STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
COMITÉ PERMANENT DES COMPTES PUBLICS
Thursday 13 February 2003 Jeudi 13 février 2003
2002 ANNUAL
REPORT,
PROVINCIAL AUDITOR
MINISTRY OF PUBLIC SAFETY
AND SECURITY
Thursday 13 February 2003 Jeudi 13 février 2003
The committee met at 1000 in room 151, following a closed session.
2002
ANNUAL REPORT,
PROVINCIAL AUDITOR
MINISTRY OF PUBLIC SAFETY
AND SECURITY
Consideration of section 4.04, institutional services and young offender operations.
The Vice-Chair (Mr Bruce Crozier): The standing committee on public accounts is now in session to review the 2002 annual report of the Provincial Auditor. This morning we're considering section 4.04, institutional services and young offender operations, with the Ministry of Public Safety and Security.
Good morning and welcome to the committee. Just a couple of things that I'm sure most are aware of. The ministry will have up to 20 minutes for an opening statement. I would ask that each person who speaks identify themselves for Hansard and for the committee's information.
I would also ask that everybody check their cellphones and see that they're off. We've had a couple of interruptions during the week that are rather disconcerting.
Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): What kind of people would bring a turned-on cellphone here?
The Vice-Chair: I can't imagine, but I just give that warning this morning.
After your opening remarks, we'll have rotation by the caucuses in 15-minute segments, beginning with the Liberal caucus. So there we are. We look forward to a pleasant morning. Deputy Minister, the floor is yours.
Mr John Rabeau: Thanks very much. My name is John Rabeau, and I'm the Deputy Minister for Public Safety and Security on the correctional services side. I'm joined today by Deborah Newman, Gary Commeford and Brian Low. Deborah is the assistant deputy minister for young offender services, Gary is the acting assistant deputy minister for adult institutions and Brian is the executive lead for alternative service delivery. They'll be here during the proceedings to assist me, as well as other staff who will be introduced when providing their expertise later on.
The ministry has reached significant milestones in its commitment to a correctional system that is safe, secure, effective and accountable. I acknowledge that we still have a way to go, but steps are steadily being taken to obtain better results.
Today we'll be focusing on the institutional side of corrections -- I know we're back here on Monday to talk about the community side -- and we'll be talking about both adult and young offender services. While many of the issues may be inherent to both sides, for ease of focus I'll be highlighting the two functions of the ministry separately.
First of all, I want to talk about the adult operations. I want to provide a little bit of background for the committee to help our discussions. The ministry manages a correctional system that provides custody and rehab programs for offenders serving sentences of less than two years. The ministry also provides maximum security to hold individuals who have been remanded while awaiting trial, sentencing or other judicial proceedings. We're presently operating 35 institutions -- 34 publicly operated and one privately operated -- and in 2001-02 held an average of 7,849 adult offenders at any given time. The Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay will be receiving inmates later on this week, so the number of institutions will increase.
In 1993 the Provincial Auditor was critical of the operating costs and inefficiencies throughout Ontario's correctional system. Of particular interest, the auditor stated, "We also noted that Ontario's smaller institutions were quite old, with an average age of 124 years. Consequently, it is to be expected that the designs and layouts of these facilities do not lend themselves to an efficient allocation of staff."
At that time, Ontario had the most costly adult per diem rates of all the provinces in the country. This situation was largely the result of the ministry inheriting a number of old, less efficient county facilities in the 1960s, jails that were not built with the intention of fitting into an integrated provincial correctional system.
The auditor identified an opportunity to reduce inefficiencies in the correctional service system through the modernization or replacement of Ontario's aging correctional facilities. The auditor's report also identified a way to save taxpayer dollars by pursuing alternative service delivery opportunities.
After a thorough review of its correctional institutions system in 1996, the ministry, in keeping with advice from the auditor, outlined a multi-year modernization plan that included decommissioning a number of aging, less efficient correctional facilities and replacing them with larger, more efficient facilities with modern operational designs. The plan also included upgrading and/or expanding some of the province's newer and ideally located facilities.
I'm going to ask Gary to hand out a chart so you have something to work with. I just want to give the committee an update as to where we are.
In 1998, we decommissioned the Cobourg, L'Orignal and Haileybury jails. In 1999, we completed the retrofits of the Toronto East and Toronto West detention centres. In the year 2000, we completed a security retrofit at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre. In 2001, we completed the expansion of the Maplehurst Correctional Complex, the male facility, which allowed for the decommissioning of the Waterloo and Wellington detention centres. We completed the construction and contract award for the operation of the Central North Correctional Centre in Penetang, which allowed for the decommissioning of the Barrie and Parry Sound jails and the Guelph Correctional Centre. We also decommissioned the Peterborough Jail. In 2002, the completion of the new construction at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre allowed for the decommissioning of the Cornwall Jail.
This year, the completion of the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay has allowed the decommissioning of the Lindsay Jail, the Whitby Jail and the normal operations at Mimico. The Millbrook Correctional Centre decommissioning is to commence later this year. As well, the Burtch Correctional Centre was decommissioned, and the completion of the first two phases of construction at the new Vanier Correctional Centre, which is located on the site of Maplehurst, has allowed for the transfer of female offenders from the old Vanier site in Brampton to the new facility. The second phase, which is a retrofit project, is scheduled to be completed within the next few months.
Underway at the moment in Sault Ste Marie, the Algoma correctional treatment and remand centre will be completed this winter, which will allow us to decommission the Soo jail. The St Lawrence Valley correctional and treatment unit, phase one, in Brockville, will allow for the decommissioning of the Guelph assessment and treatment unit and the Millbrook assessment and treatment unit at the Millbrook Correctional Centre. The final phase of construction at the new Vanier Centre for Women in Milton will allow for the decommissioning of the female units in Hamilton-Wentworth and the Toronto West Detention Centre.
The contract has been tendered for the final phase of a retrofit project in Ottawa. Completion of this phase will allow for the decommissioning of the Pembroke Jail.
The contract is being tendered for the second phase of construction at the St Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre, which will include both treatment and remand accommodations. Construction is to start later this winter. This will allow us to expand the present program that we operate at the Ontario Correctional Institute, which will move to Brockville with the completion of the project.
While there's a great deal of transformation activity taking place around the province, there have been some construction and decommissioning projects that were originally forecasted to have taken place that, however, have not started. This does not mean the plans have been cancelled. It's important for the ministry to continually revisit previously announced initiatives to ensure that our plans meet both our current and forecasted needs. A lot has changed since the review of the correctional system in 1993. We are now faced with a myriad of challenges that did not exist back then. We are, however, adjusting our plans to address the needs of this changing justice system.
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The justice system across Canada is experiencing unprecedented volume. Ontario is no exception. In fact, given our population, we are facing some of the most severe challenges in the country. While the ministry continues to take steps to restructure our institutions, the ministry is also working on strategies with our justice partners, such as the Ministry of the Attorney General, to alleviate some of the pressures being felt in our jails and detention centres, especially in the metro areas that are running at overcapacity.
A key factor in the overload of the system is not only an increase in the total number of inmates in custody but a fairly significant shift in our offender population. Between 1995-96 and 2001-02, the average daily inmate population in our adult institutions increased by around 500 inmates per day. This trend is continuing. So far in this fiscal year, the average daily count is over 8,000 inmates a day.
The more startling statistic, which is the crux of the overcrowding problem, is the increase in remand inmates. In 1995-96 we held an average of 2,400 adult offenders remanded in custody on outstanding charges. This represented approximately 33% of our offender population. In 2001-02 this number increased to an average of almost 4,000 adult offenders, representing more than 50% of the overall offender population. This year we have moved up, with remands representing approximately 55% of the population.
One might ask why the ministry is continuing to close jails if it's experiencing overcrowding. The simple answer is that we're not closing facilities without replacements. The facilities we've decommissioned thus far have been replaced by modern, new and more efficient facilities.
I want to speak a little bit about alternative service delivery. Partnerships in corrections aren't necessarily a new thing. All of our ministry's 45 open custody residences for youth are operated by a non-profit or a private sector partner and have been since 1985. Since May 1997, Project Turnaround, the ministry's first strict discipline project, has been operated by the private company Encourage Youth Corp. A number of people equate private sector partnerships with cost savings. Cost savings, however, are only part of the rationale behind exploring this type of operational approach. The involvement of private operators in the correctional system can help introduce a competitive environment, which will promote and improve performance and efficiency throughout the system.
For over a year, the Central North Correctional Centre in Penetang has been progressing well under the operation of Management and Training Corp. The Central North facility has been a vital part in the ramp-up of commissioning new facilities, such as the Central East Correctional Centre, by providing beds so that staff at decommissioning facilities could attend training at the new facility.
The Central North Correctional Centre service agreement is monitored carefully with ministry officials on-site to ensure compliance with the specific terms of the operating contract that include appropriate levels of security and programming being provided. Local boards and monitors were created at both CNCC in Penetang and CECC in Lindsay. These boards, consisting of community-based membership, provide community input and advice in the operation of these facilities. They ensure accountability to the communities that host our facilities.
The Central East Correctional Centre is in the process of admitting its first group of inmates this month. The opening of this facility allows the ministry to begin taking a good hard look at private and public operations. Now that two facilities of equal size, design and service standards will be operating in tandem, we will be able to learn from each, expand on best practices and make improvements to either system as necessary. We will compare the results between the two facilities. The comparison will not only look at operational efficiencies such as costs, but more importantly we will look at performance outcomes such as recidivism rates and numbers of incidents at the institutions.
The ministry's new performance framework, which applies to private and publicly operated facilities, provides an operational standard that all facilities must adhere to. This framework focuses on measurable outcomes that will allow us to determine our strengths and areas that require adjustment.
The opening of the Central East facility also expands the operation of the cook-chill food production centre, located at Maplehurst Correctional Centre. Over the past year, the ministry has been working with its private sector partner to set up the production centre and plan for its rollout. A year may seem a like a long time to initiate the process; however, we're not talking about a pots-and-pans kitchen. When fully operational, the facility will be able to produce up to 30,000 meals a day. Last month, the Central North Correctional Centre started receiving cook-chill meals, and they are now being sent to Central East as well. Over time, it will be phased in to many of the larger central facilities, thereby allowing us to drive down the overall cost of food.
I'm now going to talk a little bit about young offenders. The ministry provides custody in secure facilities and open custody residences for young offenders aged 16 and 17. A multidisciplinary approach to young offender programming is provided to correct unlawful and anti-social behaviour, while at the same time focusing on public safety and individual accountability. The ministry has four youth centres, one detention centre, nine young offender units in adult facilities, 45 open custody residences and one privately operated strict discipline facility. On any given day this past year, there were around 800 young offenders in secure custody and approximately 400 in open. The vast majority of young offenders, approximately 9,000, are supervised in the community.
As with the adult system, our young offender operations are also going through a massive transformation. The ministry recognizes that young offender issues are one of the biggest challenges we face. This past year we restructured the ministry to dedicate one assistant deputy minister solely to young offender services, where the portfolio used to also include adult community services. At the heart of the young offender operations transformation is the youth justice strategy. Essentially, it will create a youth-centred system aimed at meeting the particular risks and needs posed by adolescents. Young offender services will be provided at a level of security in accordance with the risk a young offender poses to the community. The principles of public safety and the reduction of recidivism through rehab programs form the cornerstone of a youth system that will hold young offenders accountable for their actions and behaviour. A multidisciplinary approach promotes young offender rehabilitation through teamwork and specific expertise.
In order to improve the delivery of young offenders' programs, services and supervision, the ministry has enhanced its training for youth officers and has also established a new youth worker classification that will be implemented in the near future. A key initiative involves the integration of all the province's young offender services. When implemented, the transition would see programs that service young offenders aged 12 to 15 transferred from the Ministry of Community, Family and Children's Services to the Ministry of Public Safety and Security. This will allow for a better use of resources and reduced duplication of effort, meet the government's commitment to enhance public safety and implement a comprehensive youth justice strategy that helps young offenders become responsible, law-abiding citizens.
The government is taking an important step by moving to a dedicated secure-custody system for young offenders. The dedicated system will focus on the programming requirements of young offenders and will be directed at achieving better results. As part of this dedicated system, young offenders currently residing in facilities shared with adults will be transferred to facilities solely for young offenders. Young offender services will be youth-centred, holistic and comprised of a well-connected continuum of programs and services distinct from adult offender services.
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So far, the ministry has removed the young offender units from the Wellington Detention Centre, in 1998, and from the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre, in 2002. This was made possible by the recent expansion of our project at the Bluewater Youth Centre in Goderich.
The adult female offenders are being moved from the Vanier Centre this month, as I mentioned earlier, making way for work to begin on the site to create a new young offender facility to serve the greater Toronto area. The design of the current facility in Brampton makes it possible for the female young offenders to remain on the site while work is being completed on the property without interrupting programming or interfering with security.
Within the next few months, we'll be moving forward with plans, announced in May 2000, to construct two new young offender strict discipline facilities. These will be located in eastern and southwestern Ontario. The final site selection for these facilities is currently underway.
The ministry is preparing for the federal government's Youth Criminal Justice Act, to come into effect on April 1 of this year, replacing the Young Offenders Act. By that date, all provinces must be in compliance with the new legislation.
The memorandum of agreement respecting federal contributions to youth justice services was signed by Ontario in March of last year. The amendment grants Ontario flexibility to choose the services and programs that best address its needs and circumstances. The five-year agreement, which extends until 2004-05, provides up to $357 million to the province for young offender programs and services, representing approximately 25% of the total cost of Ontario's current expenditures on these programs and services. Despite inadequate federal funding, Ontario will comply with the new legislation and seize every opportunity to ensure that Ontario's youth justice strategy maintains the highest level of public safety and assists young offenders in becoming responsible and law-abiding citizens.
I just want to do a little bit about cost and transition --
The Vice-Chair: Excuse me, sir. Are you nearing the completion of your remarks?
Mr Rabeau: Yes, I'm very close to the end.
The Vice-Chair: OK. We're a little bit over. Another minute?
Mr Rabeau: Yes, probably a minute and a half or so. I'm sorry.
The Vice-Chair: Sorry for the interruption.
Mr Rabeau: That's all right.
With our new facilities coming on-line and older ones being decommissioned, we are starting to see some results. Our per diem rates for the past two years were approximately $138 a day, and they are beginning to drop. Our projected average per diem for both CNCC and CECC at maturity is approximately $90 a day.
Through our program review, we took a good look at what our inmate population consists of and where the money is going. The basic fact is that jails and detention centres house a different type of offender than correctional centres do. So we're really trying to focus our services and program dollars on the sentenced offenders in the two large facilities, and not on where folks are remanded to spend a relatively short time with us.
One last point: it's estimated that approximately 15% to 20% of our inmate population suffer from some form of mental health problem. Therefore, the provision of appropriate treatment programs is a significant requirement for the ministry. That is why the St Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre is such an important project. In partnership with the Royal Ottawa Hospital, within the next few months we will be opening the first phase of operations at this new facility: the secure treatment and forensic units. Providing correctional and mental health forensic services at the same facility is a first for the province. Co-locating services not only provides a wider range of treatment capabilities, but it also reduces the need to transfer offenders between facilities and makes better use of professional services available. The contract for the construction work of phase two of the St Lawrence Valley has gone to tender, and it's expected that work for the new 300-bed unit will start this spring.
I think I'll just leave it there. I had a few more comments, but given the time, thank you very much.
The Vice-Chair: Thanks for your co-operation, sir. We'll begin the round of questioning with the Liberal caucus.
Mr Dave Levac (Brant): I want to take the time to thank the auditor for his report earlier. Thank you very much for your report. There's quite a bit, but I think I'll start where you left off. Why did it take 10 years to deal with the problem of mental health issues in jails, from 1993, when the auditor's report indicated there was a major problem that needed addressing?
Mr Rabeau: We had certainly been providing services in two specialized institutions, Guelph and Millbrook. I was not with the ministry back in 1993, so I'm not quite sure I have a direct answer to that one. Certainly there has been a fair bit of work done with the Ministry of Health and the Attorney General over a number of years trying to develop more appropriate responses at the community level for individuals who come into our system who have some form of mental illness. There has been a fair development on the community side to deal with that group of individuals.
We certainly recognize today that we're still presented with a fairly significant pressure in that area and feel that with the development of the St Lawrence centre and with the added expertise, we'll have a much better program and clearly a better link back into the mental health system that operates across the province on the community side. So we'll be using St Lawrence as an assessment centre for folks who present with mental health problems and ensuring that we transfer them back into the community with the kind of community supports and linkages they need to keep them healthier.
Mr Levac: I'm sure you recognize that one facility -- and I'm glad to hear that it's under construction -- is going to make it very difficult. If I'm not mistaken, that's 15% to 20% of the inmate population -- and I would editorialize here that I believe that's an awfully low number that's being presented, and I'm going to ask you about your research behind that -- going across all the facilities across the province. So having one facility to do that is going to be very difficult to manage.
The second component to that question would be, is there -- I asked the auditor -- any research that indicates the number of 15% or even to 20% has been verified?
Mr Rabeau: Along with the Ministry of Health and, at that time, the Ministry of Community and Social Services, we did a fairly detailed analysis of our inmate population about four years ago, and that was the estimate of our population at the time, about 20%.
Mr Levac: I would encourage that that continue to be evaluated and that we take a good hard look at that, because one of the things I was hearing from correctional officers in my travels across the province was that, with 15% to 20% or even as low as 15% of the inmate population having mental health issues, training is very necessary for our correctional officers to cope with and adjust to the different type of client they're facing. I would encourage the ministry to take a good hard look at that as well.
Mr Rabeau: I just might add that as well as the St Lawrence centre we also have plans to develop another smaller facility like St Lawrence up in northern Ontario, in North Bay. Those are plans. At the same time, we're also operating a facility in Sault Ste Marie of approximately 80 or 85 beds for this group as well.
We also have psychiatric consultation available at all our facilities across the province, but I think we take your point. We recognize the issue, and certainly I think we recognize that our staff are looking at more support in this area and more training, and we're in the process of ensuring that we provide that.
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Mr Levac: Great. It's good to hear, too, that you're working closely with the other ministries, because that's an important factor in having any success in the program.
I'll shift gears a little bit, and quickly. I want to bring up Burtch. The reason I want to bring up Burtch is, number one, because it's in my riding. Number two, there were some concerns you raised about how efficient the cook-chill is going to be. I'm sure you know the history behind Burtch, as well as Guelph, in terms of its per diems being exceptionally low when they were fully operational when it came to production of food, the abattoir, the pigs, the farm operations, the vegetables. They were actually providing food for most of the institutions in the province and received exceptionally high grades when it came to the effectiveness. As a matter of fact, in one of the auditor's reports way back in the 1970s or 1980s it was received as one of the best-run institutions in Canada. Subsequent to that, we've just basically disintegrated it. That's my editorial.
I want to move on to its closure. The inmate population of Brantford is going to be transferred to Penetanguishene, and there has been a very large question about transportation costs. Where is the government at this time in its negotiations with municipal police forces and police services boards and its distinctive and very real problem of transportation costs with people as far away as Brantford going all the way to Penetanguishene?
Mr Rabeau: I'll ask Gary Commeford to answer that.
Mr Gary Commeford: To answer your first question in respect to Burtch, yes, historically it was a very efficient and effective operation and was very diverse in respect of the animal husbandry and the crops that were grown there. I should point out, and I think it's important to note, that Burtch is a minimum-security institution, and at a minimum-security institution there has to be a certain type of inmate that reasonably can be put there, because the dynamic security -- there is no fence around it, so you have to be assured that the inmates in that particular location are ones who are less likely to escape than somebody in medium or maximum security.
Due to the changes, as the deputy pointed out, in our remand population and the type of offender we've found in the provincial system for some years now, we do not have that type of inmate to the extent we once did. Therefore, populating Burtch with the number of inmates that would be required to make it efficient and effective is not likely any more. With these particular individuals now, you get probation, conditional sentence or various other diversion before they come into our system. So due to the fact that public safety and security is our foremost, we have to ensure we have the right types of inmates. That actually was a big factor in Burtch's continuing to operate.
As to the second question, the inmate transportation and the changes that have taken place around the restructuring and the opening of larger facilities, one of the commitments made when they went to this particular strategy was that we would not impact police transportation to and from court. As a result, we have an offender transportation project, and as a result we have made agreements with various OPP or local police forces to provide transportation back and forth from the courts. So we do have auxiliary OPP officers at Penetang, for example, who transport the inmates to the various courts who are still on remand and return them, as appropriate, when they are disposed of in court.
In respect to the sentenced inmates from the Brantford area who would be sent up to Penetang, we have made a commitment not only to the town of Penetang, but we will in fact return those offenders, upon completion of sentence, via our provincial bailiff's branch, to the locale where they were first arrested to be released. Therefore, they're not just turned out on the streets of Penetang; they are returned. That will be our process when we start to populate Lindsay as well.
Mr Levac: I'll leave that for other people to discuss further, because I know there are other concerns about transportation and whether or not municipalities have been in concert with that particular finding.
I want to switch gears again to the young offenders. The transition from Comsoc to the Ministry of Public Safety and Security is not complete yet; is that correct?
Ms Deborah Newman: That's correct. We're in the planning stages of effecting that transfer.
Mr Levac: Could you tell me, of the 60 facilities, how many are public; how many are private, for-profit; and how many are private, non-profit?
Ms Newman: I assume now you're adding our open-custody residences and our secure-custody residences?
Mr Levac: Correct.
Ms Newman: On the secure-custody side of our operations, we have one privately operated facility, Project Turnaround, which is a public-private partnership with Encourage Youth Corp. That's the only privatized secure-custody operation in the province for phase-two young offenders. On the open-custody side, all 45 of our open-custody residences are operated by the private sector, either not-for-profit or for-profit. Unfortunately, I don't have the breakdown of for-profit and not-for-profit here with me. If you're interested in that, I could certainly obtain that.
Mr Levac: I'd appreciate it. Is Sprucedale still publicly run?
Ms Newman: Yes, Sprucedale Youth Centre is still a publicly operated facility.
Mr Levac: Is it being used as a model of comparative, like you're doing with Penetanguishene and Lindsay, or you have made the decision you're going to go non-profit or for-profit?
Ms Newman: No. On the secure-custody side of our operation, we're measuring the results of all the publicly and privately operated facilities in terms of recidivism. So we're doing outcome studies of all of our secure-custodies as well as conducting what are called correctional program assessment inventories for all of our facilities. It measures the programs they are providing and how well aligned they are with positive outcomes.
Mr Levac: Can I dovetail from that into another question on the adult situation? Reference was made to recidivism. The concern I have is that I need to know the specifics behind that measurement, whether or not you're measuring the program within those facilities in the comparison between Lindsay and Penetanguishene. The claim has been, from the very beginning, "We're going to compare apples and apples," as opposed to apples and Volkswagens. I'm quite concerned about whether any of those indicators have been played out for everyone, so that they know exactly what those indicators are: the ramp-up time, the number of staff, the specifics of programs provided. Are they identical? Do they both have native services programs? Are they identical in all ways so that when you compare them they are apples to apples? My final editorial or question is, in terms of the recidivism, the outside influences must have impact on whether or not somebody comes back. What is being done about that?
Mr Rabeau: I'll pick up part of the response, and then turn it over to Brian in terms of the performance outcomes. We've been working a lot in developing those.
I think we recognize that as institutions are developing, it's certainly going to take time for facilities to ramp up. We're expecting that as Central East comes on stream later this month, it will probably be six to eight months before it is fully operational. So from a measurement point of view we obviously won't be looking at things starting as of March 1.
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Mr Levac: I'm assuming you're going to hope that all of the comparators are done before the five-year contract is up.
Mr Rabeau: That is our intent and that has been our commitment, that five years out we'll be able to look at this fairly comparably. Brian, do you want to add a few points?
Mr Brian Low: Sure. If it would be helpful, I could speak a little bit more to the comparison study. We have, in the contractual arrangement with Central North Correctional Centre and for all our adult institutions, developed a performance framework, and within that framework we've identified the performance outcomes we're looking for. Those include seven different performance outcomes that we are involved in measuring, and we have identified what those measures are and what data will be collected. Over the term we will assess those and we will be looking at the results that come from each of the programs.
In addition, even through the ramp-up or start-up there are a whole variety of different factors that we'll be looking at in terms of the cost efficiencies and operation of the two institutions. So at this point we have the measures. Because each institution started up at a different point in time, we will be looking at comparables in terms of time, as they come to capacity and as they come to what we call their steady state. So during the next number of months, we will begin to introduce those measures at Central East as they ramp up, and then over the period of time and prior to making any decision on renewal of a contract with the Management and Training Corp, we will be assessing the outcome of that comparative study, and that will provide us with additional information as we make the decision on whether to proceed.
Mr Levac: Thank you. Mr Chairman, could I get a copy of the seven points that were mentioned by the deputy?
The Vice-Chair: I suspect they could provide that for you.
Mr Low: Yes, we can arrange to ensure that you have the outcomes that have been identified.
Mr Kormos: Thanks, folks, for coming by. How does one refer to inmates?
Mr Rabeau: "Inmates."
Mr Kormos: I just wanted to make sure. I heard a reference to them as "clients" and I thought, "Sweet Jesus! Clients, my foot."
You've got 8,000 people a day. Is that your count? Is that what you told us earlier?
Mr Rabeau: Approximately, yes.
Mr Kormos: With 55% of them on remand.
Mr Rabeau: Yes.
Mr Kormos: And that includes your adults and your senior level of YOs. Are you counting the junior level of YOs?
Mr Rabeau: That's only adults; YOs is on top of that.
Mr Kormos: OK, in addition to that.
You said -- and I hope I wrote this down right -- "There's a myriad of challenges that did not exist in 1993," and you enumerated some things after you said that. Were those the challenges you were referring to?
Mr Rabeau: That's right.
Mr Kormos: What were those again? Help me.
Mr Rabeau: The change in the type of inmate.
Mr Kormos: To wit?
Mr Rabeau: They're getting much more difficult. The inmates that Gary referred to, in response to Mr Levac, who used to go to Burtch, are really not coming into custody.
Mr Kormos: Burtch is primarily old men, as I recall. At least that's what the inmate population used to refer to it as; a 19-year-old didn't want to go to Burtch for love nor money because he figured there was just a bunch of old men there.
Mr Rabeau: I don't think that's correct.
The inmate mix has changed. The sentenced population has continued to drop almost every year since 1993.
Mr Kormos: So the sentenced population drops and the remand population increases; is that what you're saying?
Mr Rabeau: It's increasing.
Mr Kormos: Do we know how much of that remand population eventually gets out? You're talking remand for what, a week, two weeks, until there's a successful bail application?
Mr Rabeau: Our average length of stay on remand is around 28 days, and that has been rising over the last several years. About 40% to 45% of our population is with us for seven days on remand.
Mr Kormos: Do we know whether or not those are people who go in there, cop a plea and start doing their time, or are they people who eventually get released on some sort of bail?
Mr Rabeau: They get released on bail, and there certainly are some in there who will be copping a plea.
Mr Kormos: But not the majority.
Mr Rabeau: Not the majority.
Mr Kormos: So you're saying there's more remand population and that has put unique pressures on the system, right? It's one of the myriad of challenges. The majority of these people are being released, in any event, on some form of release order; is that correct?
Mr Rabeau: I'm just trying to think of the majority. Certainly in terms of the number of folks who are appearing in court on charges, the majority are coming from outside of the system, not being held.
Mr Kormos: So we have more-difficult-to-handle inmates; that's what you're telling us, right? What were some of the other challenges? The increased number of remand, right?
Mr Rabeau: Yes.
Mr Kormos: What else? Challenges that didn't exist in 1993.
Mr Rabeau: Those are the big ones.
Mr Kormos: That's two. You said "a myriad."
Mr Rabeau: The focus is where the challenges that presents because of those two factors places us under much greater pressure in the larger metropolitan areas. We're under huge pressure here in Toronto because of that. Our institutions that were meant for sentenced inmates aren't appropriate -- either appropriately placed or have the level of custody that we require -- for remanded inmates. Our remanded inmates are housed in secure facilities. The pressure and the problem we face here is that more folks are being jammed into secure facilities. That is quite different than 10 years ago.
Mr Kormos: You're right, but you said that we have less use for the minimum-security facilities. You're indicating that remands are inevitably in high-security facilities. Am I right in that regard?
Mr Rabeau: That's correct.
Mr Kormos: You also talked about some of the most severe challenges, I think you said, in the country, distinguishing Ontario, I presume, from other province. How is that? Explain that.
Mr Rabeau: Because we're larger, just because of our population.
Mr Kormos: So it's numbers.
Mr Rabeau: Right.
Mr Kormos: So it's not severe challenges; it's one challenge. We have a larger population.
There was a reference made to the ministry issuing an RFP for the electronic surveillance program. What's this electronic surveillance? That's the ankle bracelet, isn't it?
Mr Rabeau: I don't think I made reference to that. We certainly expect to be talking about that at some length on Monday. That's a community program.
Mr Kormos: You'd rather defer it to Monday?
Mr Rabeau: That's when we were prepared to --
Mr Kormos: OK, so you don't have the material with you? That's OK.
Mr Rabeau: We can speak to it, but we certainly are prepared to speak to it on Monday.
Mr Kormos: I understand. What do you have to say, then, about the status of the RFP for expansion of the electronic surveillance program?
Mr Low: Sir, I could respond to that.
Mr Kormos: Please.
Mr Low: The RFP that was out for the expansion of the electronic surveillance was closed last summer; that would be the summer of 2002. The contract was signed in September, and the program went through preconditions and was started in January of this year. So it's currently just beginning, and we are looking at a gradual ramp-up of that program into the province.
Mr Kormos: OK. It was signed with a company?
Mr Low: Yes, it was. It was signed with a company called JEMTEC Inc.
Mr Kormos: Where are they based?
Mr Low: That company is based in British Columbia.
Mr Kormos: I see. What is this company's background?
Mr Low: This company has a background in electronic surveillance.
Mr Kormos: Of inmates?
Mr Low: Yes, of inmates. They had, coincidentally, provided certain equipment that we had used in the electronic monitoring program that was a precursor to the expanded electronic surveillance.
Mr Kormos: It's the one that Mr Levac and I witnessed over in Mimico. Is that the one you're talking about, amongst other places --
Mr Low: That may be.
Mr Kormos: -- where the drunks and the druggies lined up on Friday evening to pick up their ankle bracelet and then drove back home to watch TV all weekend?
Mr Low: That may be a perception.
Mr Kormos: I was there; he was there. Listen, I know a drunk when I see one. I come from Welland. We're not teetotallers there.
Mr Low: The individual would have to present himself appropriately to be able to be released.
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Mr Kormos: OK. Is this company out of British Columbia subcontracting any of its work?
Mr Low: Yes, as part of a contractual arrangement -- and this was outlined in the RFP -- it was recognized that the types of technologies we were looking at would unlikely all be held by one particular company.
Mr Kormos: But is it subcontracting any of its work?
Mr Low: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Who is it subcontracting it to?
Mr Low: There are different subcontracts. One is for the monitoring and installation of some of the technology, and that subcontract is with the Salvation Army. There is a --
Mr Kormos: Sorry. The monitoring and installation?
Mr Low: Of the technology.
Mr Kormos: The Salvation Army? Is this a new IT wing of Sally Ann?
Mr Low: No. I'm sure you're familiar with the fact that the Salvation Army has been involved in the corrections field in a whole variety of ways. As part of the subcontract, and just so you're familiar with this, there are a series of contractual obligations that a contractor has, which then are transferred directly to any subcontracts in terms of performance measures and so forth.
The subcontract in this particular instance revolves around the monitoring of the performance of the technology. It is a non-discretionary role. It does not involve supervision of offenders. Quite clearly, if you were to look at both the intent of the program and the contract we have in place, the ministry, through correctional services and our field staff, is in charge of the program and makes the decision in terms of what consequences or actions will be taken if there is a breach of any information and is responsible for the ongoing supervision of and case management for the individual. The service we have purchased provides the technology -- the actual tools -- and in addition provides the monitoring so that if there is a breach, notice is provided to our staff, who then will take the appropriate action.
Mr Kormos: I recall the minister's announcement of this electronic surveillance program, and I guess we've all had a chance to see from the sidelines the implementation of it. How does the program fit into the broader corrections rehab and public safety -- presuming rehab and public safety are the two functions of corrections. How does the electronic bracelet fit in to that?
Mr Low: Clearly from a public safety perspective, the electronic surveillance program provides one additional means of an enhanced opportunity for supervision of the offender while in the community.
Mr Kormos: Right. Rehab?
Mr Low: What it can also do is ensure that there is attendance at particular programs that have been identified. If those programs are in the community, it may mean that we can provide support for the person to be in the community while they are attending those particular rehabilitation programs in any of our core programs.
Mr Kormos: In view of the Criminal Code provisions that permit a judge to order a sentence to be performed in one's home -- we're all familiar with that, aren't we?
Mr Low: Yes.
Mr Rabeau: Conditional sentence.
Mr Kormos: I just read a newspaper report down where I come from where a fellow got a nine-month conditional sentence and had to stay at home for molesting his daughter for a number of years. The judge decided that was where he was to serve the sentence.
Has there been any reflection on the utilization of electronic surveillance in view of the fact that courts now have, and for some time have had, the power to order sentences to be served outside the institution?
Mr Low: Certainly. Further, our colleague the assistant deputy minister responsible for community services will be able to provide a more detailed community response to that on Monday.
But this is a support to the decisions that may be made by the judiciary for something like a house sentence, as you've looked at. If that sentence is there and that is a condition, to this point in time we would not have staff who would be sitting outside that home to ensure that person is there. So this provides a further measure that would ensure there is compliance with the order.
Mr Kormos: But the electronic surveillance program that Mr Levac and I witnessed wasn't being utilized by inmates who were sentenced to conditional sentences; it was being utilized by inmates who were sentenced to jail, like second- and third-time drunk drivers, like drug dealers, inter alia, as they say.
Mr Low: I'm not sure I would have the specific information in terms of who would be in receipt of that. However, what you're talking about in terms of the community program is in fact the intent of the electronic surveillance program. This is an expansion to the community offenders who are serving the types of conditional sentences you're talking about.
We have had a program in place, a very small and limited program, for very low risk offenders who have been in the institutions and have been part of the electronic monitoring program that has been in place since 1996. Those particular inmates in that particular program -- that has been continued and it is a very small component of what we see as the expanded electronic surveillance, which will do and respond to exactly the types of concerns you have, where there are people who have conditional sentences in the community, where we now have one further strategy, one further ability to provide supervision effectively, and that is the public safety approach to this.
Mr Kormos: What I'm getting to, obviously, is that judges sentence people to weekend sentences or intermittent sentences, not necessarily on weekends, so these people can be out during the week, and there are a whole lot of people who seem to think that the electronic bracelet -- and I'm referring specifically to what I saw at Mimico; there were people lined up. It was like lining up at the butcher's counter at Zehrs: pick a number, pick up your bracelet and then go home. A whole lot of folks seem to think maybe they were wrong, maybe all these people were wrong, that this was simply a way of reducing the intermittent population, in this case at Mimico. What's going on here?
Mr Rabeau: I'll answer that. For some time, for many years, Mimico has operated a program for intermittent-sentenced inmates, and it's based on two factors: one is any intermittent inmate was provided the opportunity to perform a community service on the weekend, which had to be investigated and approved as an appropriate community service --
Mr Kormos: Are these the ones John Howard, amongst others, were supervising, where you go out in a work gang and paint parks and stuff like that?
Mr Rabeau: There was that, there were the highways, there were various non-profit groups.
Mr Kormos: And these people were being actively supervised, as I recall.
The Vice-Chair: We have to let him conclude the question, because we're a little bit --
Mr Kormos: Oh no, we're just dialoguing.
The Vice-Chair: Well, we're a little bit over time, so the dialogue has to be short.
Mr Kormos: Ah nuts, I've got to wait my turn again.
The Vice-Chair: Yes.
Mr Kormos: All right. Thank you, sir.
Mr Rabeau: They were, in fact, being approved and the inmate was given the opportunity to provide the service and then was allowed to serve the evenings at home and had to report every day. However, part of it was that the inmate had to show up at the institution in an appropriate state, not under the influence, and ensure that he had performed his service the week before. This was done on the basis of an evaluation of the individual's present and past history before he was given this opportunity.
That was a very large program over a large number of years. Subsequent to that, we instituted, as Mr Low stated, a minimal, which we described as electronic, home incarceration program, and it was based, similarly, on community service. But we also have a number of rehabilitative programs that inmates will be enrolled in, and they have to do with substance abuse, alcohol abuse and anger management. So an inmate, if they passed and they qualified, did in fact have the opportunity, under an electronic bracelet program, and that's how we monitored that they were in fact in their homes.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. Perhaps we could pursue that a bit more in the next round. I'm sorry to have to interrupt. We move on to the government caucus.
Mr AL McDonald (Nipissing): Thank you for attending today. I have a number of questions in different areas. I want to start off with the video remand program, or the lack of the video remand. When I sat on the police services board up in North Bay, one of our concerns was that if we had to transfer prisoners or inmates to make court appearances -- first appearances or whatever, and I guess it takes all of 10 minutes -- we were sending police officers from North Bay over to Sudbury to pick up the inmate, bring him to North Bay, which is a three-hour round trip, to spend 10 minutes. The technology is available that we can do a video remand from Sudbury, and there's a concern about safety, first, for the inmate and, second, and as important, for the police officers who have to travel some of these northern highways when the conditions aren't the best. Where are we with that project?
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Mr Rabeau: The video remand project has expanded significantly over the last three years. Certainly I can tell you that it's available in North Bay now, both at the police station and at the courthouse. But in most of our facilities we now have video remand capability, and there are a number of courts across the province that have video remand capability as well. The program is still being rolled out. I don't know specifically where it is with the court system, but I know our system is pretty much completely operational at the moment.
It has had a very significant effect on the number of inmates who have had to be transferred from the institution to court just for a remand. As the courts become more familiar with it and attuned to how it operates, we're seeing some fairly significant changes in the number of inmates who are having to be discharged to go to court and then brought back in the same day.
It started as a pilot when we began this in London, Ontario, and approximately 40% of our inmates who used to go to court are now being dealt with through video remand. So we think it's a very successful approach from a public safety point of view in that inmates aren't out. It reduces the demand on the police forces for transportation, which is a big issue, and in fact it has improved the efficiency of the courts in that they are able to manage these a lot more quickly than in person.
Mr McDonald: The cost savings alone are incredible if this project is rolled out across the board, across the province. Not only would there be a lot of cost savings for municipalities and the police services but in the correctional facilities as well. From my understanding of the project, it's a very successful pilot project. Why do we not at this point have it right across Ontario? Could you tell me where the situation is in concert with North Bay, and are there issues in the courthouses regarding video remands?
Mr Rabeau: Yes, there are. I mean, there are issues everywhere. One of the reasons it hasn't rolled out everywhere in the province is that the technology is just not there in parts of the province. We require special high-speed lines for the transfer of the video portion. They're relatively expensive lines to operate, and a number of communities don't even have the lines. So in part we haven't been able to roll out the capability everywhere in the province. It's a matter of available resources and getting the right technology in varying communities.
Certainly we see that the biggest savings rest with the policing community, either municipal and/or OPP. Because they're not having to transport, that's a significant savings for them. On the institution side, I think there are some savings for us, but we're still having to manage the inmates, whether we're discharging them or bringing them down to a video suite. It does help in terms of public safety if somebody isn't out in the community. I can only speak for corrections here. We can do this pretty much in every one of our institutions now. The courts are coming on, I think, 30 or 40 a year. So it's going to be pretty much out and developed by the end of next year. I could get the detail for that; I don't have all that with me, Mr McDonald.
Mr McDonald: Where are North Bay and Sudbury in this loop?
Mr Rabeau: Both facilities have the capacity, and I believe the police force in North Bay has it. I think they're all up and operational and connected with the courts, our facility and the police. I believe it's fully operational, but I would have to find that out for you.
Mr McDonald: So you're not aware if it's operating in the city of North Bay or the city of Sudbury at this moment?
Mr Rabeau: I'll have to ask, but I thought it was operational in both communities.
Mr McDonald: If I can just go to diversion, which I think is a wonderful project, I understand there's a project, I believe it's in Ottawa, where individuals come before community leaders if they have committed an offence or a first-time offence and community leaders decide on the appropriate punishment. In other words, we are trying to keep these individuals out of our jails and create some meaningful reprimand, if you will, regarding the minor offence they committed. Can you give me a bit of info on that?
Ms Newman: You may be thinking of the young offender system, Mr McDonald, where there are some active pilot programs with respect to diversion of young people from the formal court system. There have been pilots around the province.
Also, the Ministry of the Attorney General has operated youth justice committees, which are comprised of community members, and a young person can be diverted to the youth justice committee from the formal court system. They can determine what an appropriate sanction might be for that young person, which could involve making reparation for the harm they caused to the victim. Victims participate in this process as well. That's going to be expanded quite significantly under the new Youth Criminal Justice Act, which comes into force on April 1 this year. There's significant emphasis in the new legislation on diversion and alternative programming, referred to as extra-judicial sanctions, just because it's hard to say, I think. But there are going to be more opportunities for young people to repair harm done outside of the formal court system.
Mr McDonald: I have two further questions; one is on health care within the ministry. As we know, North America is facing a nurse shortage. Where are we within the ministry when it comes to nurses? If there is a shortage, what plans have you implemented to correct that?
Mr Rabeau: We definitely do have an issue with attracting nurses. We have approximately 360 nurses working for us at the moment, but like every other health care provider, we are having trouble attracting folks. There was a problem of wage disparity, particularly between the public sector and the hospitals. I think there was a fair movement with the last contract with OPSEU that sort of collapsed that disparity, so I think that's helpful.
Just recently we've looked at bringing in registered practical nurses, RPNs, to support our registered nurses -- we've gone through a regulation change -- hoping that we're able to change our practice somewhat in terms of how nursing services are delivered in our facilities, so we can focus the expertise of our registered nurses in the areas where they're most needed. We are also, I think, trying to improve support and training to our nursing cadre within the institutions, trying to make a better environment for them to work in.
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Mr McDonald: One final question -- and I understand Mr Chudleigh has a question. In this document, committee recommendation number 9 was, "The Ministry of Correctional Services should assess the effectiveness of the recent initiatives to resolve absenteeism and overtime problems in the correctional system." There is something on page 17 -- I'm not sure if you have this document --
Mr Rabeau: I do.
Mr McDonald: -- that states, "Management Board Secretariat supported the ministry's recommendation to introduce a 20% cap to the attendance threshold, so that continued high sick credit usage could no longer force new thresholds higher."
What does that mean?
Mr Rabeau: Certainly one issue identified in the report was that we've had a very significant problem with absenteeism in our organization. I think it was remarked on a fair bit the last time we had an opportunity to come before this committee.
We've initiated a number of programs over the last couple of years, of which we've started to see some effect. The absenteeism rate has dropped over the last couple of years. We haven't got our final figures for calendar 2002 yet, because of year-end close-off, but we think it's fairly close to what we were experiencing last year. On average it's around 14 days per employee, which is still relatively high.
The reference to the 20% cap rate would allow us to implement our attendance support program that we use for folks who are having problems. Once they reach a threshold of 11 days -- if they've been absent 11 days -- we will institute a program to deal with their attendance problems. Up until this year, the threshold before we applied the program was somewhere around 15 or 16 days. I think we've been able to retool the program through Management Board to ensure that we can perhaps get at problems earlier than we have been able to in the past.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. That hit it right on the button that time: 15 minutes.
We'll move on to the Liberal caucus.
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): Good morning. I see a few familiar faces from the little time I spent at the ministry. Right off the top I want to offer you my condolences and some degree of empathy with what is obviously a different focus on corrections by this government, with their fascination for the American model, and all of us knowing especially that the Americans have 10 times the incarceration that Canadians have, and the concept of warehousing and of bigger institutions, privately run, doing away with some of the community programs. I'd be very anxious to hear about and review the community programs that have been seriously hurt. Looking at the time frame of two years less a day, with an option for parole after a matter of months, the challenge of corrections or rehabilitation has to be supreme in this context.
I would like to ask you what your definition of efficiency is, because I know that is politically influenced, or what is the definition you have to live with? What is your definition of efficiency, because of your studies, as you referred to in your presentation.
Mr Rabeau: I think it's fair to say that our ultimate driver as an organization is that we're in the business of corrections, which in our view is correcting behaviour. The ultimate driver for us is the reduction of recidivism. I think that is relatively new in any correctional operation I'm aware of, where there's a public commitment on our behalf to annually publicize our rate of recidivism, in terms of the number of individuals who are returning in to the system, if in fact we've had an opportunity to deal with them in custody for more than six months or whether they've been on probation. So from an efficiency point of view, the first driver is, are we reducing recidivism? That is the primary one.
Specifically in terms of efficiency, we're wanting to achieve those results at the least possible cost. We feel, in terms of our focus at the moment, that in being able to specialize our interventions in groups which are large enough to gain the economies, we're going to be able to do a fair bit to begin to deal with this problem.
I think, as we were running smaller institutions, that we were trying to do everything everywhere and our sense, in terms of looking at where we were, was that we weren't getting the kind of value for money or the efficiencies in doing that. We really are wanting to specialize in larger institutions where we can serve larger groups with the kind of expertise and the types of programs we can develop that we think will work to deal with that.
Mr Patten: What would be your trend now in terms of recidivism? If you look at the last 10 years, has it gone up? Has it stayed the same? Has it improved?
Mr Rabeau: I think one of the issues we've had is that there really has never been a clear definition of recidivism. There is one we've developed to try to ensure that we've got some commonality. As an organization, we weren't routinely collecting recidivism data. We had certain parts of our organization that were doing that, but as a whole, that wasn't something we had been doing over the last 10 years. It wasn't until the last year and a half that we've come to agree on the definition of recidivism and are starting to develop the kind of information systems that are going to allow us to keep track of that. So it's relatively new.
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Mr Patten: I find that somewhat difficult to understand. I know probably the best area was the young offenders, where I think the stats were pretty good 12 or 15 years ago. I'll wait for that, and I recall we had some trends there.
My assumption would be: that to the degree the cuts that have been imposed upon your ministry, on the community programs and your community partners, which are the most efficient, in my opinion, economically -- it makes me wonder why so many of them were cut with such a cost-conscious government, where the bottom line is the almighty dollar, that those relationships were hurt, hampered. Some of them have been re-established -- I'm aware of that -- but going back to 1995 now, when very quickly the government moved to dump a lot of voluntary organizations, that has hampered the ability to reintroduce people to the community. The pressures on the probation and parole officers are tremendous. They've got workloads of 400, I'm told, maybe even more in some cases. It's impossible to counsel, manage, suggest relationships for better ways of re-establishing community life and all those sorts of things. So as an individual, I become quite concerned.
That recidivism one way or another means the person is returned to the institution through some kind of legal violation, whether it's a parole violation or whether it's a recommitment of a criminal act or whatever it is. I mean, the person comes back into the institution. I think a few university students would probably have those stats, could run through all of those. We should be able to find them, it seems to me. With the increased opportunities for electronic computations, it seems to me that we should be getting those. If we don't have them, why is that? Are you short of money for your statistical management systems?
Mr Rabeau: Maybe you misunderstood. In fact, we do have them now. I was responding more to your question of over 10 years. Those are numbers that I've got available. We do now have a system that is tracking this, and it is electronic. We're looking at a recidivism rate of 52% to 54% on the adult side. It's a little different in terms of the young offenders.
I know that on Monday we are going to be talking about the community side. I really want to react a little bit to this 400 to one. I'm certainly not aware of that ratio anywhere, but we're prepared to get into more discussions as we deal with the report around the community services, which we're doing here on Monday.
Deborah, who has been around this ministry much longer than I have, even though she's a lot younger --
Ms Newman: Thank you.
Mr Rabeau: -- can perhaps add to my comments.
Ms Newman: Thank you, Deputy.
I'd like to provide some updated information, although we will be talking in more detail about community corrections on Monday. But just to respond to some of your concerns, Mr Patten, we have in fact restructured community corrections in about the last three years and introduced a new service delivery model in probation and parole that has allowed us to focus the resources of our probation and parole officers on the highest-risk offenders, those who require intensive supervision. So rather than having probation officers meet every individual on their caseloads one to one, we've implemented a new model that is based on extensive review of the "what works" literature in terms of reducing recidivism. So they are spending more time with the high-risk offenders. Individuals are in fact streamed into four different levels of risk based on a comprehensive assessment at the front end, so the way in which offenders are supervised in the community is very much more linked to empirical research about what works.
Coupled with that, we have completed a hiring initiative and hired 165 more probation officers in the last two years, which had the effect of reducing the average caseload in the province to 85, just to provide you with a more current statistic. We still continue to struggle with workload issues in probation and parole; it's very demanding work. But the caseloads have in fact been reduced, and we're trying to focus our resources to get the best result.
Mr Patten: If your overall remand numbers have gone up 55%, which is an incredible percentage, it suggests to me that your overall population outside of the remand is less than what it used to be. To what degree?
Mr Rabeau: I've got that --
Mr Patten: This is the aging of the baby boomers; not so frisky.
Mr Rabeau: Sorry. I have that number here somewhere but I can't find it right at the moment.
Mr Patten: You suffer somewhat, as you can't refuse somebody who is sent to jail; you must take them.
Mr Rabeau: That's right.
Mr Patten: And then you have to handle them with the resources you have. So if the court system is slow or there's a hell of a backlog, you have to take those from both the federal and the provincial level and respond accordingly. When you have cutbacks, that makes it very difficult for you and your resources.
My concern is that the research I've seen suggests that centralization in place of smaller units -- you can have centralization with smaller units, but when you remove all the smaller units, let alone the impact on some of those smaller communities economically and community-wise, you get fewer family visits; you get more alienation from home for the inmates, and it is a sense of institutionalization in the lifestyle of the inmate. That does not bear out to be more successful in terms of rehab. What would your experience be, seeing that it seems to be moving in that direction?
Mr Rabeau: Again, I think we're obviously in a position of having to balance a number of things. On the one hand, an observation that the auditor made about our system back in 1993 was that it was the most expensive system in the country. In part, I think that was due to the number of small institutions spread across the province. So I think as a response to that, there was clearly a move at least to do some centralization.
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I think our focus has been trying to ensure that for those individuals who are in custody because they're remanded, they're still before the courts, we're able to keep institutions relatively close to communities and to courts, albeit they're perhaps not as close as they used to be because we've closed facilities that were small and extremely old. We just closed Cornwall a couple of months ago. It was built in 1835 or something.
Our sense, as I mentioned earlier as well, is that we're going to get much better results by being able to specialize our treatment and program resources in fewer facilities. But we really do have to pick up on your point of ensuring that our inmate population, when discharged, are linked back into their communities.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. We'll pursue that further in the next round.
Mr Kormos: An 8,000-a-day count of inmates, 55% on remand, so that means 3,600 a day are serving sentences. How many of those are people who are serving sentences in lieu of payment of fines?
Mr Rabeau: I don't think there are very many. I haven't got that number handy, but I would suggest that it's extremely small.
Mr Kormos: If it's available, I wonder if you could -- I don't know if you're the same folks who are coming back next week, but if somebody could bring that, I think that would be interesting.
Mr Rabeau: OK, we'll try to do that for you.
Mr Kormos: I'm down from Niagara. We've got the Niagara Detention Centre for the moment. If I'm serving a sentence of less than 90 days, I'm inclined to serve it at the local detention centre down there, is that right?
Mr Rabeau: That's correct.
Mr Kormos: So if I'm serving a 60-day sentence, what's my day like at the Niagara Detention Centre, as an inmate participating in a rehabilitative correctional system?
Mr Rabeau: I'll refer that to Gary.
Mr Commeford: If you're doing a 60-day sentence and you behave yourself, you're probably going to get out in 40 days anyway. Individuals who remain in the detention centre for the most part will in fact be employed in some kind of work in the detention centre, a lot of times in housekeeping or in food service. I don't know specifically, but certainly there would be a volunteer program available through the institution, through volunteers. I can't speak specifically for --
Mr Kormos: Tell me about the volunteering.
Mr Commeford: Volunteer programs: we have religious visitors from various sects, we also have AA, NA, Gamblers Anonymous, self-help groups like that, which also links to what the deputy said about contacts with the community when people are released. There are in a number of facilities, and I can't speak specifically for Niagara, correspondence courses, and a number of our facilities do have contracts with local school boards in that particular circumstance. That would be basically how individuals who remain at a detention centre would fill their time.
Mr Kormos: Let's go to a correctional centre. Tell me about my day in a correctional centre, if I'm serving a 12-month sentence for a serious assault, let's say.
Mr Commeford: There are particular programs available at correctional centres as they exist today. Many times they were isolated to their particular facility. The programs, although of a high calibre, were basically created by the facility themselves and the professional staff available at that particular facility. With the new organizations and the new types of institutions we're building, as the deputy mentioned, we are putting together core programming. What that means is, each of our institutions that house sentenced prisoners will have the same type of programming; it may deviate somewhat but it will have to be accredited by one of our branches, in North Bay, that deals with programming. What we're trying to do in this particular case, and it relates back to the issue of recidivism, is to provide the same type of programming at all our institutions, whether it deals with domestic violence, substance abuse, literacy, numeracy, whatever happens to be the issue of that particular individual.
What we're also doing, and haven't done previously, is linking this program to the community. The majority of our offenders have probation to follow. We found, certainly in the review of the literature, that there has to be an exposure to a certain intervention for a certain period of time before you would have an impact on recidivism. With the limited time we have people in custody, as you've pointed out, we need this link for people, for probation to follow if we're really going to follow through in a continuum of treatment throughout the system, whether it's in the institution or in the community under probation supervision.
Mr Kormos: "The ministry indicated to us that it was developing better programs to help inmates reintegrate successfully into the community."
Mr Commeford: That's what I'm referring to.
Mr Kormos: What's the status of that?
Mr Commeford: We have in fact got the approval, and as the institutions come on line, there will be an expectation that they will be providing those programs.
Mr Kormos: If I'm attending academic classes in a correctional centre, how many hours a day am I in class?
Mr Commeford: As it exists at the moment, it really depends, again, on the institution you're at. Some have much more refined educational programs than others. You may be in class anywhere from two hours to possibly four hours a day. We did at one time have a very large education program at Maplehurst.
Mr Kormos: What happened to that?
Mr Commeford: The majority of inmates at Maplehurst are remanded inmates. At one time at Maplehurst we used to have a majority of sentenced offenders. There were 432 sentenced offenders. With the building of our remand capacity, based on our statistics, we only have 200 sentenced males there right now. They are in fact very short-term individuals who work in the cook-chill and do work around the complex.
Mr Kormos: But you say Maplehurst had the most intensive academic program in the province?
Mr Commeford: It did at one point.
Mr Kormos: So where has it been implemented if it's no longer needed at Maplehurst?
Mr Commeford: There will be literacy and numeracy programs available at the other larger institutions, both Penetang and Lindsay.
Mr Kormos: Literacy and numeracy?
Mr Commeford: That's correct.
Mr Kormos: What about academic programs that are in tune with, let's say, secondary school goals?
Mr Commeford: Conceptually, the idea is to prepare the individual inmate to follow up on this when he's released from custody.
Mr Kormos: What if I'm already literate but I only have a grade 9 education? What happens to me?
Mr Commeford: You could do it through correspondence. A correspondence course would be available to you, but there wouldn't be the formal academic classroom as you would have found at Maplehurst previously.
Mr Kormos: So that type of program has been abolished?
Mr Commeford: That's correct.
Mr Kormos: What about job training programs? What about if I'm in there and I have an aptitude for being a welder or working in a weaving shop or a textile shop or doing metal fabricating or doing carpentry? If I had those aptitudes -- and I don't -- what kind of programs would you have for me to make sure I'm a little more employable when I get released, assuming I'm in there for 12 to 18 months? You've got a lot of time with me.
Mr Commeford: We have to in fact develop our programs on the average-day stay of sentenced offenders. Our average-day stay for a sentenced offender is not 12 to 18 months.
Mr Kormos: I understand that.
Mr Commeford: We don't really have them long enough to qualify for apprenticeship programs. What we will have available -- for example, we do have industries that are run by Trilcor that will be available at Lindsay. You're not going to walk out of there with any kind of apprenticeship program, but you will walk out with the issue of providing a service and being at a job and in expectation of a job on a daily basis.
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Mr Kormos: I guess I'm being nostalgic because, gosh, I remember back 25 or 30 years ago, if I was in a place like Guelph, for instance, there were agricultural programs, horticultural programs and machine-shop programs. Was it Guelph where they had the textile program?
Mr Commeford: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Maybe this is dating me, but what happened to those programs?
Mr Commeford: We still have the textile program, and that's going to be moved up to Lindsay.
Mr Kormos: What about the horticultural program?
Mr Commeford: The horticultural programs, no. We don't do those any more.
Mr Kormos: Why not?
Mr Commeford: Again, it had to do with the type of inmate that was available.
Mr Kormos: What does that mean?
Mr Commeford: A horticultural program, for the majority of time -- I've been around 25 years too, but I think they predated me in the horticultural programs. A lot of that is done outside the fence. A lot of it is done in an open setting as opposed to a closed setting. Again, it goes back to the security aspect.
We have maintained some of our industries and will maintain some of our industries at Lindsay that will provide people with a routine of work, such as, as I mentioned, the weaving, the licence plates manufacturing that we do presently at Millbrook, which again is very labour-intensive, so it keeps the inmates busy but does teach them a routine and a work ethic. That's an expectation. We'll also have inmates who will work at the cook-chill at Maplehurst. We have a limited number of inmates who provide a landscaping service to our various facilities. That again is run under Trilcor, and we take inmates. We have a --
Mr Kormos: We used to have them do it out here at Queen's Park, didn't we?
Mr Commeford: We still actually do. We still do bring gangs in --
Mr Kormos: From time to time I run into somebody whom I knew or know, friends.
Mr Commeford: I have occasionally as well. So we still do have these programs.
Mr Kormos: I guess I'm concerned about the paucity of these types of training programs, and again concerned about your reference to utilizing the average length of stay and creating programs for the average length of stay, because it seems to me that a guy like me who's doing 18 months, which is on the higher end of provincial sentences, then gets squeezed out because you have to design programs for the average length of stay. So the guy who presumably is a more serious offender, does he -- or she -- miss out on programs because you're designing programs for the average length of stay?
Mr Commeford: No, they'd still have the opportunity to take the program. The programs in fact would rotate over various periods of time. I mean, they could still take the program. In that particular case of somebody doing 18 months who takes the program, there is the probability that they may qualify for parole earlier in their sentence because they've done something positive to change their behaviour. In that particular case, when they go on parole they could pursue the programming further in the community on that basis. So it does have an effect.
Mr Kormos: It seems to me that toward the end of last year this Legislature passed legislation that provided for grooming standards in jails.
Mr Commeford: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Tell me about the implementation of that. How many haircuts?
Mr Commeford: How many haircuts?
Mr Kormos: Since it was passed.
Mr Commeford: I'm sure there have been haircuts. I don't know if they're a result of passing the bill.
Mr Kormos: OK, but tell me about the impact of the bill on our correctional system. Tell me about its implementation.
Mr Commeford: There always was a standard for inmate behaviour, and grooming was part of it. One of the rationales for that is that when you live in close quarters with a lot of other people, your personal hygiene becomes an issue.
Mr Kormos: There's something self-regulating about a cell block or a range, isn't there?
Mr Commeford: And other people will regulate it for you if it's not appropriate.
Mr Kormos: Yes, exactly.
Mr Commeford: It's the whole issue of an expectation. Again, around the whole classification system and the programming aspect, we are in fact going to implement a new classification system. Part of that classification system will be done at the new institutions. The individual will be assessed for his needs around programming but will also be expected to adhere to certain behaviours, routines and expectations. One of them will be grooming.
Mr Kormos: OK. I don't know if you were at any of Mr Runciman's press conferences --
Mr Commeford: Yes, I was.
Mr Kormos: -- while this bill was announced and while it was weaving its lengthy course through the Legislature, but there was a sense of urgency being expressed by the minister about the need for these grooming standards, as I recall it, right?
Mr Commeford: Yes.
Mr Kormos: OK, so now that the bill's passed, tell us about its implementation.
Mr Commeford: The implementation is -- as I said, we're moving along as part of a whole process. It's all part of the whole programming for the inmate. It's moving along as quickly as possible, as reasonably as possible, and it has a lot to do with the programs that will be available at the new institutions.
Mr Kormos: So are there new standards around grooming as a result of the legislation?
Mr Commeford: They are under development and will be in fact implemented in the system.
Mr Kormos: Can you give us any hints about what the new grooming standards will be?
Mr Commeford: The idea will be that inmates will have to keep themselves clean, tidy, have a neat appearance, wear their uniforms appropriately and carry themselves in a reasonable manner. This is for protection of staff as well.
Mr Kormos: No quarrel. You've got to help me, because I want to know how that makes the new regime different from the old regime. What can happen now that couldn't happen before the bill was passed?
Mr Commeford: What can happen?
Mr Kormos: Yes, that couldn't happen before the bill was passed.
Mr Commeford: The expectation is that the inmate will adhere to that, and if he doesn't, then he can in fact be charged with an institutional misconduct, and that will be adjudicated by the superintendent. The individual could lose some earned remission, which will mean they would stay in custody longer.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. We'll move on to Mr Chudleigh and then I think to Mr Hastings, also.
Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton): You mentioned earlier in your remarks, Deputy, that in a release from Penetang and potentially in a release from Lindsay, the prisoner would be returned to the community in which he was first arrested. Does that happen also at Maplehurst?
Mr Rabeau: Yes, it does. As Mr Commeford mentioned, the population at Maplehurst has changed quite significantly and most of the inmates there are from that part of the GTA. But if somebody is just discharged, we are ensuring that they're getting to transportation. If they're from Toronto, they're brought into the north --
Mr Chudleigh: So they're not taken to Toronto; they are probably taken to the GO Train. Is that the way it works?
Mr Rabeau: Yes.
Mr Chudleigh: Is that the way it also works in Penetang or will work in Lindsay?
Mr Rabeau: No. Because most of them are sentenced inmates, our intention is to return them to the institution from which they were sentenced. So if they came out of the Hamilton jail, for example, our intent is to have them transported back to the Hamilton jail and then discharged from there.
Mr Chudleigh: So why would the prisoners who are in the process of being released from Maplehurst not undergo that same process, rather than being taken down into the middle of Milton, dumped off, and they wander around, wondering when the next bus is going to come?
Mr Rabeau: Basically, one of the things we deal with at our remand facilities is that folks are let out by the courts, so most of the time it's not a planned discharge on behalf of the institution.
Mr Chudleigh: I'm not talking about the remand ones, I'm talking about that part of the population that is still there serving time.
Mr Rabeau: Certainly, we have about 200 sentenced inmates at Maplehurst, and they would be treated the same as the sentenced inmates from Penetang or Lindsay and moved back to their home communities, home facilities.
Mr Chudleigh: They are taken there now? They're not just put on a GO train to send back to Toronto?
Mr Rabeau: That's right.
Mr Chudleigh: They're taken --
Mr Rabeau: Because they're from all across the province, the inmates at --
Mr Chudleigh: It's only the remand inmates that are --
Mr Rabeau: It's the remands that are from the GTA area.
Mr Chudleigh: And they're not dropped off at the place they were arrested; they're just --
Mr Rabeau: They're arrested in the area, basically.
Mr Chudleigh: Oh, the area of GTA?
Mr Rabeau: We're very sensitive to this issue. We certainly have plans as we get to full operation at Maplehurst to be perhaps bringing our remanded inmates who are discharged into the top of the subway at Yorkdale rather than at the GO station in Milton.
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Mr Chudleigh: I'm sure the merchants in Yorkdale will be not too happy about that and the merchants in Milton will be very pleased about that.
Mr Rabeau: We're saying the subway station, not at the shopping centre. Obviously we recognize the huge issue in small communities of having a number of folks dropped off.
Mr Chudleigh: Thank you.
Mr John Hastings (Etobicoke North): Welcome, folks, to the committee. There are a couple of items of focus I would like to stress.
First off, unlike our friends across the way who seem to be pretty well fascinated and obsessed with the public sector status quo, we have made some real efforts to get a mix of private and public accountability into the system, which you mentioned, Deputy, wasn't there prior to 1993, probably, except for some outsourcing of contracts for services.
Could you give us a broad and specific indication of comparators that you're developing as to outcomes in both the public and private areas? Let's take the young offenders as an example. How do we compare in terms of outcomes of success with young offenders under the system up north and what we're using in, say, Mimico or other traditional types of institutions?
Mr Rabeau: I'll ask Deborah to answer specifically in terms of the question on young offenders, and maybe we could pick up on what our intention is with the adult system.
Mr Hastings: OK.
Ms Newman: Thank you, Deputy. The only private operation that we have in secure custody in the young offender system, as mentioned earlier, is Project Turnaround. Project Turnaround is a 32-bed strict discipline facility for 16- and 17-year-old young offenders.
We began operating it in July 1997, and we have done a number of evaluations of Project Turnaround and compared the results of that particular program against our public sector institutions, and we've certainly been measuring outcomes in terms of recidivism. We've also been measuring a number of other factors in terms of provision of effective correctional programs. We also compare per diem costs in terms of the efficiency of Project Turnaround against our publicly operated youth centres.
In terms of the results of those comparators and the outcomes, Project Turnaround as a public-private operation has demonstrated that it is in fact a best-practice young offender program, and the evaluations have been very favourable on all of those fronts. In terms of the evaluations, we've actually conducted eight comprehensive evaluations of Project Turnaround, and probably of principal interest is the outcome evaluation that was conducted by T3 Associates, an external evaluator that compared the recidivism figures for Project Turnaround participants against some public sector control groups. It showed 33% recidivism for the Project Turnaround participants and a 50% recidivism rate for the comparable offenders in publicly operated institutions.
Mr Hastings: What are those in actual numbers?
Ms Newman: I don't actually have the aggregate numbers here from the study.
Mr Hastings: Could you get them for us?
Ms Newman: Certainly. Yes, absolutely.
Mr Hastings: The other area that I'm most interested in -- you mentioned, Deputy, that there are certain monies that we could have utilized had we gotten them from Ottawa. How much is that money, and how would it be applied and to what programs? And since we don't have it, why don't we have it? How are we having to use Ontario taxpayer dollars -- it's all the same persons -- that are diverted out of what we need them to be going into and into, say, young offenders or electronic monitoring or however you divvy up those dollars?
Mr Rabeau: I'll ask Deborah to answer that. She has been intimately involved in the negotiations with the federal government on this cost sharing agreement.
Ms Newman: As the deputy mentioned earlier, we have negotiated with Justice Canada in terms of the cost sharing agreement respecting federal contributions to our programs. While they are providing $347 million, that represents only 25% of the costs of operating the young offender system in Ontario.
Mr Hastings: That's $347 million for the whole country?
Ms Newman: No, for Ontario; for both young offenders under the supervision of our sister ministry, MCFCS --
Mr Hastings: Ministry of Community, Family and Children's Services, or Comsoc sometimes.
Ms Newman: -- formerly known as Comsoc -- the 12- to 15-year-old young offenders under Comsoc supervision and the 16- and 17-year-olds. So that cumulative expenditure for young offender programs in the two ministries -- what we receive from the federal government only represents 25% of our actual costs for operating the system.
Mr Hastings: Is the same standard applied to the other provinces across Canada?
Ms Newman: Yes. The same standard is applied to the other provinces.
Mr Hastings: In money terms too?
Ms Newman: They're eligible to receive the same amounts of money. It may comprise a higher percentage of their costs, because we're really the biggest province in Canada, in terms of our numbers. We have 22,000 young offenders in Ontario. For us it's 25% of our costs. For other provinces it may comprise a higher percentage simply because they are smaller. But they're eligible to receive the same kinds of federal contributions toward cost sharing that we are.
Mr Hastings: What is that per young offender? Have you divided it up? What do you see in those numbers?
Ms Newman: If we want to look at our young offender per diem costs and then say 25% of that, our per diems range from a low of $239 a day for Project Turnaround to a high of $394 a day for Bluewater Youth Centre in Goderich. We have a range in terms of our per diems, and the other youth centres fall in between. So 25% of that cost per day is covered by the federal government.
Mr Hastings: How are your so-called negotiations with Ottawa going in this area?
Ms Newman: We're continuing to impress upon the federal government that Ontario has very significant concerns about the gap in terms of the funding; and certainly the further concerns about downloading on the province with respect to the new Youth Criminal Justice Act, where there are a number of new sentences and new provisions that are not being funded by the federal government.
Mr Hastings: It's par for the course, you understand.
I'd like to go to your young offender operations for the last couple of fiscal years. Could you give us a breakout of what monies are going to education in the young offender component of the programs, where they are confined to the institution for a year or whatever their sentence is.
Ms Newman: We offer education programs to young offenders in all of our youth centres. They're offered through school boards; they're not provided by correctional services, but in partnership with school boards under what are called section 19 agreements. So in terms of the academic programs, they're actually funded by the Ministry of Education.
Mr Hastings: Let me ask you, then, if you visit Mimico -- I was there on two occasions, one for a parole hearing for adults and another time to visit the young offenders section. I looked in the library, and to my somewhat dismayed surprise, I don't think we saw much in the way of books there. That was about four years ago and that was at Mimico. I know you've got a top crew there, but I'm wondering, if you visited there now, what changes there would be in terms of book selection in the library. Furthermore, do you encourage, through your partnerships, the contribution of books from any individual, organization or service club?
I ask that because, as a member of a rotary club in Toronto, after a fall fair we had a number of books left over from one of the areas where we were trying to raise some funds for the Toronto city fire department. I suggested that we take those books to Mimico. They weren't recent publications, but when I looked through them -- about five to seven dozen -- most of them were no older than published about 1995. So it wasn't like taking books that were 15 or 20 years old that you'd find at a bazaar and just giving them to young people. While the history and that would be useful, these were a fairly wide selection of novels, mechanic books and that sort of thing, so we took them there.
But I found, on a personal basis, the staff weren't the most receptive. They certainly took the material and they were glad to have it, but I didn't feel a sense of, "Let's do this again. We'd be happy to take more materials," wherever they came from, whether they came from that kind of circumstance or from others. I'm wondering to what extent that may have changed.
Ms Newman: I think you're referring to the Toronto Youth Assessment Centre, which is on the grounds together with Mimico.
Mr Hastings: Yes.
Ms Newman: I regret that you got that reception, because we are always delighted to receive donations of books from service clubs. We have in fact those arrangements across the province that supplement our library collections, which are generally provided through the school boards.
The Toronto Youth Assessment Centre does have a library. It has a very active school program, and a donation of books from a service club would be very well received by the ministry. So if you received a lacklustre reception, I'm surprised to hear that; I regret that. I would encourage the rotary club, if you're so inclined, to come back again.
The Vice-Chair: I must intervene. I've checked around and it would appear as though there is further questioning this afternoon. I'm going to suggest that we now break for lunch and that we return at 1 o'clock to continue this afternoon. We're recessed until 1 o'clock.
The committee recessed from 1203 to 1300.
The Vice-Chair: We will begin this afternoon's session, then, to consider the 2002 Annual Report of the Provincial Auditor, specifically section 4.04, "Institutional Services and Young Offender Operations." We'll begin with the Liberal caucus.
Mr Kormos: Sorry, Chair. If I may, I will not be calling quorum, but I will assist the government whip's office in identifying the government members who fail to be here.
The Vice-Chair: Oh, is that right? Mr Levac, please.
Mr Levac: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity. I do have several issues still to touch on. In some cases, there will be very short responses to some of the specifics I have, and then after that maybe we can discuss some philosophical differences or continue on some themes I've introduced over the last couple of years.
The first one is a really simple one, again according to my riding. Brantford Jail is on your sheet "Decommissioning Activities," announcement date July l997, and its status is still operational. Could you give us a date? I know the constituents and COs in my riding have continually asked about this. I understand it has been put off again. Do you have a date for that, by any chance?
Mr Rabeau: No, I don't, Mr Levac. In part it's because of the remand pressures we're facing now. They are certainly putting pressure on us to keep a number of places open that had been announced to close. We're obviously re-evaluating our plan that was announced back in 1996. Brantford specifically I think would close once the young offenders were out of the Hamilton jail, which is quite dependent upon the building of our Toronto site. We think that will be the driver. Two to three years would be a rough estimate, but we haven't come to any final --
Mr Levac: Not to assume that you haven't done so, but if it hasn't been done, I would encourage regular updates for the employees, their families and the municipality. I'd appreciate that.
Now to get to some really interesting things. This is something I brought up to the Provincial Auditor, and I do not know if it has been investigated, because of the rotation of how he does his job. So I don't know if this was addressed or not. But a couple of years ago, when cook-chill was discussed and debated, I came across some information that I've yet to receive a definitive answer on. In the cook-chill operation, not only the Maplehurst situation itself but those who are at the receiving end of the cook-chill operations were in need of new purchases: the thermal ovens that receive that, reheat and redistribute it. My understanding is that in some of the institutions, and I haven't been able to discover all of them, the backup generators that are necessary during power outages would not have enough power to run the facility properly and the thermal ovens at the same time. Has my request from about two years ago ever been investigated?
Mr Low: Perhaps I can respond in part to that. In the introduction of the cook-chill food production centre and the distribution to the receiving kitchens, we've planned it so that there are the initial receiving institutions and then there are subsequent receiving institutions as we increase the volume. The three initial receiving institutions are the Central North Correctional Centre, the Central East Correctional Centre and the Maplehurst Correctional Complex. Those represent, in essence, close to 50% of the overall capacity of our system when they are at full capacity, and those are our initial receiving. So we will not be looking at moving to other institutions until then, and in some instances that will require a retrofit for the rethermalization process in those other receiving kitchens. In those three, yes, we have them, and yes, they have the capacity to operate a retherm kitchen. So the concern you have with the others is being addressed as we look at the need to retrofit from a conventional kitchen to retherm over time as that begins to roll out.
Mr Levac: Thank you. That's as close to an answer as I've received in two years. The concern that I did raise indicated that when the contract was given, that was not even investigated. So the three facilities we presently have, because of their newness -- it was indicated that the generators did have the capacity to take care of that. Now, I'm not talking about the power that's necessary for the ovens themselves; I'm talking about if there's a power outage, the backup generators to provide power for the institution would not be able to handle the thermal ovens and the rest of the institution at the same time. So I'm bringing it up again as another "Please investigate this," to ensure that that's going to happen and when those power outages happen -- and I think we're probably destined to have some of those power outages as early as this summer -- I would suggest that that be included in the evaluation of the new thermal ovens.
Quickly -- I couldn't let this one go in terms of the comments made by Mr Hastings regarding the propensity for them to believe in the private sector. There are two issues I want to bring up with regard to that. In terms of the research that's been available, about 85% of all the research I've been able to read has indicated that there is not a great love of privatizing our jails out there around the world, and that in fact an awful lot of the jurisdictions are removing themselves from that experiment. I want to make sure I'm on the record as indicating clearly that it may be very well to say that I'm against privatization, but it's based on what evidence I've read so far, along with the concerns I have with some of the shortfalls that seem to be taking place.
I'll bring up the cost of the provision of health care, which has been referred to already. I also would refer to the T3 project. I had two professors of criminology investigate this report, and both of them indicated to me -- when I gave them the Hansard statements of members of the Conservative government that indicated it was a resounding success, both of these professors made it quite clear that it was a little bit exaggerated to claim full success on an interim report, that after a three-year instigation of this particular project, it was quite premature to indicate overall success.
Do you think these professors are overstating their position by saying that it's a little bit premature to claim total success in the boot camp?
Mr Rabeau: Perhaps we can deal with this two ways. The first part of your question dealt with the privatization, and then research. I'm going to ask Brian to respond to that area, and then when we talk about the research for Turnaround, Deborah can address that issue.
Mr Low: I think you're absolutely right in terms of the amount of research that has gone into private sector involvement in corrections, and your observation of the fact that there are successes and there are absolute failures in private sector involvement in correctional services is correct as well.
When we researched this and went through, I'm sure, much of the same data that you've been able to collect, we were able to look at those jurisdictions where the success for private sector involvement was based on a very clear and understandable governance model of roles and responsibilities and a very clear contractual arrangement with regard to either standards or outcomes.
Conversely, where it was not successful, there was often a view that the correctional services were basically given off to a private sector entity where there were no expectations, there were no standards, and it was almost an abdication of the responsibility of the government of the day.
What we have done is to establish what we believe is a very clear and distinct governance model in terms of roles and responsibilities. We've established outcomes and bound the accountability within the contractual model and have set up, through that, a monitoring process to ensure that the exact same expectations we have of our public system are in fact embodied in the expectations of a private sector operator. So what we are responsible for as a ministry is correctional services in Ontario, regardless of who is operating. We will hold both the public and the private sector operators accountable to the same standards and to the same outcomes, and we'll report on that as well.
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Mr Levac: Before we go to the second part of the answer, can I come back to this one first, then? That being said, I'll roll in my health care concerns: I have been receiving some reports that there is a different way in which some of the medications have been distributed, and that the health care that has been provided at Penetanguishene is questionable. In some of those aspects, I would assume that those allegations have been investigated; for instance, the distribution of medications. Some inmates have indicated that they receive a week's worth of medication to take into their cell with them and give to themselves. What would constitute, as far as the RFP and the RFQ, a breach of the contract, if indeed someone found that in the private provider, standards were not being met, in terms of cancellation of the contract, as an extreme, all the way to some type of disciplinary action in terms of monetary removal of profit etc?
Mr Low: With any area of service delivery there is an expectation, through the standards of operation and schedules where we have identified system-wide protocols, that there will be compliance. If there's not compliance, and I'll indicate that this is whether it is privately operated or publicly operated, then we will, when we observe it, discuss it with the operator and look at a plan that will correct that. If it is not there, in the private service sector there is the area of performance deficiencies, and there are identified areas in terms of performance that eventually will have a reduction in the dollars delivered for service in that those services would not be delivered. So we pay for performance.
There is an expectation that they will meet the service and that they will put into place the programs to ensure that our standards, our expectations, in correctional services are met. There is monitoring that could lead to performance deficiency points. In fact, that also could result in, if it's repeated, up to and including the termination of the contract.
Mr Levac: I want to pass for a moment on the answer for my young offenders, but I will come back to it because it's generating different questions.
Are you still in negotiations with Guelph and the federal government to possibly use that as a federal institution?
Mr Rabeau: No, we're not. We're certainly talking to Immigration Canada about the provision of services for immigration detainees, but Guelph is not something they're interested in operating at the moment.
Mr Levac: "They" meaning the federal government?
Mr Rabeau: "They" meaning the federal government.
Mr Levac: OK, so negotiations were broken off by the federal government or the provincial government?
Mr Rabeau: We're still talking to them about the provision --
Mr Levac: But not Guelph.
Mr Rabeau: But not about Guelph.
Mr Levac: Did the government continue with Guelph until the government of Canada decided that it wasn't going to use Guelph?
Mr Rabeau: Our position with Immigration Canada all along has been -- I have a clear preference for them to be delivering services themselves for the immigration holds. We've had some long-term discussions, over several years, in that direction. At this stage, they don't appear to be interested in that. In terms of our operating, we will be continuing to provide service where we have capacity in our system.
Mr Levac: Are we doing OK?
The Vice-Chair: You're doing just fine. You have a little less than three minutes.
Mr Levac: If you don't take up the three minutes, I'll let you answer.
Ms Newman: There's a challenge.
You were asking about the evaluation of Project Turnaround and specifically around the T3 study --
Mr Levac: Correct, and the professors who indicated that it was premature and also a little bit exaggerated to declare it a total success.
Ms Newman: Yes, I'm aware of the concerns that were raised by the research and academic community. I think the government had committed to evaluate the results of Project Turnaround, and the T3 study was initiated for that purpose. We've continued to evaluate the results at Project Turnaround. Certainly, I think the academic community's concerns were around whether these were statistically significant results at that time. I'm just going to look at my notes, because it's a little bit technical, in terms of statistical significance. Essentially, I think the concern of the academics was that, in terms of the results, it didn't reach a confidence level of 0.05, which is statistically significant. The study's conclusion, the difference, was 0.07, meaning that the results could have been attributable to chance in seven out of 100 cases, as opposed to what is deemed academically to be statistically significant at five out of 100. So I think that was the essence of the concern.
Mr Levac: Right. From that was the leapfrog to some people proclaiming it an absolute total success, and therefore, "We're going to continue with this and everything's hunky-dory." I wasn't concerned about whether or not the T³ company was giving us falsified information, nor was I concerned about whether or not the academics were taking us down an academic road. I was concerned about the proclamation that it's absolutely rousing and rosy and everything's fine, by people taking that information and misusing it in a way that basically proclaimed it a success. I would encourage and thank you for indicating to us that the study will continue and that there will be more available information and data to give us a better picture of that.
Having said that, is there a relationship between T³ and MTC?
Ms Newman: I'm not aware of that relationship. I'd just like to add a comment, because I don't want to leave a misperception, I think, in terms of the T³ report. We've done eight separate evaluations of Project Turnaround. T³ was only one of those eight evaluations. They all had very favourable results, which led to the conclusion that it was a very promising best-practice young offender program and, in addition, that it's an efficient program because its per diems are 32.8% lower than the publicly operated youth centres. So if I have another opportunity, I'll probably talk about some of the other evaluations.
Mr Levac: That's fair.
Mr Levac: There are also longitudinal studies that indicate this style is not purposeful.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: The OPSEU strike -- the most recent one -- carried with it significant costs for overtime in the Ministry of Corrections for staffing of correctional institutions. Do you have a gross number on that, in terms of cost?
Mr Rabeau: No, I don't. I certainly don't have it here.
Mr Kormos: Chair, I wonder if we could get that, please?
The Vice-Chair: It has been noted.
Mr Kormos: Similarly, I'm told there were debriefing sessions for management who worked during the strike. Some people have indicated that these were two-day sessions held at a number of posh resorts throughout the province. Do you have a cost for those debriefing sessions that occurred, presumably when the strike was resolved, when the negotiations were completed?
Mr Rabeau: I'll ask Deborah to respond to this.
Ms Newman: In terms of the post-strike debriefing sessions, they were held for managers because they had essentially worked 24/7 for eight weeks, separated from their families and locked up in institutions 24 hours a day, seven days a week, under extremely stressful circumstances, and in most cases running the institutions without the benefit of any staff whatsoever. Among our managers, we were experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, clinically. It was an extremely stressful time, as you can appreciate, so we felt it would be responsible for us to have debriefing sessions for them. The debriefing sessions were one-day sessions, and they were not held at any posh resorts.
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Mr Kormos: How many locations were used for the debriefing sessions?
Ms Newman: I don't have that number with me. There were a number of locations across the province, so that all of our managers across the vast geography we have could take advantage of the opportunity to attend those. So it was in multiple locations.
Mr Kormos: Was there an agenda established for these debriefing sessions?
Ms Newman: Yes, they were clinically led, actually.
Mr Kormos: And that agenda was used at all the debriefing sessions? There was uniformity?
Ms Newman: That's right.
Mr Kormos: Do we have that agenda?
Ms Newman: No, I don't. Essentially, the intent was to, through the benefit of some clinical expertise, work through the experience that managers had had for the last eight weeks under particularly traumatic situations.
Mr Kormos: I wonder, Chair, if we can get a copy of the agenda that was utilized for the debriefing. Was there an allotment, a costing, of the debriefing sessions?
Ms Newman: I don't have that figure, in terms of what was spent on the debriefing sessions.
Mr Kormos: I wonder if we could get that too, Chair.
The Vice-Chair: We will request that.
Mr Kormos: Thank you kindly. And that was in addition to the overtime costs of the ministry of corrections?
The Vice-Chair: Yes.
Mr Kormos: You're all civil servants of some stature and some longevity. From time to time in the course of performing your duties, you travel about. From time to time you may have to stay overnight in those places you travel to and you rent hotel rooms and you have meals and other expenses. Are you required to submit receipts for expenditures during the course of travel in the performance of your responsibilities?
Mr Rabeau: Yes, we are.
Mr Kormos: Is there any threshold under which you're not required to submit a receipt, as civil servants?
Mr Rabeau: We submit receipts for everything. The only exception would be a meal allowance.
Mr Kormos: The per diem meal allowance.
Mr Rabeau: The per diem meal allowance is somewhere around $34 a day: six bucks for breakfast, six for lunch and --
Mr Kormos: Oh, I see. Is it a gross meal allowance of $34 a day?
Mr Rabeau: Yes.
Mr Kormos: It isn't broken down. You can spend it all on one meal or you can spread it out over three or four.
Mr Rabeau: Depending on if you're travelling for the day or not.
Mr Kormos: So if you're travelling for a full day, you get a max of $34.
Mr Rabeau: Yes, and if you're not, you just get your allotment for the meal that you're using. The max for breakfast is six bucks and I think it's six bucks for lunch too, or maybe it's eight. I can't remember.
Mr Kormos: So other than the meal allowance, which one doesn't have to specifically account for by way of receipts, are there any other expenditures that you don't have to justify by way of receipts?
Mr Rabeau: I can't think of any others.
Mr Kormos: Even a $1 or $2 expenditure?
Mr Rabeau: A cab or something like that. You need a receipt for cab fare.
Mr Kormos: So for even the most modest amounts?
Mr Rabeau: Yes.
Mr Kormos: So if you were to travel to, let's say, South Africa to an international conference on corrections and your global cost was $15,000 for airfare, hotel rooms and other expenses, would there be any way that you could justify that without submitting receipts?
Mr Rabeau: I don't think so, other than if somebody was paying for it other than the government, which is a possibility.
Mr Kormos: Sure, if you were being hosted by somebody.
Mr Rabeau: Yes, when that happens.
Mr Kormos: Would you have to disclose that if that were the case?
Mr Rabeau: There is a formality in terms of out-of-province travel or out-of-country travel that says an employee must identify the reason and get approval, depending upon where it is. It's either at the deputy level or the ministerial level.
Mr Kormos: And similarly with you, you're a deputy minister, a very senior position. If you were to travel to South Africa for an international conference on corrections and were to bring along some staff people, some subordinates, for support during that, would you have to itemize the costs attributed to them as compared to global cost?
Mr Rabeau: No, they would do their own personal expenses.
Mr Kormos: Yes, but if you were responsible, for instance, for signing off on the hotel rooms, would you have to identify which hotel rooms were theirs and which were yours?
Mr Rabeau: Their hotel room would be part of their expense claim and if I was approving that expense claim, yes, I would have to sign off on it.
Mr Kormos: So you approve your subordinates' expense claims?
Mr Rabeau: Yes.
Mr McDonald: On a point of order, Mr Chair: I think we got off topic a little bit here. We're into individual expenses now. I'm just wondering, with your consideration, if we could go back on topic.
The Vice-Chair: I always encourage the members to discuss the issues that are at hand, but at committee it isn't quite like a debate in the Legislature, and we are looking at the auditor's report, which covers a wide range, so you give a fair amount of latitude. Having said that --
Mr Kormos: I accept Mr McDonald's admonishment there. I feel compelled, after his making that point, to not return to the matter. I just find it intriguing. I was just thinking speculatively about whether or not a deputy minister could go to South Africa, let's say, and spend $15,000 on hotels, meals and travel expenses and not have to submit receipts and whether or not if a deputy minister took along some subordinates, perhaps one or two staffers, he could similarly throw their costs into that junket -- sorry, into that travel -- and not have to justify it with receipts. But I think it's clear, I understand now, that these folks know that if they're going to blow $15,000 -- sorry, spend $15,000 -- of taxpayers' money, they can't just come back and sign off on it; they have to justify it. They know that. They have to submit receipts. I think that's a very good standard. It should be applicable to all of us. Were any of us to travel to South Africa with one or two subordinate staff people and ring up a tab of $15,000, I would think to not submit receipts would raise eyebrows and cause concern among all of us about how that money was actually spent, because it's all about transparency.
The Niagara Detention Centre, down in Niagara region, of course is down in my bailiwick. What's its status right now? You talk about decommissioning. You had a list of institutions decommissioned and those to be decommissioned. Where's the Niagara Detention Centre on that list?
Mr Rabeau: It's open.
Mr Kormos: I know it's open; you bet your boots it is.
Mr Rabeau: The response would be that at this stage it's open and we have no firm date to close it. Again, having to look at our capacity concerns, at this stage we need the building, we need the beds and we need it to be where it is.
Mr Kormos: How do you identify and track institutions in terms of their population and their capacity? Do you identify institutions that are over capacity in terms of population?
Mr Rabeau: We keep a daily count of where we are with all of our institutions, yes.
Mr Kormos: What's your margin of error in terms of overpopulation?
Mr Rabeau: We don't have margins of error. As was mentioned earlier, we take all comers; we don't pull out the rug. We really have to receive anybody who is brought to our door with valid papers, warrants, to let them in. Obviously, we do try to balance our load and occupancy in places that are getting extreme by moving long-term remanded inmates to other facilities where we might have some capacity. It is a very volatile situation, given that folks come from courts at all hours of the day and police can be bringing people 24 hours a day.
Mr Kormos: You have 4,400 per diem on remand, and you say that's a significant shift from a historical situation. Have you identified the cause of this? Where is it coming from?
Mr Rabeau: It's a very complex system. We're just part of the justice system. It really is a reflection of police, police procedures, charging procedures, whether or not folks are being released on their own recognizance. It has to do with the courts and how the courts operate, whether or not there's access to bail hearings. It has to do with the availability of counsel.
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Mr Kormos: Justices of the peace?
Mr Rabeau: It has to do with availability of courtrooms, justices of the peace, a number of factors that impact on this. So there's no one real answer. It's the system itself.
Mr Kormos: One can, I suppose, speculate that there has been a greater tendency to use more caution in releasing people who have been charged, but then one could also speculate that, as you've indicated, there's a problem in terms of availability of courts and justices of the peace. Is there any way you can access information that would give you a handle on whether or not that has been the case?
Mr Rabeau: We're involved as a ministry with the Attorney General and a number of folks who are part of the system, whether it's police forces, judges or JPs. Looking at this issue in a systemic way, we've taken a number of steps, video remand being one of them, in trying to reduce the demand on the courtrooms that allows better access. So it depends on the community and the particular court as to whether or not there's availability of folks. But there are clearly some hard looks at all of those.
Mr Kormos: The chiefs of police of Ontario prepared a study that they delivered to the Ministry of the Attorney General regarding the work standards and work ethics of justices of the peace. Has your ministry had a copy of that report?
Mr Rabeau: I don't recall receiving it myself, but maybe somebody else has. I'm aware of the issue, mind you, but I haven't received --
Mr Kormos: What's your familiarity with the issue?
Mr Rabeau: That some people are concerned about hours of work of people in the system.
Mr Kormos: Isn't that of concern to you in view of what you say is a significant increase in terms of inmates who are there on remand?
Mr Rabeau: Obviously the operation of the system is of concern to us, because we're at the end of it. As I said, we accept all comers.
Mr Kormos: I understand, but you're saying there's a significant increase in the number of inmates you have who are on remand. You're indicating, I infer, that there are new pressures. You talked about these as the challenges that did not exist in 1993. I'm asking how the ministry has responded to it. If it's on the remand side, then what is the ministry doing to -- you say you take all comers. Fair enough. But if it's a new scenario, what is the ministry doing to try to understand the source of that new population?
Mr Rabeau: I think I tried to indicate to you that we're certainly engaged with the AG and others trying to look at the precipitating factors that cause the problem, but the issue is particularly out of our control. In terms of the response to deal with that, it's not something that we have control over.
Mr Kormos: Sure, but you say you're working with the Ministry of the Attorney General trying to determine the factors that give rise to this.
Mr Rabeau: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Where are you in terms of that work with the Ministry of the Attorney General?
Mr Rabeau: I think we've identified a number of them, and they're in fact doing their own work to deal with the problem. I guess you also have to recognize that there are components of that system that are independent of government. The judiciary have their own independence, and that includes JPs. So it is a complex issue.
Mr Kormos: I suppose what's of concern to me is that if people are going to be released in any event, that if they're occupying cells one, two or three days on remand at the cost of -- how much per day?
Mr Rabeau: Our average per diem is around $138.
Mr Kormos: But it seems to me that if they're going to be released at some point in any event --
The Vice-Chair: Last question in this round.
Mr Kormos: -- the ministry should be concerned about that new pressure and the cost attached to it.
Mr Rabeau: We're very concerned, yes.
Mr Kormos: And prepared to do something about it?
Mr Rabeau: I'm not sure what you mean by that.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. Perhaps you can think about that. Are there questions from the government?
Mr Hastings: Briefly, Deputy, unlike perhaps the member for Niagara Centre, who doesn't seem to believe very much that this organization, this ministry, has people who probably require and want and need educational upgrading and training and what have you, which could take many forms, I would like to know what kinds of staff training are going on in the ministry.
In terms of monies, I think it's down a little bit, if I look at 2003 -- your breakout as to what goes to management and what goes to unionized employees in terms of training them for opportunities in the old correctional services ministry. Is leadership part of that? Is there any fostering of mentoring? It's a bit of a bizarre idea, I guess, in a supervised discipline structure. But it's those sorts of things I'm interested in.
Mr Commeford: There are a number of initiatives that we undertake around the area of staff training at different levels. We have an extensive course for individuals who want to come into the service and that they begin with, which is called our Costart program and is the basic training for correctional officers. In that particular training program, individuals who have gone through a selection process attend a residential training program at our facility, and at that point they learn how to be correctional officers in various aspects and phases, both in the adult and young offender systems.
Subsequent to that, we also offer other programs. There is also a basic training course now underway for probation officers at an intake level.
When you get to the managerial area, we have a program known as Leadership 2000, which has a number of modules and prepares people in various areas around creating win-win situations and provides them with the skills and abilities to take back to the job. The idea was to set up a set of circumstances that our managers would operate from. It's through that level that people can progress through the system. There are also a number of courses as they go along.
Along with that, we also provide the opportunity for correctional officers to become what are known as associate trainers. In that particular case, we have COs who have volunteered to become associate trainers either in use of force or in various other aspects. So it allows people to hone their skills and make themselves better prepared for promotion, if they wish to go that way, or better prepared to get into the staff training area at a more regular level.
Mr Hastings: On a per staff training dollar, how would it break down, management versus unionized, if you did it that way? Or is that a fair way of --
Mr Commeford: It's difficult to say in that particular case. For example, the Costart training program is funded by the people who have applied to come and attend the program. I don't have the exact budget for staff training, but it is encapsulated in our whole program, including the trainers and the residential aspect.
Mr Hastings: Do you see this training program being a supplement or an assist to the absenteeism? I see you've got the stats on trying to get it lower and all that. Isn't there a connect between the two?
Mr Commeford: I think there is a connect between the two, and I would go back to the Leadership 2000 aspect, because there are modules included in that which deal with situations that an individual will find in the workplace. When they apply these principles in these modules, it will help to deal with a situation of an individual employee, and if they are able to deal with them, hopefully that will translate into better attendance based on job satisfaction or dealing with whatever issues lead to the performance issues that are being dealt with by the manager.
Mr Hastings: The other issue I wanted to concentrate on briefly is the supply of education to young offenders. Deborah, can you tell us to what extent -- is there a written agreement between the two school boards in Toronto regarding the provision of education under section 19 for young offenders while they are incarcerated, and are you satisfied with how they are performing in terms of helping these young offenders? They are there anyway, so they might as well be getting some education, obviously. How effective is it, where are its deficiencies and what kinds of improvements do you foresee?
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Ms Newman: As I mentioned earlier, we have section 19 agreements in every one of our youth centres with local school boards. We do have signed agreements with the school boards to provide the education programs. In a couple of situations in the province where we haven't been able to effect section 19 agreements, we have other agreements to offer education programs through the Provincial Schools Authority. All of these education programs for young offenders are credit-granting, so young people are in fact being educated, pursuing their education and being granted credits for courses they complete while in custody. So it is, we think, certainly for young people, a very productive use of time, and we're quite happy with the calibre of education programs that are being offered through the school boards.
Mr Hastings: Is there a written agreement, or is it an informal arrangement?
Ms Newman: There are written agreements.
Mr Hastings: Is there any indication in there as to the qualification of teachers providing the education inside the institutions?
Ms Newman: Yes.
Mr Hastings: Do they have to be credentialed, or can they be brought in on a letter of reference, as it used to be called?
Ms Newman: They have to be qualified teachers.
Mr Hastings: For their subject area?
Ms Newman: That's right.
Mr Hastings: OK. Do you have statistics regarding graduation, or is that premature -- that most of them go through and they're in the intermediate phase of a given year and they don't graduate inside; they graduate outside? How does that work?
Ms Newman: We make arrangements with the school boards that young offenders can continue their program of study when they come into custody through contact with their previous school and getting transcripts from their previous school. So they continue the course of study and then there are attempts to reintegrate them into the school system on release. Some do actually complete courses and graduate in custody, but generally they are not with us long enough for that to happen. If they had been working on a course before they come into custody, then they may complete it in custody, but we only have an average length of secure custody of 111 days.
Mr Hastings: Do we have many aboriginals in the system in this situation, and are the agreements through the school boards in the north or through First Nation reserves?
Ms Newman: We have some areas with higher concentrations of aboriginal populations in the province than others. Certainly Kenora and Thunder Bay, for example, have a higher aboriginal population. I'm not certain with whom they have contracted or which school boards specifically, off the top of my head, they have contracted with in those locations.
Mr Hastings: Might I suggest, although it's not part of your mandate, I guess, that the ministry could focus somewhat on the successes -- and there are some, I'm sure -- of young offenders coming out with improved credits? Those could be indices of your program's success. I see in the measuring the zero accidents, zero escapes, which is obviously your central, core business, but I've always believed that in those institutions we should be trying to help those young people as much as possible while they are there, because it could be a break for them; they don't come back, some of them, hopefully.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Hastings. It's my understanding -- but I'll give you an opportunity -- that we have now concluded our questions and comments.
Mr Rabeau: Just a couple of quick updates, if people would like them.
We handed around a framework that Mr Kormos had asked for.
By the way, in terms of our post-strike recovery meetings, we had 46 debriefing sessions across the province and the cost was approximately between $150,000 and $200,000, in that neighbourhood.
In response to your other question around fine defaults, in 2001-02 we had a total of 87 individuals.
Mr Kormos: So it's negligible.
Mr Rabeau: In fact, it's dropped even more than that. People are paying their fines because they want to get their driver's licences.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Deputy Minister and colleagues, for attending the committee hearings today. We will see you, I expect, again on Monday. I remind the committee members that we will meet on Monday, February 17, at 10:30 for a closed session.
Mr Kormos: Why so late, Chair?
The Vice-Chair: There's some consideration for out-of-towners, I guess.
Mr Kormos: Sunday is a good travel day.
The Vice-Chair: Well, that's when I travel. Anyway, we are meeting at 10:30 for a closed session, 11 o'clock for open session, to consider section 3.08, the community services program of the Ministry of Public Safety and Security.
With that, I will call this meeting adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 1346.
CONTENTS
Thursday 13 February 2003
2002 Annual Report, Provincial
Auditor: Section 4.04, institutional services
and young offender operations P-137
Ministry of Public Safety and Security
P-137
Mr John Rabeau, deputy minister, correctional services
Ms Deborah Newman, assistant deputy minister, young offender services
Mr Gary Commeford, acting assistant deputy minister, adult institutional
services
Mr Brian Low, executive lead, alternative service delivery
STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
Chair / Président
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands / Kingston et les îles L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex L)
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex L)
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands / Kingston et les îles L)
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC)
Mr Raminder Gill (Bramalea-Gore-Malton-Springdale PC)
Mr John Hastings (Etobicoke North / -Nord PC)
Ms Shelley Martel (Nickel Belt ND)
Mr AL McDonald (Nipissing PC)
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton PC)
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland PC)
Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre / -Centre ND)
Mr Dave Levac (Brant L)
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes
Mr Erik Peters, Provincial Auditor
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Anne Stokes
Staff / Personnel
Mr Ray McLellan, research officer,
Research and Information Services