THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENCE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, June 14, 2021
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met by videoconference this day at 2 p.m. [ET] to consider Bill C-228, An Act to establish a federal framework to reduce recidivism.
Senator Gwen Boniface (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I am Gwen Boniface, a senator from Ontario, and I have the pleasure of chairing this committee. Today, we are conducting a public meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence via video conference. Thank you in advance, senators, for your patience as we adapt to this new way of holding our meetings.
Before we begin, I’d like to remind senators to please keep your microphones muted at all times unless recognized by name by the chair, and avoid switching from one language to the other in the same intervention.
Should any technical challenges arise, particularly in relation to interpretation, please signal this to the chair or the clerk, and we will work to resolve the issue. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times, as we need to ensure that all members are able to participate fully.
Finally, I would like to remind all participants that Zoom screens should not be copied, recorded or photographed; you may use and share official proceedings posted on the SenVu website for that purpose.
I would now like to introduce the members of the committee who are participating in this meeting: Senator Boisvenu, a deputy chair of the committee; Senator Dagenais, a deputy chair of the committee; Senator Dalphond, fourth member of the steering committee; Senator Busson; Senator Jaffer; Senator Martin; Senator McPhedran; Senator Moodie; Senator Oh; Senator Pate; and Senator Richards.
To ease the flow of this virtual meeting, I have prepared a list of questioners, starting with the Senate sponsor of the bill, followed by the members of the steering committee, who will be followed by the rest of the committee members on rotation. If senators do not have a question, they are asked to signal this to the clerk via the Zoom chat.
For today’s 90-minute panel, the witnesses have been given up to seven minutes each for opening remarks. Senators will be given four minutes each for questions.
Honourable senators, today, we are continuing our study of Bill C-228, An Act to establish a federal framework to reduce recidivism.
For today’s panel, we are pleased to have appearing before us Dr. R. Karl Hanson, Adjunct Research Professor, Carleton University, and Former Manager of Corrections Research at Public Safety Canada, appearing today as an individual; Mukwa Musayett (Dr. Shelly Johnson), Canada Research Chair in Indigenizing Higher Education, and Associate Professor at Thompson Rivers University; Dr. Franca Cortoni, Professor of Criminological Psychology with the School of Criminology at the University of Montreal; and Dr. Carl James, Professor and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora at York University.
On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you all for appearing today. For opening remarks, we will start with Dr. Hanson, to be followed by Dr. Johnson, Dr. Cortoni and Dr. James.
The floor is now yours, Dr. Hanson.
Dr. R. Karl Hanson, Adjunct Research Professor, Carleton University and Former Manager of Corrections Research at Public Safety Canada, as an individual: Hello. It is my pleasure to be here today.
For those who might not know about me, I am a psychologist registered in the province of Ontario. As said, I’m an academic at Carleton University. The main reason you probably invited me here is due to my experience working in government as a correctional researcher on issues of crime policy and correctional intervention. I retired from Public Safety Canada in 2017, and since that time, I’ve been still conducting research and been involved in a lot of discussions about what we should do in order to effectively manage the risks presented by people who have been in the criminal justice system.
Having spent much of my career looking at recidivism and recidivism-reduction programs, it comes as no surprise that I think this is a very valuable initiative, and I support you and the House for putting this forward. I also support the Senate discussion of calling witnesses, in that it’s important for these proposals to be discussed and fine-tuned as much as they can. I am happy to be able to contribute the information and the ideas I can that could help focus some of your discussion on these issues.
What I think needs to be focused on is the big question of whether this initiative, so to speak, will achieve the desired results.
The aspiration to reduce criminal recidivism is not new. It’s explicitly stated in the 1992 Corrections and Conditional Release Act. If you look at the enabling legislation of most of the provinces and territories, they too have rehabilitation as a central focus — not the sole focus but a clear focus of these acts.
If you talk to people who are working in the correctional system, they will already describe themselves as being in the rehabilitation business. So there’s a lot of good work already being done. The correctional systems across Canada already have risk assessment tools to identify and prioritize people for programs and interventions. There’s a wide range of rehabilitation programs that are used, including specialized programs for intimate partner violence, sexual offending risk and substance abuse. There are programs designed for young people, for women and for people of Indigenous heritage, so this isn’t brand new. We have been doing this.
My hope is that in three years’ time if this goes through and when it’s time to write the report, it’s not just repackaging what has been done up to this point. There are a lot of good things that could be repackaged and identified in that report, but I hope this initiative will be the occasion to move things forward. And I think we can do better.
The extent to which individuals in the correctional systems who are released return to crime is between 25% and 40% after two years, and if you wait a bit longer, the numbers go up. Most of them will be back in the system after four or five years. This is too high.
It’s also important to remember that being an “offender” is not a permanent condition. Almost all individuals will eventually desist from crime with advanced age and increased maturity. Very few individuals return to crime after being free for 5 to 10 years in the community.
However, living crime-free is a low threshold for successful reintegration. A recent report from Public Safety Canada found that 14 years after being released from CSC, the Correctional Service of Canada, most individuals were unemployed, and over half of them had no income at all from employment. It would be great if we could do better. So what are the things that could be done to move things forward?
The first thing I would encourage government to think about is having truly national recidivism statistics. We have talked about having recidivism statistics for many years. It would be great to have that possible. This would require some cooperation with the provinces because some of the provinces now collect it and this would require elaboration. It could potentially be done through the Canadian Police Information Centre, or CPIC, system with the RCMP, although that would require strengthening that system in significant ways. We need something to tell whether this is working or not. Without some system or way of monitoring ongoing recidivism, it would be hard to evaluate the efforts. It’s possible. There are many countries in the world that have national annual recidivism statistics. This is clearly within our technology.
The second point is I think we need training centres. If you look around the country, there are a lot of good programs, a lot of things people are doing well, but if you want to learn how to do those things well, it’s very hard to do. There are also too many programs that I know about that have started as pilot projects, they have been demonstrated to be successful and then they’ve essentially disappeared. They’ve disappeared because no one is sustaining them, there is no place you can go and learn them, the principals involved moved on to other things and they retired, as people do, and disappeared. We need some capacity for retention of knowledge and the dissemination of knowledge. The training centres could also be used as a place for identifying promising programs both nationally and internationally.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Hanson. We’ll now move to Dr. Johnson.
Mukwa Musayett (Shelly Johnson), Canada Research Chair in Indigenizing Higher Education, Associate Professor, Thompson Rivers University, as an individual: [Another language spoken.]
I want to acknowledge honourable members of the Senate. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today.
I am speaking from the unceded and occupied territory of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc. I am living about three kilometres away from the Kamloops Indian Residential School, the site of 215 unmarked graves of our children at the confluence of the North and South Thompson Rivers.
I want to share my comments, and I thought it would be important for you — because this is my first time appearing in front of a committee — that my comments are informed by my experience as a Saulteaux Ojibway Indigenous woman from Treaty 4 territory, Keeseekoose First Nation. I am the grandchild of the late Laura Stevenson Fischer, who was an inmate at the Lebret residential school in the Fort Qu’Appelle Valley in Saskatchewan. I’m a former RCMP member in northern British Columbia. I was a former child protection and support service social worker for 25 years with the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development, and an executive director of a delegated First Nations child welfare agency in downtown Victoria called Surrounded by Cedar Child and Family Services.
For the past 13 years, I have been an Indigenous academic, researcher and professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver on the unceded and occupied territory of the Musqueam Indian Band, and Thompson Rivers University on the unceded and occupied territory of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc. What senators may or may not know is that 95% of British Columbia is not covered by treaty.
I was in the very first Indigenous doctoral cohort at the University of British Columbia, and that was where I defended my dissertation on the topic of traumatized urban Indigenous children in the Canadian child protection and education system. That’s probably why I am in front of you today.
My study found that 100% of the participants that I interviewed were either sexually, physically or emotionally abused in their foster-care experience, or neglected. I also found that they averaged 10 school placements, with a high of 20 school placements in that study, and an average of 8 placements, with some having as many as 50 different foster-care placements. The vast majority of the children that were adults when I interviewed them were children of Indian residential school survivors and children in care. They had an average of eight social workers. The vast majority of those social workers were not Indigenous and most of them came into foster care before they were four years old.
When I did research with the First Nations Court in Canada and looked at the oldest one, which is here in British Columbia in New Westminster, the people that I saw coming before the court, the First Nations court, were the children of the child welfare system. That became very evident in their interactions with elders. They had been systematically stripped of their culture, language and traditions and were at high risk for reoffending.
In 2014, I held a conference at UBC to bring leaders of the Maori Youth Court in New Zealand, the Koori Court in Australia and the Native American courts in the United States together with the First Nations Court in Canada. As far as I know, that was the first time that judges and lawyers from those Commonwealth countries had come together to talk about what was happening with their youth in their courts. Recidivism was high on the list of topics.
In preparation for this, I worked with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and consulted with Judge Marion Buller in some of the questions to put forward.
In terms of your comments about initiating pilot projects and developing standardized or evidence-based programs aimed at reducing recidivism, much of this work has been done and reported by the Correctional Investigator and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. We recommend that you read those reports before you move forward.
We want to start at the beginning, knowing what data should be collected and how best to do that. We will likely need to identify race, nation, gender, age and, I submit, child welfare experience.
To promote the reintegration of people who have been incarcerated back into the community, the questions we had were: Has anyone asked recidivists why they reoffended and what would have helped them not to reoffend? Where is the research?
Addictions and mental health supports are really important owing to the legacy of the Indian residential school system and the child welfare system.
We noted that there was a lack of psychologist and psychiatric reports on file for people when we did the review for the First Nations Court, and that there was very little or no integrated case planning.
I have also sat on a Citizen Advisory Committee, and it became clear to me about the second meeting in that no one from the federal department was interested in talking about issues that needed to be addressed. The refrain seemed to be there is not money for that. From where I sat, what I saw was a path for recidivism, despite what citizens were saying.
Stats show that Indigenous prisoners are less likely to apply for parole and more likely to serve their full sentence. So what supports are available for them to reintegrate? Are they more likely to reoffend because they have not had parole? We need to identify risks and problems faced by them, comparable to when we look at risks for youth aging out of care.
We need to make it a goal of rehabilitation to have all prisoners complete high school so they can gain safe and reliable employment.
Rather than expecting Indigenous- or community-based programming to fit into corrections requirements or definitions, we need to support and fund Indigenous-defined and led initiatives. We need to trust communities to know with what is best for their members.
The Chair: Dr. Johnson, I’m sorry, your seven minutes is up, but I ask you to put your thoughts into answers to the questions. Thank you very much for your presentation, meegwetch.
We will move to Dr. Cortoni.
Franca Cortoni, Professor of Criminological Psychology, School of Criminology, University of Montreal, as an individual: Thank you very much for inviting me to the committee. Like Karl Hanson, I am a psychologist registered in the province of Ontario where for 16 years I have provided psychological assessment and treatment services specifically to men convicted of sexual offences who are either federally incarcerated or on probation in Ontario. I also worked part-time for four years through that time offering psychological services particularly to francophone women who were incarcerated at the old Prison for Women.
Since 2007, I have been a professor at the School of Criminology at the University of Montreal. My research focus is related to sexual offending among men and women, particularly intervention factors related to the offending and interventions for this offending.
Other than that, over the years I have conducted training for various professionals; been part of advisory boards, for the Parole Board of Canada, for example; and I regularly provide consultation to agencies and organizations on the assessment and treatment of men and women convicted of sexual offences at national and international levels.
As you can see, my entire clinical and research career has focused on better understanding criminal behaviour, in particular sexual offending, and on developing better interventions programs to reduce recidivism.
One of the elements that has demonstrated value for the reduction of recidivism is the availability of community systems to support offenders in their efforts at reintegration. It’s within this context that I fully support Bill C-228. I think it extends and strengthens the work that has already been conducted by the Canadian criminal justice system. I am very gratified with the recognition and the support that Bill C-228 has received to date from Parliament and the Senate. I think it’s very important work.
As mentioned by Dr. Hanson, both federal and provincial-territorial correctional systems aim to protect society by safely managing offenders while providing them with rehabilitation services. These range from education to standardized correctional programs and psychological services.
We know that there are many rehabilitation needs that are common among offenders, but what research particularly shows is that effective services, whether incarcerated or in the community, carefully assess the specific needs presented by a given offender and matches those needs to relevant services.
However, large variations in, for example, risk of recidivism, intervention needs, length of probation or sentence and availability of relevant services in prisons or in the community means that many offenders are not able to access the supports they need and that are designed to promote their rehabilitation.
I will give a quick example. In the newspaper La Presse in Montreal very recently, there was a review of sexual offender services in a community in the province of Quebec. What they found and showed is that those under provincial jurisdiction have faced very long waiting lists to access specialized treatment services in the community essentially due to a shortage of funded services. In contrast, of course, federal offenders, once they get under community supervision, have access to CSC-funded and managed services. So what we’re seeing in the same province is a two-tier system really based strictly on correctional jurisdiction.
For me, essentially a coherent national approach such as Bill C-228 proposes would help reduce those kinds of inequities among the same types of offenders.
I want to take a moment to talk about women offenders. In Canada, and indeed in most jurisdictions around the world, women offenders have traditionally been managed with the same approaches that have been developed and eventually validated for male offenders. We’ve known for quite a while, and particularly in Canada since the Creating Choices report of 1990, that women require services that attend to their own gender-specific rehabilitative needs. We can no longer take services for men, change “he” to “she” and apply it to women.
I want to give you a couple of quick examples of that. One of the elements that we know is that there is a link between poverty and criminality. What people don’t realize is that, in fact, this link is specific to women offenders. Men do not have this link. In Canada, for example, the gender gap in earnings is still a reality for too many women and it is particularly pronounced for women in lower-income jobs. For women offenders, this is exacerbated due to their status as ex-offenders but also because they typically have little formal education and few employment skills so that even when compared to equivalently unskilled male counterparts, they have much less access to well-paying jobs. For example, male offenders even with no skills or education can find relatively well-paying jobs, such as labourers in the construction field.
This problem for women, of course, is exacerbated because they tend to continue to be the sole or the main provider for their children. The fact is that there is no flexible child care available for them, for example, if they are lucky enough to secure a job; but if this job doesn’t fit the traditional 9-to-5, Monday-through-Friday structure, child care is virtually non-existent. So that puts them back into that cycle of poverty.
And, of course, we can’t forget that women are still judged much more harshly by society than men in terms of their criminal behaviour and, therefore, it renders their ability to successfully reintegrate more difficult.
Another example is their victimization histories. It is well established that there is a strong connection between the victimization histories of women and later offending, and this is mainly aided by the resulting mental health problems and substance abuse problems that precede their entry into the criminal behaviour. Even though women have lower recidivism rates than men, they require more services in order to break that link between the victimization, resulting mental health problems, substance abuse and criminal behaviour.
The Chair: Dr. Cortoni, I will have to stop you there and ask you to include any other comments in your answers, if possible. Thank you.
Carl James, Professor, Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora, York University, as an individual: Thank you very much, honourable senators, for inviting me and for engaging me in this conversation about recidivism as you work on how we might introduce regulations that reduce this as a problem among young people.
I will reference the situation of racialized Canadians and Black youth in particular. I will also reference the area with which I am most familiar, and that is the role of schooling and education in the lives of young people.
I am particularly interested in this group as, according to a recent Statistics Canada report in 2016, 26.6% of the Black population were children under 15 years old, while 16.9% of the Canadian population were in the same age group. I suggest this is a significant proportion of the population for us to consider for Black youth and their parents since it has implications for that community as a whole and for the kinds of programs we are going to think through and think of when we’re thinking of the issues we’re here discussing.
The schooling and education of Black youth is an important area of concern, especially when we think of the commonly used term “school-to-prison pipeline.” The question for us would be: What is happening in schools or in the education system that might be contributing to the situation of racialized youth, Indigenous youth and Black youth in particular?
Using data from the Toronto District School Board, one of the only school boards that provides data on this issue of students, a profile of Black youth indicates they tend to be streamed into educational programs that do not serve them well, especially after they leave high school. Black youth also dropped out of school and were suspended and expelled from school at higher rates than their counterparts.
Further analysis reveals that third-generation students, mostly of Caribbean background, tend to be less well served by the education system. They tend to be in the schooling environments in which racial stereotypes or racial profiling, disproportionate discipline, bullying, schooling disruption and educators who question their behaviours and their capacity for learning are all what they’re experiencing.
In fact, recent news reports in many areas of the country tell of the inequitable treatments, punitive disciplinary measures and harmful bullying that Black students experience in schools. News reports tell of parents recounting how their kindergarten and elementary-aged sons were suspended from school, noting that there is an inherent bias that is ignored in how Black youth are being disciplined in our schools.
Undoubtedly, such schooling environments do not contribute to the educational and social welfare of students, but also they do not help in their circumstances, especially when confronting the justice system.
The case of a 20-something young Black man who was charged with running from police and found with a gun is worth referencing here. This is a case in which Justice Nakatsuru who, after taking into account the expert evidence and social history of the accused in his ruling, cited systemic failures in the education system of this youth. His education, according to the judge, failed to provide the youth what he needed to deal with the social and economic challenges in his life. The judge wrote:
. . . anti-Black racism has shaped your life in a way that has brought you into the criminal court. . . . You did not find a way out through the public education system. I have no doubt that anti-Black racism affected how you were treated in school. . . . I am not saying that your teachers were racist, uncaring, or that you do not share responsibility. Rather, I am recognizing the studies that show systemically this racism exists and have not served Black children well. That failure in the education system makes a child vulnerable to becoming involved in the criminal justice system. . . .
Recognizing these problems, therefore, and the issues that young people experience in the school system, are worthy of our consideration. What was important in this case is that the judge was able and used the experience provided in the court. I was involved in this case insofar as I was an expert witness and provided the background study of what the judge might take into account to inform his judgment.
We can consider that if in the schooling system these are some of the issues that young people experience, you can imagine that they are likely to be exacerbated in the prisons. In such cases, their sense of self-identity and the treatment they receive would undermine how they think of themselves and, of course, that will have an effect on their experiences once they get out.
Hence, when we consider post-prison programs, we need to take into account cultural backgrounds and the issues that they have to deal with. The people who work with these young people should be from their community and should be enabling them and helping them to adjust to the system once they get out of the system.
We think the education of all concerned should take into account race and systemic racism, as these are factors that we cannot put aside. Once people think of their post-prison situation, finding access to jobs and being unemployed is one of the things that we know constantly affects many people who leave the prison system.
Dr. Hanson talked about statistics. It would be useful to constantly have the statistics, but also take into account the racial background of people in order to understand how their situation might be different and what we can do for racialized people that is different from White offenders in order to help them in their rehabilitation. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We’ll move to our first questions.
Senator Martin: Thank you to all our witnesses. I feel like you each deserve a full session so we could hear from your experience and your expertise.
Dr. Hanson, you and others mentioned the importance of ensuring we have good statistics that are comparable across provinces and federal departments. You didn’t get to finish your list of meeting the true national recidivism stats training program and then you ran out of time, so perhaps you can combine. Is it an achievable goal to collect the stats that we’re going to need in order to do a good job in implementing a national framework? Would you briefly elaborate on what you missed on what is next after training programs? Thank you.
Dr. Hanson: Thank you for this opportunity. In terms of recidivism, yes, it is possible. Currently, it hasn’t been managed effectively. This has been something on the agenda since I started at Public Safety Canada 25 years ago. If you wanted to get good statistics, you could. It would require investment, and it would also require negotiations with the provinces. Even if all of the provinces are on board, they could come on separately. You could start with what you’ve got — the players that work — and you could get a pretty good national snapshot, and as people change or as the players change, you could shuffle in or out and get that. As I say, most northern European countries already do this and many of the provinces do this. I think it’s clearly doable at a national level. This is something that I would be delighted about if this was an outcome of it.
The third thing I wanted to talk about was — and I talked about national statistics, that we need training centres, knowledge-retention centres and dissemination — that I do a lot of work in risk assessment, and I think the time has come for meaningful consultation with the communities involved. Risk assessment is both evidence as well as values. So the items on a risk assessment tool say what you shouldn’t be doing and what you should be doing, and that diverse communities need to be a part of that. They need to be able to look at a risk assessment and say, yes, I want people to stop that and I want them to do that. It has to have some buy-in from the different communities.
Senator Martin: Thank you.
Professor Cortoni, one of the things you said was “assessment of needs to match the programs.” I think that is really key. That is sort of the bridge. Would you speak a little bit more about that and whether that is achievable with the national coordination and framework, post-adoption of this bill, if it goes forward?
Dr. Cortoni: Thank you for your question. In fact, this goes right back to the point that Dr. Hanson was making about risk assessment. When we assess risk, we assess the likelihood that the person will or won’t do it again, but we also concurrently assess the needs. What are the issues that are contributing to the criminal behaviour? These are the issues that we need to address in a manner that’s relevant to the person, whether it’s a gender or a cultural relevance within that type of context. It’s already happening. We have a massive amount of empirical evidence that demonstrates the importance of matching those kinds of services. In my experience, the biggest difficulty tends to be when we get into the provincial systems, because they’re dealing with a lot of short-term offenders. There simply isn’t the time to do that matching process and offer the right kinds of services.
If a more integrated system can somehow magically take its place — I say magically because it would require an awful lot of work and goodwill on the part of everybody — I like the idea of involving not just the correctional system and the criminal justice system, but also private-sector systems and those kinds of things so that the services become a little bit more seamless and not just tied to a particular sentence.
Senator Martin: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: My first question is for Mr. James.
You have a lot of experience with equity and systemic racism, I have no doubt about that. I would like to know if you think that the development of this bill sets some kind of trap concerning the plan that would take race into account. To what extent will this bill reduce recidivism? At the same time, does it not risk the continued marginalization of certain racialized groups? How can we strike a balance in this bill?
[English]
Dr. James: Thank you very much for the question. When we think of race, just like when we think of gender, we will be able to structure programs with regard to the cultural experiences of the person that we’re talking about, and in doing so, that we’re not going to marginalize, but we bring them into thinking that we are hearing them. We know their cultural background, and we’re providing programs that are relevant and related to their experiences. In so doing, we are really enabling and probably dealing with them in a much more effective way, than if we just generalized the experience with those of others.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Thank you.
Ms. Johnson, I have a question for you. I’d like to get your perspective on some of the factors that lead to higher recidivism rates among first nations inmates. Can you tell us to what extent the return of these inmates to their respective communities and their associates contribute to their relapse? Do you think their recidivism can be related to alcohol or drug use to some degree?
[English]
Dr. Johnson: When I think about the security classifications that determine access to programs, it’s clear to me that some Indigenous prisoners are denied access to programs that are based on classification rather than need. As far as I can tell, no one has determined what appropriate Indigenous programs there are that will help to reduce recidivism. What are they, and what are the barriers for Indigenous people participating in those programs, whether they’re released into the city or they’re released back into their community? The other issue that I see is that programs are not offered on a continuous basis. Prisoners may be released before the next round of programs are available.
Another issue that concerns me is section 83(2) of the federal Corrections and Conditional Release Act, because it doesn’t require or make mandatory that the service provides elders to people on release, only that the service takes reasonable steps after consultation. Those are issues that impact Indigenous peoples, from where I stand. The other is that elders are expected to play a number of roles in the lives of people, but they’re not considered staff. They’re more of a program that exists at the whim of the minister.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: I’d like to acknowledge the excellent presentations by our witnesses. Indeed, I regret we have so little time to ask them questions that seem fundamental to me.
My question is for Dr. Hanson.
You raised a problem that seems to me to be major in terms of the social reintegration of these people. We are working with statistical data on recidivism that are partial. The Auditor General said so in 2018. It doesn’t take into account people who have been incarcerated in a prison. It only takes into account those who were incarcerated in a penitentiary.
As for sexual offenders, in Quebec, for example, there are four times as many sexual predators in Quebec prisons as in federal penitentiaries, because the sentence following a first crime is often less than two years, and there are few or no rehabilitation program for this clientele.
My question is this. How can we believe in effective social reintegration if people do four or five stints in prison and then are transferred to federal penitentiaries? People have developed behaviours that are, I would say, almost deviant. So how is it possible to believe in effective social reintegration with penitentiary systems that are so closed?
[English]
Dr. Hanson: Thank you for the question.
Making all the different systems work together is a challenge. I agree that is something we need to work on. People don’t just benefit from federal or from provincial services.
There is some idea of having more centralized case management that is one step up. It could include mental health services and employment services, and it could be more general to help coordinate some of that.
It requires cooperation at different levels of government, but it’s something worth striving for.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: You mention the very important topic of mental health. We know that nearly 40% of men in federal penitentiaries suffer from mental illness; for women, the proportion is as high as 60%.
When these people get out of penitentiaries, they are simply put back on the street, even though there are reintegration plans in Canada. I’m thinking, for example, of the Chez Soi program, which has had very good results, with a reduction of nearly 90% in recidivism. This program costs nothing because funds are transferred from penitentiaries to mental health services.
What is it that the government needs to do to move in this direction rather than put these people back on the street and into a penitentiary a few years later?
[English]
Dr. Hanson: I can’t speak to the strengths or weaknesses of government decision-making, but I agree that something like the Homes First program is promising, both from a poverty-reduction point of view and also a criminal justice one. My hope with legislation like this is that it would help get people thinking more about how to work together toward that important goal.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Thank you very much, Dr. Hanson.
[English]
Senator Dalphond: Thank you to the panel members for their very informative comments. I must say I’m glad we have a second set of hearings. Some people were proposing that we do it in one meeting, but we would have been missing a lot.
My question is for Dr. Musayett. I’m puzzled by the fact that it’s a sign that our system is not adapted and that the rate of recidivism is much higher for people who are of Indigenous background and the other type of average recidivism rate. You said, and I think it’s a very critical point, that the program should be Indigenous-led and designed by Indigenous people to reflect their needs and cultures.
Are there some programs that do exist now to which we could look as models for what we should be replicating, and are they effective?
Dr. Johnson: Thank you for your question. In British Columbia, we have a couple of healing lodges that Indigenous people were involved in developing and initiating, but those are for while people are incarcerated. Once a return to a community happens, you have to look at the resources of each individual and diverse community across the country. Urban communities, on-reserve communities, Métis communities, Inuit communities — there is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
One thing that is common, though, is the role of elders in the lives of people coming back into communities and in planning for prisoners. So if section 83(1.1) of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act does not require the input of elders into planning for prisoners, how can there be any assurance the inmate is receiving proper care and services once they return? The issue is that there aren’t enough elders funded, and the ones who currently are funded are working overtime and are under-resourced. They’re not supposed to continue their work with the prisoner after the prisoner has been released. That is very short-sighted. This means a break in care for the prisoners. No one, as far as I know, is talking to the elders in confidence about what they think the individuals need.
The other issue is that the Gladue reports that are currently commissioned vary in content and utility. There are no standards for what should be included in a Gladue report, and there are no guarantees that Indigenous peoples coming before the courts or being released would have one. There is no statutory requirement for a Gladue report and in what circumstances the report can be used. Gladue reports can be used to justify higher security classifications or for denying parole, but they can also be used to help with programming and release planning, because you have the history of the individuals.
When I was in Australia, I saw the Koori Courts, which are adult courts for Indigenous people coming before them. They were making recommendations upon release. They also had access to the person’s child and care files when they were little people and were in government care. I remember seeing a young man come before the court. Everyone thought that there was no hope for the man; he should probably stay in jail for a long time. When the judge read out the circumstances of what happened to him when he was a little boy in foster care, every person in that courtroom understood how he got to the place he was. That level of understanding was something I’ve not seen happen in Canadian courts.
So we have an ability to make some recommendations for planning with the Gladue reports, if they’re done appropriately, by including the elders and looking at the resources of what’s available in the community or the neighbouring communities.
The Chair: I’m sorry, we’re going to have to end it there. Thank you, Senator Dalphond.
Senator Busson: I, like my colleague Senator Martin, want to comment on the calibre of the witnesses here today. It’s wonderful to have folks with the level of academic credentials and experience. I also want to acknowledge today that I’m speaking from the unceded territory of the Shuswap people in British Columbia.
I want to direct my question to Dr. Johnson. Your background is incredibly diverse and impressive, and I sensed in your presentation an amount of frustration. I applaud you for your initiative on the study you did on the international application of specialized First Nations courts, especially given the horrific legacy of Canadian residential schools in this country.
Is it your opinion that one of the keys to the work and focus of Bill C-228 ought to be around putting together the formation of specialized First Nations courts to deal specifically with First Nations issues and the kinds of solutions you were suggesting in your presentation? Thank you.
Dr. Johnson: Quite honestly, Senator Busson, the only hope that I felt looking at our people going through the court system has been in the First Nations courts in Canada. They are diverse across the country. No one looks at things or operates in the same way. Some have Indigenous judges, but many do not.
It is a hopeful place, and it is made that way because of our elders there. They are encyclopedias; they are our go-to cultural knowledge holders and keepers. There is a sense of compassion there because of our shared history and of living through genocidal policies in this country. We are all survivors who are still standing. There is an understanding of that and of the issues of child welfare, poverty, addictions and mental health issues that are there in the compassion of the elders. That is not to say this is going to be a carte blanche blank cheque to do with what you want. Some of the harshest responses I’ve heard have been from elders when they feel people have not been honest about where they are and what they have done or taken responsibility for their actions.
It is one thing to stand before a White judge as an Indigenous person; it’s another thing to stand before an elder who looks like your grandmother or your grandfather and take withering criticism from them. It has much more impact to feel that from your own people. I would really point to those courts. Within existing dollars, I think the time has come to make them available to any Indigenous person across the country. That’s where I see the hope.
Senator Busson: Thank you very much for your insight. Thank you.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you, chair, and to all the witnesses. I also concur with my colleagues on how much we have learned from you today. There’s so much more we can learn.
My question is for Professor James. You have touched on it, but can you address the specialized programs for racialized prisoners when they get out and their lived realities when they leave? There’s so much more I can say about when they are in prison, whereas we are talking about recidivism. What programs do you think would help if they were in place now?
Dr. James: I would think of some of these programs in the community and being run by community agencies that are populated by people of that particular background. Those people will be able to assist them, and they would be able to fully understand some of the cultural experiences and some of the expectations that they have. And some of these expectations are not only family expectations but sometimes community expectations that can be translated by people of that background to them, and they would take that into account.
There is also helping them with education. Given the fact that they might not have had support in the education system, those programs provided after might also be educational programs.
As we understand systemic racism, there is sometimes the underemployment and the unemployment of young people and people of racialized backgrounds. Being able to understand and help them think through how they might present and understand when they go into an employment situation and being able to talk about the educational experience and also to address racism they might experience would be important.
As one lawyer said to me, he has had young people of racialized — Black and South Asian — backgrounds who said it was the first time somebody has ever listened to them. When they’re back in the community, working in the community with community organizations, it’s the first time anyone has ever listened to them and helped them in the way they need assistance and support. I think those are some of the ways in which community programs might help and work with these people. So education is one of those ways.
I’m also saying that one-time training days that people or workers get will not do it. It has to be ongoing; it has to be an education that constantly reminds them of the situation and the people with whom they are working.
Senator Jaffer: Professor James, I have a question. I’m going to be working in the summer and have been working for many years now. You were speaking about people from the Caribbean. As you know, some very young children from the Caribbean are brought to our country and other countries too. Unfortunately, their parents never got around to getting their citizenship. Now they may find themselves going back to a Caribbean island or any other place in the world which they have no connection with and they have very little family in. Are there programs in your rehabilitation program that would help people who have come out of prison to deal with this very challenging situation of immigration and being returned to their so-called homes because they are not really their homes?
Dr. James: Yes, I have some reference for some of that.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Oh: Thank you for your excellent presentations.
My question is for Dr. Shelly Johnson. If Bill C-228 is enacted, what additional action can the Correctional Service of Canada take to reduce the rate of recidivism among Indigenous offenders? Further, how can the proposed federal recidivism framework address the needs of Indigenous offenders?
Dr. Johnson: Senator Oh, thank you for your question. Because I’m an educator and because education has gotten many of our people into the issues that we have now through the residential school system, I believe education, like Justice Murray Sinclair said, will get us out of it.
What I see in my classroom is that many students come with very little understanding of Canadian history from the Indigenous perspective. I think the people that will make this bill go, that will enact this piece of legislation, may have a similar level of understanding. Certainly the people in federal corrections need to have more education about Indigenous history in this country. The rates of unconscious bias that people bring to their work, from people who are doing the investigations to the judges to the lawyers and the people in the programs post-incarceration, from the people taking the statistics and doing the research, have very little understanding. That’s my sense. That’s the first issue.
The second issue is there is very little in the way of Indigenous-specific programming that many of the people I know have lived to benefit from. The role of our elders and of our communities — for some of our communities dealing with recidivism, that may be pretty long down the list because they’re drinking filthy water or they have 90% unemployment rates. There are people that are addicted. There are people that have simply given up, and the rate of suicide in our communities is very high. Because of all the other integrated issues that impact us in our daily lives, racism is in every system. It’s not just something for federal corrections or provincial corrections to deal with. This has to be an integrated approach across all departments in federal, provincial and Indigenous governments. There has to be a meeting of all of those players at the table to identify what we can reasonably do in the first year, first 5 years and first 10 years.
It’s been 150 years getting to this place. It’s going to take us some time to get out, and to be able to sit down — across governments and across communities — to say that what might work for the Mi’kmaq in the east is not going to work for the Blackfoot in Alberta. It has to be something that includes the people from those communities, saying, “This is what we believe will help. This is what we believe will support.” There has to be money to make that go. If we’re expecting it to happen within existing budgets, we’re going to have exactly what we have now 20 years from now.
Senator Richards: I think my question has probably been answered, but I will ask Dr. Hanson to clarify a little. Do federal prisons or RCMP have any data on recidivism just by the very nature of their jobs? Are there any statistics that focus on recidivism among gang members in our inner cities? If not, there should be, but could you answer that quickly please?
Dr. Hanson: There are a number of different systems that have been set up to keep track of recidivism rates. The RCMP have some, which is organized through the CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre, but it’s not organized in a way that is easy to generate as statistics. They can look up an individual. They can look up “David Richards” and see if he has previously been involved in crime. However, the RCMP system is not set up to tell what proportion of the individuals that are in the system come back in any particular year. It’s not organized that way. It could be, but it is not.
Provincial police contribute. Some provinces keep their own statistics about the rates. They do keep track already, but they do it differently across different provinces. Specifically on gang members, there is some research on that. It is usually not on a systematic basis but more on a specialized research level.
Senator Richards: These people aren’t talking to each other? The different departments and the different facilities, like the provincial and federal, aren’t really talking to each other about this?
Dr. Hanson: Well, they talk occasionally, but they haven’t talked enough to make a system that would work on a national basis. There have been discussions over the last two decades of trying to get this to work. However, to my knowledge, it’s still pilot projects or specific locations.
Senator Richards: Thank you very much.
Senator McPhedran: My question is directed primarily to you, Professor Johnson. I want to make sure that I heard what you said correctly. I thought I heard you indicate, given that the whole focus of this bill is on creating a federal framework, that there were some specific aspects of the final report that came from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls that were relevant to the building of this framework. Did I hear you correctly?
Dr. Johnson: Yes, you did.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you. I’ve been looking more carefully at section 2, clause 2 of the bill. Subsection 2 says that “The framework must include measures . . .” and then goes (a) through (e). I wondered whether any of those points — (a) through (e) — resonate with the point you were making about the final report of the inquiry. If so, could you please say a bit more about that?
Dr. Johnson: What I was referencing was breaking down barriers to data sharing. If you look at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls national action plan data and the working group’s plan, you will find some information that I think would be helpful to your committee.
The other piece is that when we’re looking at promoting the reintegration of people who have been incarcerated back into the community through access to adequate and ongoing resources, one of the things I was asking is if anyone has spoken to the people who are recidivists. Why have they reoffended, and what would have helped them not reoffend? I know it’s a very transient community a lot of the time, but that is so key and critical. It seems beyond common sense. Just ask the people who have been involved. What is it that caused you to reoffend? Was it a lack of supports? Was it a lack of programs and services? Was it waiting too long? Was it programs and services that were not appropriate? Was it your education level that was holding you back? Was it your mental health? We can all sit back and guess, but unless we ask the people and take the time to listen and then create healing plans based on what is important for them I think it’s just going to be a revolving door.
That’s what I’m seeing, anyway.
Senator McPhedran: Am I understanding your answer — especially the last part — as indicating that, at the present time, you don’t think there are existing best practices, if you will, or appropriate practices in place? Is this something that has to be created?
Dr. Johnson: I think so. I’m thinking that in terms of Indigenous people, we can all sit back and say, “Well, you know, it’s just a big revolving door.” However, we’ve not stopped and looked at what the needs, issues and resources are. We’ve not asked Indigenous people themselves, “What do you think would make a difference in your life?” I can tell you that in the work I did with First Nations courts and with all the Indigenous people coming before, there were very few of anyone — probation or parole officers — that actually sat down with them and said, “So what was going on? What caused you to redo this?” I think that’s a fundamental first step.
Senator Moodie: Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. Anyone can answer this question. Do you have any data on the impact of recidivism on children? What is the impact of having a parent or a close family member going in and out of jail, and how does this increase the likelihood that children will end up in the judicial system themselves?
The second part of my question is: What programs are in place that you are aware of that could help families with children of individuals who have been impacted by incarceration?
Dr. Johnson: This was a large study that I did of a major urban Indigenous child welfare agency in downtown Vancouver. They currently have about 400 children in their care. When we reviewed the children’s files, we found an overwhelming number of their parents and grandparents had been in the Canadian residential school system and then the Canadian child welfare system. Of the children whose parents were incarcerated, very few of those that we tracked ended up in the justice system.
I can say that in my own family, this is an issue that has touched all of us. In my family, we can draw a straight line from very young parents to children ending up in foster care to children graduating to the justice system to early death. I don’t think my family is unique in that way.
There is, to my knowledge, very little in the way of data tracking. Children who have left the child welfare system into the justice system — it’s really only anecdotal evidence that I saw from sitting in the First Nations courts, seeing the people come through and talking about their experiences in foster care. I would say in one year, in the First Nations court in New Westminster, probably 90% of the people who came through that court were former children in care. And most of them were parents. Again, it’s data that is not tracked that should be.
Senator Moodie: Dr. Cortoni, it looked like you might have an answer.
Dr. Cortoni: I actually don’t have a clear answer in terms of statistics on the proportion of children of offenders who themselves later become involved in the criminal justice system. I am aware, though, that there have been efforts for children of offenders to try doing some programming for them, but typically those are pilot projects that show a lot of promise but then eventually, for whatever reason, are abandoned, whether it’s lack of funding, the person responsible moved on, et cetera. Thank you.
Senator Pate: Thank you to the witnesses. Dr. Johnson, like you, I’ve had the privilege and responsibility of sitting in on Indigenous courts here on this continent, on Turtle Island, as well as others, such as Maori courts and Murri and Koori courts and other Indigenous courts in Australia. I was also involved in some research 21 years ago with individuals who were coming out of prison.
It probably won’t shock you to find that, similar to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, we found individuals who were exiting prison said they needed three things to succeed, and those who succeeded had those three things. They were basically a place to live; a community of support, whether that was familial or community or otherwise defined by the individual; and a means to support themselves, including something meaningful to do. You’re nodding, so it sounds like you won’t be surprised that the research showed that.
During this pandemic, I’m aware of a number of individuals who previously would not have been able to garner a release, Indigenous women in particular who had been labelled seriously dangerous and violent who, because of the manner in which the corrections system had assessed them, could not access any community resources. Because of the conditions of confinement that amounted to isolation, the Parole Board agreed to release them. They went to their own homes. It may or may not surprise you that, two years on for one and six months on for another, they are doing extremely well. Even the corrections system folks who initially did not support their release are now very supportive.
It strikes me that the reason all the courts, as well as the inquiries, look at things like shoring up resources — as you’ve spoken about in terms of child welfare services — rather than adding onto the criminal legal system after incarceration, is that this kind of support seems to be more effective. Have you seen additional examples besides those you have already shared where communities have been able to take control and where we are seeing fewer young people in the child welfare system, and then in the juvenile system and the adult system?
Dr. Johnson: From my perspective, I’ve seen Canada fighting First Nations children in court for additional resources. I’ve seen underfunded resources. When the underfunding and the lack of support starts in childhood, there is a pretty good chance that will follow those people. If you have poor education, what are you going to do in this country, besides a service industry job with something less than Grade 12 education? The schools that we have on reserves are experiencing significantly less funding than those off-reserve. The level of racism that runs through all of our institutions negatively impacts those children.
You can’t take something that has been very helpful in one community and just transplant it into another community. It takes time, it takes resources, and it takes initiative to develop a program or a service that will be helpful. When our traditions, our language and our culture have been trampled into the ground for 150 years, it will take some time to bring that back.
I can’t stand here and say we will wave a magic wand and everything will be great, because it’s not that way in cities across this country. It’s not going to be that way across this country in First Nations communities. We have to start at the beginning. We have to start with asking people what will work and actually put some resources behind what they say.
The Chair: Dr. Johnson, my apologies, I feel like I keep cutting you off. Senator Pate’s time is up. We have just a couple of minutes for a second round.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: My question is for Ms. Cortoni. I know your expertise in sexual cases. Do you have any idea how many cases can’t be rehabilitated, despite all the medical and other interventions that are offered?
[English]
Dr. Cortoni: That is a very interesting question. I’ve looked at numbers once upon in life, over time, especially when I was working with the highest-risk offenders in Kingston Penitentiary. Frankly, it’s a bit of a guess or estimate if you will, but I would say it’s a very small proportion of the highest-risk offenders whom, as far as I’m concerned, we don’t know what to do with, no matter what, as you said, in terms of the amount of psychological or medical treatment they might want to receive.
The vast majority — and I base that on the research results from Dr. Hanson on risk assessment and recidivism rates — of sexual offenders, as long as they can stay in the community for 5 and up to 10 years or more, do well. The longer they are in the community, the less their risk of reoffending. Generally, sexual offenders, as a group, have less recidivism rates in terms of sexual offences compared to other offenders, say, violent, non-sexual offenders. The nature of the crime, of course, makes it very different for everyone to deal with one repeat offence.
The other issue which has huge promise, including for offenders considered at a 100% risk of recidivism, are the Circles of Support and Accountability developed in Ontario back in the 1990s. These are community-based programs manned by volunteers, but these volunteers are trained by sex offender specialists — people like me, for example — and also by police officers. They learn what to watch out for while offering support and learn what kind of support is needed for these men who are extremely high-risk.
Senator McPhedran: This is a question addressed to any panellist who wishes to respond. I’m referencing again clause 2, which talks about what the framework must include. My question is related to subparagraph 2(c) which says it must “support faith-based and communal initiatives that aim to rehabilitate people . . . .”
Could I have a response, please, whether anyone has any documentation on faith-based initiatives and whether anyone has concerns?
Dr. Cortoni: If it’s okay, I will follow up what I was just saying about Circles of Support. I think they are good examples in this context. They’re not entirely faith-based although they were started by faith-based individuals. It is a communal initiative where volunteers offer support while holding accountable the offenders who choose to participate.
This is not a correctional program. This is not mandated by the criminal justice system. The offender has to volunteer to be part of it. The volunteers are supported by specialists to help them understand what to pay attention to. That’s a prime example. They’ve been spreading in many jurisdictions across the world and showing great effectiveness in reducing sexual recidivism among high-risk sexual offenders.
Dr. Hanson: I think faith-based involvement, in and of itself, can be an intrinsic good for those faith communities and may or may not be something that reduces recidivism. If it’s going to be part of a recidivism-reduction strategy, I think there are some evidence requirements to justify that. The Circles of Support has that evidence, but a lot of programs do not. I think this is something you need to pay attention to.
The Chair: Let me take a moment to thank all our witnesses. This has been an excellent panel. We’re grateful for the time you have given us in appearing before the committee today. Thank you very much.
Honourable senators, we are now ready to proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-228, An Act to establish a federal framework to reduce recidivism.
Before we begin, I want to remind senators of a number of points. If at any point a senator is not clear where we are in the process, please ask for clarification.
I also wish to remind senators that when more than one amendment is proposed in a clause, amendments should be proposed in order of the lines of the clause. Therefore, before we take up an amendment in a clause, I will be verifying whether any senators had intended to move an amendment earlier in that clause.
If a senator moves an amendment, it would be helpful to identify to the committee other clauses in the bill where the amendment could have an effect. If a senator is opposed to an entire clause, I remind you that in committee the proper process is not to move a motion to delete the entire clause but to vote against the clause.
As chair, I will do my utmost to ensure that all senators wishing to speak have the opportunity to do so. If you wish to intervene at any point in the process, you are asked to use the “raise hand” feature in Zoom to signal the chair.
Finally, I wish to remind honourable senators that if there is any uncertainty as to the results of a voice vote or a show of hands, the most effective route is to request a roll call vote. Senators are aware than any tied vote negates the motion in question.
Is it agreed that the committee proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-228, An Act to establish a federal framework to reduce recidivism?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the title stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the preamble stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 1, which contains the short title, stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 2 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 3 carry?
Senator McPhedran: I’m sorry, Madam Chair. This is moving so quickly. I do want to address concern about clause 2, please. For clause 2, do you mean with (1) and (2) and (a) through (e), all of that?
The Chair: That would be correct.
Senator McPhedran: Then, yes, I most definitely want to return to that, please.
Senator Martin: May I ask, Senator McPhedran, are you just wanting to have a discussion on this item or do you have something else that you were proposing?
Senator McPhedran: Yes. Based on the panel that we just heard, which closed about 60 seconds ago, I have a concern about a specific part of clause 2(2) and wanted to address that.
Senator Martin: When you say you want to address it, are you looking at a potential amendment? Because we’re already past that particular item. You didn’t speak up as we were going through it.
Senator McPhedran: Well, I was trying very hard to speak up.
Senator Martin: Technically, we have adopted that.
Senator McPhedran: I was trying very hard to speak up and I was waving.
The Chair: Senator McPhedran, could you raise your concern and perhaps we can hear it?
Senator Martin: Before we give leave to return to it — this has taken me a little bit by surprise — I would like to hear what it is. Does it require leave to return to it? Because we’ve already moved on, actually.
Senator McPhedran: I’m quite intrigued by the desire to shut off discussion on this. This is a matter of seconds that we’ve gone past it. Yes, I am asking if we could return.
Senator Martin: My question, simply, is clarification. I did receive Senator Pate’s observation. Are you proposing an observation? If you are proposing an amendment, that is a very different situation. I would like to understand what it is you’re asking for. We have moved past that. We are at a different clause at the moment.
Senator McPhedran: I am asking that we return. We’ve moved past it in a matter of seconds.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: If it’s amended, it returns to the House.
[English]
Senator Martin: Yes. That’s why I’m concerned.
I would like to ask Senator McPhedran: We did hear two witnesses explain their point of view. If you’re looking at observations, that’s something we can do afterwards and we can continue, rather than giving leave to go back to that particular clause.
Senator McPhedran: I can make this into an observation.
Senator Martin: Okay. That would be important. I apologize for intervening, but I was concerned about what it is you were proposing. Thank you very much, Senator McPhedran, for clarifying that it will be an observation.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator McPhedran.
Shall clause 3 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 4 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 1, which contains the short title, carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the preamble carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the title carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the bill carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Pate: On division.
The Chair: Does the committee wish to consider appending observations? I believe we have two. Shall we go in camera to discuss the observations?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
(The committee continued in camera.)