This causes damage to the community as a whole and, of course, to those former inmates themselves and their families. I do not blame the current government for the fact that Corrections Canada has done such a poor job of making these records available. I do, however, hope that we will have clear answers tonight to the practical, factual questions I have asked.

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Context: House Hansard - 262 - Dec/5/23

Mr. Scott Reid

Dec/5/23 7:36:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, some key facts and some numbers were mentioned. I am grateful for those. There was a specific number for the total number of inmates involved in Red Seal programs and a mention of similar programs. There was no breakdown of who is in which program. I wonder if I could ask for those details. I am aware the parliamentary secretary probably does not have those at his disposal at this minute, but I wonder if I could ask him to undertake to ensure that the minister or his parliamentary secretary will provide them at a reasonably brief interval from the present. I assume that this information must be present given that some partial information was provided tonight.

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House Hansard - 262