Louis Sebert

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we implement and move forward with this, I certainly would be prepared to communicate with a town council, send them a letter as to our plans and targets. Guthrie House is not a minimum-security facility. It simply isn't. As I say - this will not exactly be like Guthrie House, but one of the things that impressed me there, and I'm doubtless it would have impressed others, is that those that end up at Guthrie House have to be highly motivated before they're accepted into the program, and hopefully that would be the same here. So we would have people, admittedly inmates...

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, we would be willing to share with committee. We would be very pleased to appear in front of committee to discuss this matter, our plans. We are working on program design at this time. We will be pleased also to discuss what training we are contemplating for the staff. Yes, we're very happy to appear in front of committee, should they wish. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know what communications there have been with the community, generally, but I know there have been discussions which are going to be ongoing as soon as a week or two from now, again, with the staff. My understanding -- and it's second-hand, of course -- is that the staff is quite enthused about this change in the facility. And just to point out, Guthrie House is not minimum security. Thank you.

Yes, that certainly is possible, that prisoners with different designations would be mixed together, but I think that that wouldn't be such a big problem because you have to be motivated to want to enter the program. Hopefully, we would have motivated people from whatever security designation: minimum, medium, or maximum. Thank you.

Thank you. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but currently, SMCC meets the needs of minimum security inmates. Again, these numbers are available, I just don't happen to have them available in front of me. I don't know how near capacity the facility is. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, in my long experience, not too many ask for more time. I understand what you're saying. I mean we couldn't keep people in there who weren't serving a sentence. Obviously, they would have to avail themselves of other programs.

Thank you. I think those of us who had the opportunity of visiting Guthrie House were impressed by what they are doing there. We are hopeful that the same sort of therapeutic model would also work here. I don't believe, and perhaps Mr. Goldney can help me with this, I am not aware of any smaller jurisdictions that have attempted this model, but there may be other places across Canada that have. Thank you.

My understanding, subject to being corrected here, is that there could be minimum people in the program. However, many of the minimum security inmates are serving very short sentences and that's not the sort of sentence that would fit into this type of program. Perhaps Mr. Goldney can add or correct that if I've made an error. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. Certainly, the enhancements that we have spoken of would allow a higher risk of offender in there, but I don't think we would be planning to have remands in there. Perhaps Mr. Goldney could elaborate on that. Thank you.

Yes. The fence is needed to turn the facility into a medium-custody facility, just as Guthrie House is in British Columbia, which is part of the Nanaimo Correctional Centre. This is a necessary change if we wish to move to this model. As I say, we are optimistic about moving to the model, optimistic that we will get results. Thank you.