SNUD Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, February 6, 2002

¹

1535

The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.))

Mr. Michael McLaughlin (Deputy Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada)

¹

1540

The Chair

Mr. Randy White (Langley--Abbotsford, Canadian Alliance)

¹

1545

Mr. David Brittain (Principal, RCMP & Solicitor General, Audit Operations Branch, Office of the Auditor General of Canada)

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

Mr. Randy White

Mr. David Brittain

Mr. Randy White

Mr. David Brittain

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1550

Mr. Randy White

The Chair

Ms. Fry

¹

1555

Mr. David Brittain

Ms. Fry

Mr. David Brittain

The Chair

Ms. Fry

Mr. David Brittain

Ms. Fry

Mr. David Brittain

º

1600

Ms. Hedy Fry

Mr. David Brittain

Ms. Hedy Fry

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

Mr. David Brittain

Ms. Libby Davies

º

1605

Mr. David Brittain

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

Ms. Allard

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

Ms. Allard

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

º

1610

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

Ms. Allard

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

Mr. David Brittain

The Chair

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, Canadian Alliance)

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1615

Mr. David Brittain

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1620

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

Mr. David Brittain

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough--Rouge River, Lib.)

Mr. David Brittain

Mr. Derek Lee

Mr. David Brittain

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1625

Mr. Derek Lee

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

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1630

The Chair

Mr. David Brittain

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

º

1635

The Chair

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

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1640

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. David Brittain

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. David Brittain

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1645

The Chair

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour--Petitcodiac, Lib.)

Mr. David Brittain

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc

Mr. David Brittain

The Chair

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc

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1650

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

Mr. David Brittain

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc

Mr. David Brittain

Mr. LeBlanc

Mr. David Brittain

Mr. LeBlanc

The Chair

Mr. Randy White

º

1655

The Chair

Mr. Randy White

Mr. David Brittain

The Chair

»

1700

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

Mr. David Brittain

»

1705

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

Mr. David Brittain

»

1710

The Chair

Mr. David Brittain

The Chair

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

Mr. David Brittain

The Chair

Mr. David Brittain

The Chair

Ms. Fry

»

1715

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

»

1720

Mr. David Brittain

Ms. Fry

Mr. David Brittain

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee

»

1725

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

Mr. David Brittain

The Chair

Ms. Allard

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

Ms. Allard

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

»

1730

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

Mr. Michael McLaughlin

The Chair

»

1735

Ms. Fry

The Chair

The Clerk of the Committee

The Chair

Ms. Allard

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

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CANADA

Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs

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NUMBER 020

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

Wednesday, February 6, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[English]

    The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order.

    As most of you know, pursuant to the order of reference adopted by the House of Commons on Thursday, May 17, consideration of the factors underlying or relating to the non-medical use of drugs, we are very pleased to have with us today as witnesses, from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, Michael McLaughlin, the Deputy Auditor General, and David Brittain, who was the principal on the chapter we're most concerned with.

    Gentlemen, we're very pleased that you were able to come before us on very short notice, and we're pleased that last year you chose to focus on an area we were all very interested in. Thank you very much.

    I think you have an opening statement.

     Mr. Michael McLaughlin (Deputy Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to discuss chapter 11 of our 2001 report, entitled “Illicit Drugs: The Federal Government's Role”. With me today, as you've noticed, is David Brittain, who was the principal responsible for the audit.

    Illicit drugs are an important issue for Canada because of their significant negative impact. The economic cost is estimated at $5 billion annually, including health care, lost productivity, property crime, and enforcement. Each year more than 50,000 individuals are charged with drug offences, resulting in more than 400,000 court appearances.

    Finally, the sale of illicit drugs is a major source of funding for organized crime and for terrorism. This is an issue that crosses all three levels of government in Canada. Exhibit 11.3 on page 9 of the chapter shows the involvement of those different levels and their efforts to reduce both the harm and availability of illicit drugs.

    Our focus in this audit was the federal government's role in addressing illicit drugs. The audit set out to answer three questions: Is there adequate information on the extent of the problem and for the federal government to manage its activities? Is there comprehensive public reporting on objectives and results? Is there clear leadership and coordination?

[Translation]

    Information on the extent of the drug problem is either restricted, outdated or unavailable. This also applies to general basic information and management information.

    For instance, let us look at the statistics on how the act is applied. Table 11.2, on page 4, shows the number of persons accused of offences in Canada according to the type of drug. However, there is no national data on convictions because three provinces, British Columbia, Manitoba and New Brunswick are not included. Another problem is that charges are broken down according to substances and activities, such as possession, trafficking, importing and cultivating, whereas data on convictions is only broken down acoording to whether possession or trafficking is involved.

    General information is also scanty. The increasing influence of organized crime, the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, the new popularity of drugs like ecstasy and the increased production of marijuana in British Columbia are all factors which have recently aggravated the problem of illegal drugs. The last national study on the economic cost was done in 1996, and costs were assessed based on 1992 data. The study did not include the cost of crimes against property which are estimated at several billion dollars a year. Likewise, the last national investigation into drug consumption was carried out in 1994 and no other investigation is planned for the near future.

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[English]

    There is no complete and consolidated information on what federal departments are spending on addressing illicit drugs, either reducing supply or reducing demand. This is basic information essential to managing any program. Our own calculations estimated expenditures in the area of $450 million, with 95% going to enforcement. Exhibit 11.6 on pages 16 and 17 show the figures our office put together. There is no data on expenditure trends. For example, there is no monitoring of whether expenditures on demand reduction versus supply reduction are changing over time. This is essential since achieving a balanced effort between supply reduction and demand reduction is the heart of Canada's drug strategy. There are also no data on expenditures by provinces or municipalities, yet they are essential players in the strategy.

[Translation]

    To what extent does Canada publish its efforts in the fight against drugs? The answer is: not very much. Departmental reports on performance are short on information about results. For instance, the Report on the RCMP's performance only gives minimal information about federal activities in combatting illegal drugs. Likewise, the Justice Department Performance Report does not show to what extent this department is carrying out its important role, which is to prosecute drug cases.

    Now, the real weakness is the lack of detailed public reports from the government showing parliamentarians and Canadians how Canada is dealing with the problem federally, or nationally. The Canadian Anti-drug Strategy should have clear and measurable goals so that the overall results can be disclosed.

[English]

    The third and final question of the audit asked if there is clear leadership, and is there coordination among all the players.

    For the past 15 years Canada's drug strategy has emphasized the need for a balanced approach. To achieve this balance requires the right profile, leadership, and a coordinated effort of all players. It needs a structure that can lead and coordinate, set common objectives, report publicly on results, and respond quickly to emerging issues.

    Other countries, such as Great Britain, Australia, and the U.S., have given the issue higher profile. They have appointed champions, set measurable goals, and reported publicly on the progress each year. In Canada, leadership and coordination among federal departments and with the other two levels of government need to be improved.

    If Canada is to reduce the impact of illicit drugs, it will need to address weaknesses in leadership and coordination. Canada requires stronger leadership and more consistent coordination to set a strategy, common objectives, and collective performance expectations. It must be able to respond quickly to emerging concerns about illicit drug use and the illicit drug trade. This committee's review and recommendations regarding the present structure for leadership and for coordination of federal efforts would help to resolve these issues. The mechanisms for coordination with the provinces and municipalities also need review, since they cross three levels of governments.

    Madam Chair, that concludes my opening statement. We would be pleased to answer any questions.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. McLaughlin.

    It's always a good idea to butter up members of Parliament on a committee by identifying the important role we play before you turn to questions. Thank you for that.

    Mr. White.

    Mr. Randy White (Langley--Abbotsford, Canadian Alliance): Thank you for your bright outlook, Mr. McLaughlin. I can't wait to see if it can get any worse.

    Your report doesn't surprise me a bit, I think it's pretty accurate to say. I have two or three questions, though. On one hand we have reporting that's not going well, information that's not good, and leadership that's not coordinated or is basically non-existent. On the other hand we have fairly well-coordinated, well-funded organized crime--that's why they're called “organized” . They work in cash--no tax. They have leadership. Every gang has a certain marching order. It's all paramilitary, actually.

    I would ask Mr. Brittain, who did this study, how he would compare one hand with the other: the lack of coordination and leadership--and I'm not saying it's the federal government, it's everywhere--versus organized crime groups that have lots of money, lots of technology, lots of time, and fairly good leadership. What chance of success would there be without legalizing all drugs?

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    Mr. David Brittain (Principal, RCMP & Solicitor General, Audit Operations Branch, Office of the Auditor General of Canada): That's a difficult question for the Office of the Auditor General to answer.

    We didn't do the audit looking at what the policies should be because this is truly a question that comes from Parliament. What we did on the audit was to stand back and say all right, this is the policy, so how well is it working? Is it being implemented? What's known? The answer comes back that not very much is known.

    I'm a little reluctant, Mike. We're looking at each other about answering a question on that particular slant.

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : Perhaps I could offer something in terms of a response.

    In doing an audit such as this, obviously we don't have the capacity to go and see what organized crime or the other hand is doing; it's certainly not within our remit. But we saw that there are a number of separate agencies within the federal government structure that don't have a clear statement of what they're trying to achieve, in this broader strategy of a balanced approach to the use of illicit drugs.

    In order for them to be effective or have some understanding.... When we did the comparison to the U.S., the U.K., and the Australian situations, we saw there was a clear statement of what they were trying to accomplish, so the resources that were available could be focused on the results they were trying to achieve.

    In Canada we don't have the information, the clear objectives, or the reporting, so managing this particular process is very difficult. Each of the organizations has sub-objectives, but when it comes to the actual reports they provide to parliamentarians on what they're doing on their particular piece of the pie, they're not always clear.

    Mr. Randy White: You state that we spend about $450 million a year.

    Mr. David Brittain : We had to compile that ourselves; it did not come from the various entities.

    Mr. Randy White: I'll take that as a number. I can appreciate that nobody gave it to you, because they didn't have it to give. Given that we spend $450 million a year on this, and goodness knows what kinds of dollars at municipal levels--

    Mr. David Brittain: They're most likely comparable.

    Mr. Randy White: It could even be more. In fact, I think Vancouver alone spends more than that, and provincial levels as well.

    Outline for me, if we had $1 billion, how you would provide leadership and information in reporting, from an auditor's point of view--I'll put a criterion in here--without creating a large bureaucracy, so this really doesn't affect the street level.

    Mr. David Brittain : Let me back it into what really isn't there.

    We have Canada's drug strategy, which talks about balance, yet no one knows what balance means. Does it mean equal dollars on both? Let me follow this hypothetical thing further: if it means equal dollars on both, then the question we would have for the federal government is how much effort are you putting into demand reduction? And the federal government doesn't have an answer. So we put together our own, came up with it. And as you can see, 95% of the federal government's efforts are on enforcement. Is this the same as it was five years ago, ten years ago? Is the federal government shifting? No one knows.

    Again, hypothetically, if the goal is equal spending, then isn't there an onus on the federal government to know what's being spent by the provinces and municipalities? If you don't know what's being spent by them, how can you measure whether we're better off this year than we were ten years ago?

    On the whole question of research, when you take a look at what is quoted in the drug strategy you will see that they use Ontario data because there isn't any federal data. There hasn't been any national drug survey since 1994. The cost estimations of the impact of this were based on a 1996 study done using 1992 data. That's ten years ago. Ecstasy didn't exist. There's been a rapid rise in hepatitis C and HIV, and those are very expensive diseases. So you have to look at where you put your dollars. Do you put your dollars into enforcement, or down at the other end into treatment, or do you put them down on the health care side of it for HIV?

    On HIV, I'll pick another small example. The problem with reserves and with the aboriginal population is there are no studies, no data, no measurable targets. When we ask the committee members if they should be reporting on this thing, what their responsibilities are, they don't really want to report on it. They kind of like things the way they are. I guess this may be said quite openly.

    The fact that there was no public parliamentary reporting on what the feds had spent or what had been spent by someone else goes back to what Mike said earlier: if you don't know what's being spent, how can you measure where it's going? And I'm sure.... In all of the people I've seen appear before you, there's no silver bullet. It's going to take a whole range of programs. It's going to take effort on the enforcement side, on awareness and all those other aspects. And if somebody doesn't particularly know, how can it be managed?

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    Mr. Randy White: Thank you, Madam Chair.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. White.

    Just before I turn to Doctor Fry, here's a reminder to all our visitors in the audience and to all members around this table, looking at nobody in particular. If everyone could take a moment to turn off their cell phones, that would be helpful.

    And now Dr. Fry.

    Ms. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.): I just want to ask a couple of questions.

    I think we all agree that there is a paucity of data, information, reporting, etc., and I think you've identified that. In this process of identification, did you do any sort of breakdown as to why? Was it merely because there wasn't the will to do so? Was there no access to some of this information because it wasn't collected in one place? Was access the problem, or was it merely the lack of the desire to do the reporting?

    This was a big question I wanted to ask. As you say, we turned to Ontario data. Was this because other provinces weren't collecting, or was it because they were collecting in places that were not accessible? Was it that there wasn't any one place where you could collect the data? I would like you to respond to this. And if you've done this breakdown, are there any suggestions you have for us to be able to gather data and information and to have adequate reporting? Is there some suggestion you have on the way in which this could occur, given, as you've identified, that it's coming from three separate jurisdictions and three levels of government?

    You pinpointed the most important thing: if you don't have information, data, and reporting, you obviously cannot set up good strategies to deal with the problems because you don't know what you're dealing with. It's kind of like what Yogi Berra said. The bottom line is if you don't know where you're going, how are you going to know when you get there?

    So objectives are really important as well, but you can't set objectives unless you have data. We're in a catch-22 here. How do you suggest we break this catch-22? And would you answer the issue with regard to access to the problem and to getting that information--what are those barriers?

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    Mr. David Brittain : I think our reaction is that we can get at this data. It took one of my team members, working for four months, to put together that estimation, and that was not full-time.

    Professor Eric Single, who I think appeared before you here, did the 1996 data.

    The enforcement statistics are relatively easy to come by. You get anomalies, that I would put down to classic weak management. I think we say in here you can get national charge data in Canada, but you can't get national conviction data because three provinces don't contribute. My question is, why? I don't really know the answer to that. I mean, I've heard phrases like the systems aren't compatible, it isn't money, and so on. It would be something to ask directly of the people in British Columbia, for example, why they don't provide that data to StatsCan's Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.

    I personally think the data can be there. In terms of how much has been spent, that's easy information to come by. How much do provincial courts cost? Again, Eric Single did that reasonably well in 1996. He didn't have property crimes in there, but, again, those are easy to estimate in terms of ballpark figures.

    Those types of studies are easy to do. The other type of study, which is when you try a program to find out, does it work, is much more difficult. Information for those takes much longer to do.

    What I think we've said in here is: How much have you spent? What have you spent it on? What are the trends? There's no reason why that can't be produced easily, with effort and will.

    Ms. Hedy Fry: Based on the 1992 statistical data collected, did you say that 95% was spent on enforcement?

    Mr. David Brittain : No. Those two numbers aren't put together at all. If you take a look at our example on page 18, I think it is, the data that we used was fiscal year 1999-2000. So we went to all the federal government departments and said, “How much are you spending on demand reduction and how much are you spending on supply reduction?” That's where that 400....

    Sorry. My apology.

    The Chair: It's in the Auditor General's report, if everyone's looking for it.

    Ms. Hedy Fry: I was just asking because I have some data. I have some 1992 data coming out of the Canadian Public Health Association in which they suggested that 73% is spent on law enforcement; 16% is spent on health care; 8% is spent on prevention and research; then there is about 3% on other direct costs

    So while you're right, it is a large amount, I don't have that 95% in my data. I have 73%.

    Mr. David Brittain : The data you're looking at there in 1992 is both drugs and alcohol. It's not split.

    Ms. Hedy Fry: Yes. Drugs, alcohol, and tobacco.

    Mr. David Brittain : It's not split.

    The data that you have in our report is federal government only--

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    Ms. Hedy Fry: Yes. Okay.

    Mr. David Brittain : --and it's1999. And what that shows is that the majority of expenditures are on enforcement.

    To be fair about that, having decided in the Criminal Code that if you possess, if you traffic, you will be arrested, you will go to court, you will be imprisoned, those costs come along. In other words, one of the intriguing things in here is to say that having decided to go that way then the cost of that side of corrections is logical. It follows along.

    Ms. Hedy Fry: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Ms. Davies.

    Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you very much.

    First of all, I apologize that I wasn't here to hear your presentation. I had run into another committee. But just hearing the responses that you've given to questions and reading over your brief and earlier the auditor's report, I wanted to say that I think for a lot of us who have been involved in this issue, reading the report when it came out, that chapter 11, was like seeing some light at the end of tunnel. At least some critical questions were being asked. So I wanted to say that I very much appreciated that the work was done and that you're here today before the committee.

    One of the issues you raise is that there's really not adequate information that shows us whether or not a strategy of demand reduction versus supply reduction is effective or not and what the balance between the two is. I think that's a very real question. And I can tell you about the experience from the street in my community in east Vancouver, here it's happening not only at the federal level but at a local level, where thousands of police hours are spent in chasing down really low-level dealers and going through the court system, whether or not we end up with a conviction. We certainly haven't solved the problem. It's an utter waste of resources.

    So I would agree that the experience I've had is that enforcement really has not proven to be a solution in terms of dealing with what is primarily a health issue. In fact, in Vancouver we have a saying now, something like the greatest harm is the illegality of the drugs themselves in terms of people going into a criminal lifestyle, going to the judicial system, and it being a never-ending revolving door.

    The question I have is about the reference you make to other countries where there has been a higher profile. There has been a different kind of leadership. You mentioned Great Britain, Australia, and the U.S. I wondered in your work whether or not you had actually been able to review what some of those countries had done. For example, we've learned that what they're doing in Europe has been far more effective in reducing crime, in actually getting people into treatment. There are some very good statistics coming out. So I don't know if you were able to look at that as an alternative in terms of answering some of these questions that you pose in your report.

    Mr. David Brittain : Again, I get caught in the same sort of area as in that initial question by Mr. White about how we feel about the policy, in that we stayed away from what the policy was. We raise a bleak question. I was thinking--and this may help and perhaps I should have said it to Mr. White earlier--but the drug strategy that was prepared by the federal government says “balance”, and yet there's very little expenditure by the federal government on demand reduction. Do they have a responsibility for that? What is their responsibility? What is their leadership on that side?

    In terms of your specific question, what those other countries did is they appointed a drug champion, so it was given a high profile. The Americans have done this, both the presidents have, and Prime Minister Blair has. The Australians have a committee made up of ministers of health and some ministers of justice, so it's at a very ministerial level and it includes each of the states, the one territory and the Commonwealth government. And it meets, it sets directions, it sets measurable goals, it reports publicly on what it's doing. That's why we were saying that even if we divorce ourselves from the Australian policy on criminalization, legalization, and the rest, at least the Australians know where they're trying to go, they know what they're trying to spend, and they know what it's achieving. Here we don't know any of those.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Just to follow that up, it seems to me that also one of the major issues we're facing is that there are often conflicting paths or directions between departments. So you have the justice department saying one thing, you have Health Canada saying something else, and you have Solicitor General, then you have.... I think that's a huge issue as well. The buck keeps passing around and the rules keep changing and so on.

º  (1605)  

    Mr. David Brittain : Definitely, and as to how they coordinate that activity, I've had both Corrections and the RCMP, so over the years, in dealing with different forces, you run into the different philosophies. I'm sure that what one might do downtown--

    Ms. Libby Davies: Downtown east side.

    Mr. David Brittain: --in your riding may be treated differently than in downtown St. John's. So on that whole question of putting a balance across the country, there isn't data.

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : I think I should add, in terms of the different ministries having different roles and responsibilities, that's part of the natural checks and balances that exist within the federal government. It's not sort of black and white that everyone is pursuing the same sub-objective. So you have a number of sub-objectives.

    The question we have is that, as it rises to the higher level of the overall goal to be achieved, that we can't find. The coordination mechanism that should exist between the role that the federal government is expected to play versus the provinces, versus the municipalities, to make best use of taxpayers' dollars in combating this problem isn't clear.

    We've seen other examples, and certainly just trying to address the issue of collecting health statistics has required that the health ministers at the provincial and the federal level get together to be able to do this. We haven't seen that kind of mechanism in place between the provinces, Canada, and the municipalities to address illicit drug use. That's critical to having an understanding, because you have different responsibilities to be played.

[Translation]

    The Chair: Ms. Allard.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard (Laval-Est, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Thank you for coming here today, and let me congratulate you for the work you have done.

    Let me ask you a question. We witnessed the terrorist attacks in September. Do you think we can presume that these events, as they have given rise to new laws and new measures to control entry into the country, will have any impact on the supply of drugs?

    Do you think that that could help us or, from what you see, is this scourge too endemic for those things to have any effect?

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : That is a good question, because we don't know exactly what the department intends to do to stop drugs at the border. I think that this has to do with the borders.

    There are also other questions: what drugs are produced in Canada? Which ones are used in Canada? Which ones are imported? What is the impact of drug exports? We have no data for answering such questions, but these questions are important. And from our point of view, it is important for the government to have a fairly clear idea of these problems. Once again, this has to involve data. Thus, it is difficult to know whether applying new measures will have any effect.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: Was this the first time that you looked into the issue of managing the illegal drug problem in Canada?

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : Yes, that is correct.

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    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: I wonder why this particular moment was chosen to do this? In fact, we have had a national drug strategy since 1992. Why should this rather eloquent report be produced at this very time?

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : I can explain how this audit led us to that. This began by an audit of the role of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP, in drug interdiction. After a few hours of work, we found it hard to tell whether the force was able to do its work, and whether the extent of the problem and the federal government's objectives were poorly understood. Consultations with experts showed that the entire context has to be reviewed: the laws adopted by the government for prohibiting drugs, strategies and many other things like that. Thus we thought that we should do a more in-depth study, which we did.

    We observed that there was a basic problem with information and that it is very difficult for agencies to apply the national strategy without the necessary data.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: This may be the most important thing that you have told us today, namely that there is a shortage of information.

    There's also the idea of reducing demand. You noted that there is a demand for drugs in Canada. Would you say that the need to restrain supply is as important as the need to reduce demand, or do you think that it is more important to reduce demand than to restrict supply?

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : Madam Chair, it is difficult for us to tell which is more important. It is up to the government to decide that. As far as we are concerned, the decision that was made was not clear. They spoke of a balance between both factors, both we do not know what that balance is. No one can explain what they mean by balance or tell us what efforts we must make to reach it.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Mr. Brittain.

[English]

    Mr. David Brittain : I'd like to add a couple of points to what Mr. McLaughlin said. The RCMP has two roles: provincial and municipal policing but also federal policing. We had started a series of audits than ran through federal policing. Two years ago we looked at forensic labs: the fingerprint service and that sort of thing. This is the next step in their federal thing, and when we started it, we were going to concentrate just on the RCMP's enforcement side. That's what led us into that thing.

    The other thing you were asking is, what do I think is the most important part of this audit? I think there are three messages. The small message is that there is a lack of information, information we think can be produced without a lot of effort. A second small message is that this is not being reported to Parliament, and when it isn't reported, nobody gets to monitor. But the main message comes through in the third thing. We're saying that there is a lack of leadership here. That leadership...there's a profile question, which is something at perhaps the parliamentary level. But at the federal level, the leadership amongst federal departments is not good enough. It just isn't working. That leadership mechanism isn't there, the coordination amongst the federal departments and with the provinces and municipalities in terms of information, direction, policy, and the rest of it.

    To me, that's the most important message we bring to the committee. Something we would hope--and maybe I have stolen Mike's final lines--is that this audit will fit in and raise some questions your committee will ultimately resolve, things we, the Office of the Auditor General, can't resolve.

    The Chair: You have a last word?

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : Yes. I'd just like to add one nuance to this.

    In this audit, when we are indicating that there is a lack of coordination and a lack of leadership, we are not commenting on each of the departments that are involved here. They are all looking at the resources they are spending, and they're trying to achieve the goal that they have for themselves, be it interdiction, be it rehabilitation, be it reinstitution into the community. When one tries to look at what the overall effect is, you can't do it because there's nobody who can say, take this money and move it over here. There is no person who has that level of leadership, and what's causing us concern is that this is missing.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Sorenson.

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

    I want to thank both of you for coming today. I apologize for missing most of your presentation. It is the anniversary of our Queen, and I had a presentation to make. It took a little longer than we thought it would.

    My concern, obviously, is the illicit drug problem in Canada. We've been saying that on this committee since we started last fall.

    I want to zero in on Correctional Service  Canada. What investigations were done into the degree of illicit drugs within prisons? In the report it mentions that some measures are being used to control the supply of illicit drugs in prison. We know that there are programs for those individuals who are serving sentences so that they can get off drugs or reduce the amount of drugs used.

    In your report it says that CSC estimates that about 7% of its offenders are associated with organized crime. The wording of that sentence would say that 7% of those people who are incarcerated or are offenders are involved with organized crime. But it does not say that 7% of the supply end comes from organized crime. I think every statistic you would find would say that it's huge. So, obviously, our supply problem is because of a problem with organized crime.

    That is background to my question, and my question is: out of the 66% of offenders entering the federal correction system....

    We as a committee spent time travelling to Matsqui Prison, where there was a huge drug problem. In my own riding there is a prison, Drumheller, where the problem is so evident it's a disaster. If we can't keep it out of our prisons, we're never going to be expected to keep it out of society as a whole. So the whole idea of supply becomes primary. We need to be able to cut the supply in our prisons before we even try to worry about society.

    Are enough money and resources being directed toward the proper channels in Correctional Service Canada, or are we just depending on the drug reduction programs to solve our problem in prisons?

º  (1615)  

    Mr. David Brittain : My answer to that would not be with respect to this audit at all. It would be respect to other audits I've done in the Correctional Service of Canada. So I can answer on that basis.

    The 7% you're talking about simply says that, of the offender population inside, 7% were sentenced having to do directly with organized crime. On the questions of drugs inside, like you, I've spent a lot of time in prisons in this country and in the U.S.

º  (1620)  

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: Glad you're out? You're a success story, then.

    Mr. David Brittain : Your first and only trip to Drumheller.

    Yes, it is a sad thing, because I think the number they use is that 70% of the people in there are abusers of substances, be it alcohol or, if it isn't alcohol, tobacco. There's more tobacco smoking per square foot in prisons than anywhere else.

    The thing with Canadian prisons is that when you go in and look at Drumheller, they work in the same places, they eat in the same places, and they use the same sort of recreation. The only facilities I saw that impressed me were the Dutch ones.

    The Dutch have a prison system where the wings are totally separate, and they don't use common kitchens. They bring in airline-type meals, and they're about three times as expensive as the meals in prisons. They're heated in carts so that the prisoners in this wing don't meet with the ones in that other wing. The people in this wing don't work together. The guards don't criss-cross. The idea is that if you want to stay in the drug-free wing, you have to be tested daily.

    You get pressure where, with drugs in prisons, perhaps--and I say this facetiously--we should supply marijuana. That would get rid of prison riots completely; I don't know how many rioters they've seen on marijuana. But it stays in the blood, so it's very easy to pick up. So they stay away from that, and they go to other drugs. They go to harder ones, ones that come out of their system.

    Take family visits. Drugs come in through family visits. You could stop that by completely stopping family visits. You get caught in a catch-22.

    The only solution I've seen personally that impressed me, not being an expert in this, was the Dutch one. It said if you wanted to stay drug-free, you could stay in this wing, and it was a nicer place to be.

    You get people inside who, if your wife's coming to visit you next week, will say, tell her to bring some drugs in. You say, I don't want to, and they show you pictures of your children and say something might happen to them, so tell her to bring some drugs in. People have a lot of time in there.

    The concept is--and then you come around to the classic question of prisons--is prison retribution, is it punishment, or is it rehabilitation? Depending on the philosophical slot that you come at things from, that leads you to different questions and different results.

    I hope that helps.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Sorenson and Mr. Brittain.

    Mr. Lee.

    Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough--Rouge River, Lib.): Thank you.

    To pick up on your valuable report, on pages 16 and 17 you've tried to estimate the federal expenditures in these various envelopes: supply reduction and demand reduction. Oddly, almost half of what the government spends on supply reduction you record as being spent within Corrections Canada. Is that because a lot of the people who are in the business of supplying drugs are in the prisons?

    Let's just call that “supply reduction”.

    Mr. David Brittain : What I've said and have tried to say before is that with the enforcement approach, deciding to go full enforcement produces a set of downstream costs.

    Mr. Derek Lee: It's the end piece of the enforcement part; that's fine.

    Just to reinforce Mr. Sorenson's concern about the conspicuous level of illegal drug use in our prisons.... On the same chart, apparently the largest piece of the government's demand reduction expenditure is also in the prisons. That, perhaps, is misleading. I'm sure that's not because it's the largest source of demand in the country, but it's curious that the largest piece of the federal expenditure should be there.

    I wanted to ask about how...if we have to improve our data collection in the federal government, are there particular areas where we should prioritize our data collection? Or are you just going to say it should be across the board--we're weak everywhere, so start anywhere, finish anywhere, but please do something.

    Mr. David Brittain : The enforcement side has better statistics. There are a couple of things that should be changed quickly. I don't know, but I expect that it's a cooperative arrangement where British Columbia, Manitoba, and New Brunswick have just somehow come on board so you can take charge data and relate it to conviction data.

    Second, I think these numbers here will give you a pretty good guess for what the enforcement side is. On what the federal government is spending on the other side, the only program that's got that coming is the one from Heritage Canada, on homelessness, which will have some more expenditures. If we'd used it...[Inaudible—Editor]...it would have been higher.

    As to the provinces, depending on whether you want accounting-type information or simply management information, I suspect that with Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia you could come up with pretty good ideas of what the provinces are spending in terms of the demand reduction side. The hardest amount of information to get going is whether this approach is more effective than others. Of course, that's long term.

    I guess I'm saying that I don't look at this as hopeless. I think it's doable. I think it could have been done. I think our tone in here is almost why hasn't it been done?

º  (1625)  

    Mr. Derek Lee: Because of the absence of benchmarks, clear policy goals, execution, and all of that, I quickly became lost as we began to look at the national drug strategy. Some of my colleagues around the table may feel the same way.

    My first intellectual resort was to consider the possibility that all we're really doing is spending the money because we have to spend the money. We just throw it into the envelopes and spend it because we're seen as having to spend it. It's a little like asking the soldiers to go over the top out of the trenches during the First World War. You have to send some boys over from time to time to keep the thing in business. You spend the money, you spend the resources, and you--well, we don't even keep the statistics, but that was my first resort.

    Then I tried to become a bit more optimistic and think that we could walk through this and come out with something, some goals, at least from the committee's point of view and from Parliament's point of view. Are there areas in this envelope, as complex as it is, where you think the committee could maximize its efforts, given that there is no magic bullet and given that we're only going to be at this for another nine or ten months?

    In your work as auditors, have you seen effectiveness in spending at other levels of government, in other places, or perhaps within the federal government itself, ones you could point us to as useful areas to spend our time to look at before we make recommendations?

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : Madam Chair, I think the first part of the question is really about the key of understanding what it is you want to achieve, and if you don't have an understanding of what it is you want to achieve we're into a situation where there's a lot of money being directed at symptoms and not necessarily outcomes and trying to go at that particular end of the equation.

    What we have seen in the audit completed was that when we looked at other jurisdictions, they were trying to get their head around what it was in terms of the total issue that they were trying to deal with in terms of what outcomes they were trying to pursue. They looked at what were they trying to gain by criminalization of certain types of drugs versus other types of measures to be preventive in terms of those drugs and trying to set policies around that. And they were then looking to see what the result was, did this have a beneficial effect or was there some other effect that went along?

    What we're saying is that there's really a lack of clarity and then a lack of research done on what in fact is happening. When we have to go back to 1992 data or 1996 studies in order to talk about 2002 problems, we find that in a rapidly evolving field like this it is just not good enough. There has to be somebody who's looking at it from today's situation.

    When we look at some of the conventions that Canada has signed on to such as the production of precursors and we haven't really even taken a look to say what are we going to do to deal with this particular question and we know they're being produced in Canada but we're not dealing with it.... These are things that lead into new types of drugs, more powerful or different types of drugs, that are going to be more difficult to deal with. You have to get to these underlying problems and then try to deal with the underlying problems.

    So the information has to be there, but there are critical things that can be done. We think that the information in terms of activity is relatively straightforward to capture. The next level, the evaluative information, requires a degree of study and expertise to be put on it. But what we could find by talking at the federal level was this work was not being done. That work has to be done; somebody has to be put in charge of doing it and given that authority.

º  (1630)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lee.

    I have a comment to make before I turn to Mr. LeBlanc.

    Listening to your last comments, the Auditor General's office would be somewhat happier if we at least had basic information. You'd be happier if there was more spent on prevention of drug use or on demand reduction, or if there was a way to calculate what the provinces were spending and what the municipalities were spending in both supply reduction and demand reduction. But in and of itself showing that we said we'd have a balanced approach and it was 50-50 and the numbers all lined up, would that make you any happier? Or would you then be in a position to at least evaluate if what we're spending is achieving the goals?

    Mr. David Brittain : I'd agree with your first statement.

    In regard to the second statement, I would just offer a nuance. I don't know whether we would be happier if you were spending more money on demand reduction, but I think we would be happier if you knew what you were trying to do.

    In other words, there is no plan. If you walk through those departments, if you walk through the senior committee, which is the ADM's steering committee on substance abuse, and ask, what is your plan, they don't have one. Are you going to put more money down the enforcement side? Are you going to put more money down the other side? How much money do you put down that side? Do you see it as your role, or do you see it as the provincial role? It would be interesting, and certainly in this audit it was very hard to get a sense of where they were going.

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : If I could add, Madam Chair, to your question, I am concerned from the point of view of what is the office worried about. We've been asked by Parliament to give information as to whether departments are managing their programs with due regard to economy, efficiency, and with procedures to measure effectiveness.

    When we look at this particular problem we cannot conclude, we cannot give Parliament the advice, that it is economical, efficient, and that they know whether they're effective. In fact, we know that they don't know whether they're effective. So it becomes very difficult with this lack of information.

    Regardless of what “balance” is described as, for us to be able to come back and give you some comfort that what is being told to you in departmental reports in fact is meeting the goal that's been set out and is credible, we cannot do that unless the information is there, and right now it's not.

    The Chair: Let's say that the steering committee said we're going to spend 90% on supply reduction, we're going to spend 10% on demand reduction, and the provinces are going to pick up the slack on all the rest of the demand reduction and do a little supply reduction. Would that be enough for you, that they know what they're doing; that whether they spend less or more, they have a clear goal of spending 90% on one and 10% on the other; that the provinces are responsible for delivering the rest; and that together it will work out to 50-50?

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : In response to that, Madam Chair, I'm not sure. It's hard to say that the office would be satisfied.

    What we would be concerned about is what mechanisms are in place to demonstrate the effectiveness of that particular spending, are the provinces and the municipalities in fact working cooperatively and jointly with the federal government, and are there mechanisms in place to ensure this distribution that's been set out?

    Certainly we have mechanisms with our provincial colleagues with which we can address these kinds of questions with the provincial auditors. They can look at what the provinces are doing, we can look at what the feds are doing, and we can report--not jointly, but concurrently--to our respective legislatures. Parliamentarians would then have a clearer understanding of what's happening. But at the moment there doesn't seem to be a will to state that this is what we want and that we have concerns.

º  (1635)  

    The Chair: Are the provincial auditors general doing anything on this kind of study to see what's going on in their own provinces?

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : We have not seen any information. I'm going to a meeting next week with the provincial auditors, and we will be raising various questions of common interest. One of the more recent areas we're working collaboratively on is health statistics information and the requirements to provide attestation to those statistics.

    The Chair: I'm sure you don't need any encouragement on that front.

    When we were in Vancouver, it was extremely distressing to visit a facility that was doing rehab, one that gets $1,075 or $1,056 per patient for 28 days. I remember, it was $4.53 a day for food. It was stressful, because we were thinking, wow, $1,000 for 28 days on a drug rehab, knowing that if you fail, you're headed up to the--that's provided by the provincial government--federal corrections system. I don't even know what the figure is for an adult offender if it's minimum security or medium security at this point.

    A voice: About $80,000 a year.

    The Chair: Yes, $80,000 a year, so very roughly, almost $10,000 a month. Yet there doesn't seem to be a way to say allocate $1,000 for that bed so we can prevent $9,000 on this bed. As you say, there's no information to encourage that kind of debate or discussion.

    Maybe the auditors general across the country can work on national cooperation. It was something that struck all of the committee members who were there, so Godspeed on that one.

    Libby Davies.

    Ms. Libby Davies: I was just looking through chapter 11. I don't know if you were satisfied with the government's response, but I thought I'd just read it. On pages 24 and 25 it says under “Government's response”:

    “Canada's Drug Strategy reflects a balance between the objectives of reducing the demand for and the supply of drugs. It is a strategy based on four important pillars: prevention, enforcement and control, treatment and rehabilitation, and harm reduction.”

    Then they say: “Because of the primary health concern, the lead for Canada's Drug Strategy resides with Health Canada.” So that's the government's response.

    When you say there's a lack of clarity, I certainly agree with that. But one thing you could do is to follow the money. One indication of where the government is at is to just follow the money. Where is the money going?

    As you point out here, 95% of the government's expenditure is on supply reduction. You have it on exhibit 11.6, about $426 million, and then a pittance on demand reduction. Tell me if this is incorrect, but to me the expenditures show a very clear picture in terms of this so-called balance. It is on the supply reduction. Now, there are a lot of questions about whether that's being effective, but that's where the money's going.

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : Madam Chair, that's what we found. That's where the money was going.

    In paragraphs 11.91 and onward on page 23 we do indicate what we think would be necessary for strong leadership and coordination. While Health Canada is named as having this responsibility, at the end of paragraph 11.94 it says “...Health Canada's co-ordinating role is limited to providing secretariat services to various co-ordinating committees and to co-ordinating activities such as Treasury Board submissions and memorandums to Cabinet.” They really don't have the full mandate to provide the kind of role one normally associates with leadership.

    The last point I would make is that at the end of the government's response it says that the government is in fact looking forward to the recommendations from this committee and the committee on illegal drugs in order to put together a set of recommendations and develop a plan to go forward. So that's a positive thing I can take from that. But it becomes important that the recommendations come together for their use.

º  (1640)  

    Ms. Libby Davies: The sense I've gotten is that some of the stuff coming out of Health Canada in the way it's being written, the four-pillar approach and a renewed emphasis on harm reduction, sounds very positive, but I've had the sense that just the sheer weight of the enforcement historically and even coming from outside of Canada--for example, the reports we've seen from the DEA in the U.S. criticizing Canada for being non-compliant or soft on the war on drugs and so on.... Do you have the sense that although we might have this overall strategy and Health Canada supposedly is taking the lead, traditionally the law enforcement aspect in terms of the RCMP and the federal prosecutors is really where the emphasis has been, and no one seems to be able to counter that?

    We've even had that at the committee. I think Mr. Lee's analogy is not that far off, actually. It's sort of taking on the whole system because of this history we've had that it's drug enforcement, and nobody wants to seriously question whether it means anything in terms of solving the problem.

    Mr. David Brittain : Having decided to put things in the Criminal Code means that you then set in motion a number of things that just move, and that's the starting point. The system can tinker and change. But having made it illegal to grow marijuana means that people who grow it then end up in jail, with all the costs associated with that. What I'm saying is that the primary decisions on that enforcement side were those decisions that had it put into the Criminal Code.

    In terms of policy, the idea of the four pillars didn't come from the federal government. It came from the City of Vancouver. The impression I had is that some of the best thinking of those at the coal face, having to force things, was occurring there. If you read the tone of this chapter, it sort of says on leadership and coordination with regard to demand reduction, what is the role of the federal government? Is it money, philosophy, research, evaluation studies, or cheerleading?

    Ms. Libby Davies: Or is it treatment dollars?

    Mr. David Brittain : Is it treatment? Where is the role of the federal government? At the end of this audit, I don't know what the federal government's goal or objective or plan or philosophy is. The team of us would say that Canada's drug strategy, in the truest sense, is not a strategy. It's sort of a philosophical intention. There's no implementation of it. There's no data. There are no objectives. It's there. It came out very quickly just before the chiefs of police conference in Edmonton.

    So in terms of your question on this aspect of demand reduction, I think the federal government is going to have to make up its mind very clearly as to what its role is, or whether it has a role. If you look at the Constitution, it's very easy to argue that the role belongs to the provinces, yet the act making things illegal is a federal act and the strategy is a federal strategy.

º  (1645)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Davies and Mr. Brittain.

    Mr. LeBlanc.

    Mr. Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour--Petitcodiac, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation, for your answers to my colleagues' questions, and, as others have said, for your report.

    Some of us were in Vancouver the day your report was made public. Our chair was busy trying to chase down a copy from your Vancouver office, which we got the day it came out. We were obviously interested to read it, and it's been very useful.

    I have two quite specific questions. I was struck by the overall emphasis on the lack of information. The lack of information is pervasive in health statistics, in law enforcement statistics, in interdiction. There seems to be a general confusion and lack of reliable information that's consistent. That has stuck with me since seeing your report and hearing your comments today.

    I'm just curious about why the three provinces, one of them being my own, New Brunswick, have no data on convictions or aren't offering data on convictions. How do they explain...? I would have thought that Quebec always has these theological reasons that they don't offer data, but to find New Brunswick doing that is shocking.

    Mr. David Brittain : Madam Chair, I don't know why those three provinces haven't done it. Stats Canada's Canadian justice statistics are very precise. They work very hard at having their data so that it's comma, comma, and the rest of it. I don't know whether it's that the data isn't quite compatible. It's close but not precise. We just didn't push that any further.

    We offered up a good example. Where's the leadership? Who is responsible for fixing what should have been fixed? Who is responsible for bringing forward that sort of problem?

    Mr. Dominic LeBlanc: I think that's a good example, but no compatibility of the data on a criminal conviction.... It's the same criminal code in British Columbia, Manitoba, and New Brunswick as in the other seven provinces. I'm just wondering about the data. Either they're not keeping it or.... Surely it would be compatible. You're either convicted of such and such a section offence or you're not. It's not compatibility. Is it just accumulation?

    Mr. David Brittain : Again, I'm really speculating on something. The data they have here is not.... If an individual has been charged for a number of things, the data that is in that stuff from Stats Can is the most serious charge. New Brunswick didn't keep it that way. But I'm really just speculating. I'm not the person to answer that.

    The Chair: Maybe we can send them a letter.

    Mr. Dominic LeBlanc: Thank you. I was more curious and surprised, because you would think it's a national piece of legislation that wouldn't be that complicated to keep the data on.

    I was also struck by the government's professed commitment to or objective of a balance between supply reduction and demand reduction. Certainly your report and a lot of what we've heard in various meetings has convinced me that there's a professed balance, but a great deal of the resources, a huge 95%, appear to be on supply reduction.

    If we were to look for some balance, or some more real balance, in a report that ultimately will be given to Parliament to recommend specific policies or legislative changes aimed at the demand reduction side, to put more balance into the balance, what suggestions would you have as to what might be the kind of policy framework that would look at demand reduction or legislative changes?

º  (1650)  

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : You'll have to give me a chance to think.

    Mr. David Brittain : If we do this, can we get a contract from the committee?

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : We have to be careful here, because it's certainly not our place to say to the government what the policy should be, what we would be recommending. Certainly if you don't know the information that you have and what the provinces are doing and the effectiveness, until you've done that kind of analysis, it becomes very difficult to suggest that a particular program should or should not followed. To set policy here is going to require a greater degree of analysis and some longitudinal data that we were unable to find and certainly couldn't create. So there is a need on that side.

    As I say, I'm very reluctant to come and say that this should be the policy of the--

    Mr. Dominic LeBlanc: Okay, with all the caveats about lack of information and stuff, I'm a lawyer, and you did very well and have given yourself a whole bunch of reasons, but offer us.... It's not the Office of the Auditor General speaking, but you have spent a lot of time working on these issues. Your office is very good at finding policy holes and lack of coordination, and so on. Surely you must have some personal views on what might improve it.

    Mr. David Brittain : I'll try that on a--

    Mr. Dominic LeBlanc: I'm not trying to be unfair. I'm not being facetious. I am really just curious, because you've spent a lot of time thinking about this.

    Mr. David Brittain: Let me come at it from one tone that sort of runs through that report.

    It's very logical, the way this system is set up at the moment, that a big chunk of the federal government's money, be it 85% or 95%, goes down the enforcement channels. They operate the prison system. They operate the RCMP--federal, not the RCMP provincial or municipal. They operate the prosecution service where most of the prosecutions for serious drug offences are all done by the federal government. So all those costs get sort of lumped in there.

    Health Canada spends $33 million or something like that. They operate the lab that says, yes, that's cocaine, or yes, that's marijuana, and the costs that come from that.

    The onus, I would have said, is since Canada's drug strategy was written by the federal government and it says there will be balance, and it also says that prevention is the best buck, then at the very minimum, the federal government should know exactly what's being spent by the provinces and municipalities, where the trends are, where the new needs are, where the money is going, where money is short--back on leadership and coordination.

    As I said earlier, I don't know if the federal government has spent the money, but I think, at the very least it needs to know what's happening, because Canada's drug strategy is a federal strategy.

    Mr. Dominic LeBlanc: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    And Mr. White.

    Mr. Randy White: There's actually a light coming on here. I'm seeing something a little differently today. I've been wrestling with--and I know, Derek, you've been wrestling with--the scope of this thing.

    The scope I started with in my own mind was maybe we need an overall agency that looks after the drug problem in Canada and coordinates everything. Maybe we need to define specifically what rehabilitation facilities, what intervention, what treatment, and what enforcement we need and how they should interact in the provinces. But that just can't be done unless we know what the role of the federal government is, what its objectives are, where the money is spent, how it's reported, and whether or not they're even achieving what they say they are. I agree with what you're saying. You wouldn't happen to be accountants by any chance, would you?

    I'm a CMA, and I'm changing my mind as to my scope on this thing. If people expect us to recommend that there should be $300 million spent in some rehabilitation facilities across the country, I'm not sure I would give one more red cent unless I knew where it was being spent and why and if it was achieving anything.

    We've had witnesses in here from federal departments who are basically saying--and I hope I get this right to the committee--yes, we think we're doing a pretty good job, but we need more money. That was almost every group that came in. We could sit here and say yes, if we put more money into this thing, we could fix it. But the message I'm getting from you, which I tend to agree with, is how do you know you can fix it if you're not even sure what you're doing? You're not measuring it anyway, and you haven't looked at the drug system from a statistical point of view since 1994.

    All that being said, there are lots of drug addicts on the streets, and we have to fix the problem.

    I'm not sure I'm going to ask you a question yet, but you've convinced me at this point that we are still struggling with the scope of this work here and that we don't have it straight, but I want to thank you at least for getting me a little closer to what I think we need. Just for that I'm not going to ask you a question, but I want to thank you for straightening me out.

º  (1655)  

    The Chair: It's also clear to us.

    Mr. Brittain, you were dying to say something when he was talking, so even though he didn't ask a question, if you would like to comment, you can.

    Mr. Randy White: Consider the question asked.

    Mr. David Brittain : I think that what Mr. White said is correct. To put it in simple terms, the sense of direction where all these federal entities are going is unclear. The idea between what the federal government will do and what the provincial and municipal governments will do is unclear. There is a lack of data on what's being spent. There's a lack of money for research. You get the ironic situation where the American government is spending more money than we are to have research done by Canadians on Canadians. The last point on this is that I don't think the answer at the moment is more macro-money.

    Where we've talked about money in here has been money in the sense of some data, perhaps some research.

    The Chair: Mr. Brittain, one of the issues is that we don't have information. Dr. Fry had asked you--and I'm not sure I got a clear enough answer in response, and I apologize for that--that if the issue is there isn't information available right now to establish a framework within the federal government system, can we access that information? Is there information that's needed, or are you also saying there's a demand for somebody to do some research? I may have missed that in the recommendations.

»  (1700)  

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : Perhaps if I can respond, I think what we have said in our recommendations is that there is very sparse information, and information that is available publicly is outdated, so this information needs to be brought up to date and it needs to be more fulsome in terms of what the issues are around illicit drugs. So that requires that there be a leadership of some sort that comes forward and says this is the information we need, and this is how it will be reported, and this is where it will be available, and this is the way it will be maintained.

    We could suggest that the federal government for its activities in what it is doing can in fact specify that for itself. It may have more difficulty gaining that information from the provinces and municipalities, but I would argue that unless you ask, you don't know. So you have to really try to coordinate this.

    The Chair: You haven't put a price figure anywhere on the collection of this kind of information at the federal government level.

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : No, we haven't.

    Mr. David Brittain : I think, again, there are two kinds of information, or three kinds of information. I don't know if I can put the right labels to these.

    How much is being expended? I think what we've given you here is close enough on what's being spent by the federal government on drugs. You have that number.

    The only other number that's missing is what is being spent by the municipalities and the provinces. I don't know how long it would take someone to produce that and to what degree of accuracy, but it certainly can be estimated. I don't know how long it would take somebody like Professor Single to do it. Ontario has reasonably good data. We didn't look at Quebec.

    So in terms of that type of what's being spent information, I think, seeing that this is February 6, that it would be amazing what could be estimated that was close enough in the next three, four, or five months for your committee.

    The next set of data is.... I don't know what this committee needs. Does this committee need to know how much Ecstasy is being used in Newfoundland today over what it was five years ago? I don't know whether this committee needs this sort of information, but there's a suggestion for us that basic research information--for instance, what's the drug problem on reserves, what's the drug problem on the rest of it--isn't something you're going to get quickly.

    The third type of information is the evaluation information. Does this program work? Does that program work? Again, that takes a long time afterwards, and I don't know, I would wonder, if this committee was working at that level.

    To get back to our main point, if I had to summarize what I think we're saying, it's that I think there's a problem with the profile of drugs in Canada. It doesn't have enough profile. There's a problem with leadership, federal leadership. There's a problem with management information, how much has been spent, what the objectives are, and what are the goals. And the fourth level is a longer-term sort of thing, which is to say I think we need national drug studies, we need Professor Single's report updated so that we keep this going.

    The last point is are there some models for that? Yes, I think there are the three; we put those in there for a reason. I think the Australian, the British, and the American models have some suggestions of how they're approaching it that this committee may want to look at.

»  (1705)  

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : If I could perhaps just add two issues to that, I think there's a need for information to be reported to Parliament on the total issue. Currently the departments do not even report their own activities related to the issue. So somebody--and I would suggest it could be Health Canada, as a possibility--would be charged with that responsibility of coordinating the information from the departments and putting together a comprehensive report on a regular basis to Parliament.

    The other area, just to give you a bit of an idea of the dollars involved, is the criminal justice statistics that are produced by Statistics Canada, which, based on work that we're currently involved in, is about a $5-million-a-year program to gather the criminal statistics only. To segregate, from those criminal statistics, the drug impact, and then to define more clearly and make sure all the provinces are on board would be an increment to that. Nonetheless, it gives you an idea of the order of magnitude. It's not a doubling up of the budget or that sort of thing.

    The Chair: And finally, the federal government gives money to the provinces for the delivery of health care. Within the delivery of health care, a piece of that relates to dealing with the effects of people using drugs, trying to get off drugs, hurting their children when they're on drugs, driving cars, or whatever. So ultimately the federal government is spending money on that, but the provinces aren't collecting the information in that way either, are they?

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : No.

    The Chair: You have your work cut out for you when you get together with your provincial auditors, because it certainly would be very helpful if we could pull that out in determining what drugs are costing us and whether this is an issue we care about.

    That said--and then I will turn to you, Ms. Fry--in paragraph 11.93, you say:

    “ For Health Canada, the illicit drug problem is secondary to a great many other health issues, such as access to health care, the effects of tobacco and alcohol use, and cancer. However, the problem is much more than simply a health issue; as noted, most of the federal government's related activities are in enforcement.”

    Even as you identified some of the issues, the five points that you were making, I suppose the problem is, if you look at heroin use, for instance, as a portion of all illicit drug use in Canada, some people would say, well, it's not a big problem in my community, so why would you spend more resources? A lot of the stuff even within paragraph 11.93, drugs versus some of these other issues, is qualitative. It's about the things that people are talking about in the newspapers and in our communities on a day-to-day basis.

    In Vancouver, drug use is a hugely important issue, but in Pangnirtung it might not be the most important issue.

    It's a challenge. On the one hand the government has to respond, and in another way, it has to lead and anticipate the issues that people are going to be talking about in five or ten years and meeting that demand, and also solve problems, because they need to be solved. It's really hard for you guys, and it's hard for us. It's hard, as a government, to get priorities right.

    Mr. David Brittain : Madam Chair, one of our appraisers in the audit had a phrase. He said the approach in Canada varied between panic and indifference and back to panic. You can't go on and off on this thing. You have to be steady and consistent at it.

    The other point I think I would say on that is, again, looking at the Australians, the British, and the Americans, they've been consistent in saying this is a high-profile problem, and this problem needs attention. In putting that in, to repeat what Mr. McLaughlin said earlier, we didn't want to be unduly critical of Health Canada, who feel that this audit, in the end, was directed at them because they were “responsible for leadership”. So we were trying to say that the question of how much effort they can put at it has to be balanced.

    The other thing we say in the report is that this may not be a big issue in health, this may not be a big issue in Pangnirtung, it may not be a particularly big issue in the courts in Kingston, but when you keep adding all those little pieces up it becomes a big problem. As the people from Vancouver will tell you, the profits from the marijuana grow sites go somewhere. If they get laundered through the restaurant or the dry cleaner two streets over, it's hard for you to run your business. This problem does impact on Canadians across the board. You ask someone from Quebec about the biker situation, you ask someone from the lower mainland.... I have a 13-year-old son, and I hope that nobody in his grade eight class is bringing drugs around so that he would try them.

»  (1710)  

    The Chair: You'll have to have a chat with Mr. Sorenson about that.

    You identified that the U.S. is really strong on leadership, and that's fine. I would agree that they have a structure, they have a lot of talk about it, they have a system and resources and everything else, but surely you don't think they've been successful.

    Mr. David Brittain : No.

    The Chair: They may have leadership, and that component may be great, but in terms of outcome, whether drugs are affecting their communities, whether they have turned off demand, whether they are getting anywhere on supply, goodness gracious, I would suggest that the American situation is far worse than Canada's.

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : The thing is that in Canada we haven't done an audit of the American system, obviously, but looking at what they have, they in fact have an idea of what they would like to achieve. The fact they aren't achieving it may be an indication of the depth of the problem and the other factors that are working in order to keep illicit drugs on the marketplace. And this is one of the things I always find intriguing about organized crime: they always find some way of getting something that's going to make them more money than they could legally. So it is very interesting.

    But the American system is at least asking, what can we do? Let's experiment with things in some kind of an orderly fashion. There's no way we would conclude they've resolved the problem or they're any better off than we are, but it at least gives somebody an opportunity to look and ask, what are we doing? And we don't have that opportunity.

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: But they are ahead of us, in that they have it.

    Mr. David Brittain: That's correct. The structure is there.

    The Chair: It appeals to your sense of organizational management.

    Mr. David Brittain : Yes, that's right. Doing the wrong thing well.

    The Chair: That's right.

    Dr. Fry.

    Ms. Hedy Fry: I just want to go back to the three pieces you talked about--information, data collection, reporting--and to do reporting you have to look at objectives and outcomes, and then leadership. I think the question the chair asked you about the United States is a core example of how doing something about only one of those does not give you the answer. The United States have a clear sense of where they want to go; they followed the wisdom of Yogi Berra. They have set clear benchmarks--clear measurable goals they want to achieve. You're saying we don't have those.

    That's important. If you're to audit, you have to know if you're achieving those goals and benchmarks. But in order to do that, you're suggesting you also need data and information that will give you the levels of substance abuse, incarceration, etc., so you can follow up on them. I agree with you on that, because I think what you suggested is pretty clear.

    The one I want to talk about is the leadership issue. You say there needs to be leadership, and I agree with you, but once you establish the objectives of what you want to achieve, in terms of a drug strategy, I don't think there is any one level of government that has a clear mandate to fulfill that. There has to be coordination among the three levels of government, with each working within their own mandate and jurisdiction.

    I want to point out to you that there is some leadership being shown in this country, and it's in the province of British Columbia. You mentioned that the mayor was the one who started the leadership. But the federal and provincial governments are in something called the Vancouver agreement, in which all three levels of government have established, for the province and the city of Vancouver, a clear set of objectives and a clear set of strategies to achieve those objectives. They're each working within their own mandates, not outside their mandates.

    I have to tell you that to do this on a national basis is very top-heavy. It's difficult enough to manage it in Vancouver, because there are 13 federal departments, 11 provincial departments, and six municipal departments that have roles to play in that objective. The ability for them to work horizontally within their levels of government, and at the same time vertically among the levels of government, presents a huge barrier, in terms of the process.

    One would want to articulate some clear objectives and outcomes and a strategy with which to achieve them, and then decide that maybe the global problem requires local solutions, such as Vancouver is doing. That is exactly what we may have to come up with. But I just want to pinpoint that there is leadership.

    Finally, you said there is some data, and I'd like to hear your input on this. While we've heard from a lot of people that there are ideological solutions to the problem--more money on this and more money on that--you can't decide whether those are the appropriate ones until you evaluate them down the road. So I think evaluation is important.

    But we have some data right now, as you've said, on this large percentage of money spent on incarceration. We know that in 1996, 70% of the people were incarcerated for simple possession of cannabis. That is a huge number of people just for cannabis. Then we had something like 17% for cocaine, 8% for heroin, and a small amount for other drugs--Ecstasy, PCPs, etc.

    The bottom line is we know this large amount is spent on simple users--two-thirds of the cannabis people were just users. You said only 7% were traffickers. So we've been treating people who are using substances, within prisons. It's not that prison is a place where substance abuse is taught; it's a place where you put substance abusers. Therefore the problem is, are you treating people in the right way by putting them in prison?

»  (1715)  

    There is an ability to evaluate that. We know, for instance, because 70% of these people are cannabis users, that even though they've been incarcerated in such large numbers, we've still seen a 34% increase in cannabis use from 1991 to 1997. So we can say that method of dealing with cannabis users isn't working.

    So out of that, do you have some kind of broader solution--not an ideological one--that says it is obvious that too much time and money are being spent on incarceration, and perhaps you should balance it on the other components, as you've suggested, by looking at demand, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, in places that are not prisons? I would like to get your answer on that.

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : In response to that question, again I don't want to suggest policy for the government, but the analysis is quite accurate. The kind of information we see being brought forward would be to segregate the statistics into areas where the problem can be identified and then dealt with.

    If we look at the question of cannabis, there are other options available. Other governments are adopting other options that are available. It's often not an easy solution because sometimes the options we take to deal with certain problems are connected to other kinds of decisions, such as trading partners.

    If we were to take a position of decriminalization of cannabis, would that have an influence on what our neighbours to the south thought of our particular lifestyle? It's that kind of thing. So there are downstream effects of taking those decisions, but there are options available.

    One has to ask why we are following an option that doesn't seem to work. Surveys are done--magazines do them to determine if the Canadian population preferences are in one direction or another--to deal with specific issues. If you don't have support for the solutions you're trying to put forward, how do you gain that support? How do you gain the urgency, so Canadians in general agree with it?

    Quite clearly, the September 11 situation sort of brought home that when a crisis emerges, the thinking of the population, in general, changes and might converge on a different type of solution. Part of what we're saying is that the population, and perhaps Parliament as a whole, isn't apprised of the seriousness of the situation. If that's brought forward, other solutions may become more viable. Right now there is no sort of appetite to pursue those solutions--or for the past few years, in any event.

»  (1720)  

    Mr. David Brittain : I have a very small rejoinder to Mr. McLaughlin.

    Our comments about leadership are particularly directed at the federal government. What we're talking about is the leadership across the federal government, in terms of where it's going, what it wants to do, and how it coordinates things. We're saying in here it's hard to prove leadership isn't working. You can't pull out a ruler. You can't pull out accounting principles. So we took a long time. We talked to different people in departments about how they felt. We talked to the CACP. We talked to people who deal. There is a general feeling among them that this area is not being well led.

    The federal departments are going to have to get their own houses in order first, before they start thinking about what their relationships are going to be with the provinces and the municipalities.

    Ms. Hedy Fry: It would be interesting to evaluate the five-year Vancouver agreement, because this is a pilot project that the three levels of government are doing, not only horizontally but vertically. It would be an interesting evaluation.

    Mr. David Brittain : I agree. We have a lot of respect for what has come from Vancouver.

    The Chair: Mr. Lee.

    Mr. Derek Lee: Thank you. Some of us have to be careful around here these days talking about leadership, on both sides of the House.

    We have a motor vehicle here that doesn't have a speedometer or an odometer to know how far we've gone or how fast we're going, or a compass to know where we're going. Well, maybe it's not as bad as all that.

    You've talked about measurable objectives. In the field you're in, of course you are auditors, you are bean-counters, you measure dollars and efficacy, and that's all legitimate. In the piece we're looking at here, as complex as it is, would you acknowledge that there are non-measurable objectives that we will have to deal with? Clearly we're not going to be able to measure a lot of things these days anyway in this, because we don't have the data to measure, but aside from that, in the national drug strategy are there elements that are not measurable that we have to take a stab at politically or philosophically or some other way? Have you come across that in your analysis of this envelope?

»  (1725)  

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : Without giving specific examples--I'll leave that to Mr. Brittain, if he has a specific example--in our work, when we're trying to look at results measurement, the results are not always that quantifiable. The achievement and what needs to be done are not always going to be quantifiable. Where it can be quantified, it should be, but sometimes we have to deal with a softer, more anecdotal type of information, sometimes vignettes of things that have occurred and the outcome. Things are seemingly better, but how do you actually measure the recovery of someone? Are they 100% recovered or 50% recovered and along the way? What was the actual impact of the federal government program versus the municipal program versus the individual's will to change?

    It's those kinds of contributory factors that are going to be difficult to measure. It will be difficult to deal with an outcome and say these are the causes and effects. So it's not always clean and pure and things like that, but there are definitely areas where it can be measured and should be.

    I don't know if you have a specific example, David.

    Mr. David Brittain : Yes. How much is being spent should be measurable. Whether that's higher today than it was five years ago is certainly measurable. The other side of it is what the impact would be if marijuana were decriminalized. Having opened the bottle, what would be the impact? I don't think anybody can forecast that in advance. I'm sure Senator Nolin must have said sort of the same thing. So yes, in what you're looking at, there's a lot of things that will not be quantified.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    I have Madam Allard and Madam Davies on the list, and then I'll let you guys finalize your comments.

    Madam Allard.

[Translation]

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: Then I have no choice but to conclude, regarding the strategy of supply reduction enforcement, that if your figures are accurate—and I believe they are— that it is not working. With the current situation in Canada, the $404 million spent on this only result in the problems that we have. As one plus one make two, we must obviously find a solution other than stressing supply reduction.

    This would lend credence to the thesis that drugs should be considered as a public health problem.

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : I agree with that point of view. Without reducing the supply, we will have more problems with the prohibition of drugs, like problems with the cost of police services and of detention as consequences of drug consumption. Thus, the emphasis on supply.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: Can we wait for a year before going ahead with this file, or do we thereby risk a dramatic worsening of the situation? It seems that things are moving fast in the drug world.

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : This was not a part of our study, but it impacts on individuals in society and on society as a whole. If an individual has a drug problem, we must not wait a year. We must react or move immediately. That is what I think.

[English]

    The Chair: Ms. Davies.

    Ms. Libby Davies: First of all, I just wanted to thank you for being here with us. I think it's actually been a really helpful discussion.

    We as a committee are going to be grappling with some pretty major issues about how to.... I think it's one thing to figure out what's wrong, but it's another thing to actually try to make some sense and think about what does come first, second, or third in trying to put forward a coherent set of recommendations to the government. None of us should fool ourselves that it's going to be an easy thing to do.

    Assuming that at some point we all agree that this four-pillar approach, the idea that there's a balance between these aspects, is the correct kind of strategy, the question I have is, do we actually need to evaluate the weight that is given to each part of that strategy? Right now it's very easy to tell where the emphasis is. If you look at the money, you can tell where the government's resources have gone.

    The question I have is, are we not only in conflict, but are we being counterproductive? You have all the emphasis on enforcement or supply reduction that is actually--and Dr. Fry was getting at this--increasing your problem on another of the pillars. I don't know if you came across anybody in your audit who is actually examining or analyzing that in terms of the balance between the pillars and making sure that you're not actually being counterproductive in how you're moving forward.

    I think that's a very real question. We can agree to the four pillars, but the emphasis they get is going to be the question, and are they in effect knocking each other out? That's the feeling I get right now, and I just wonder whether you have any advice or whether you came across any organization that is actually looking at that question and will be able to help us.

»  (1730)  

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : To give a first response to that, I don't think we've seen any analysis of the cross-goal implications of funding. What we tend to see in our broader studies is that when somebody is measuring something and somebody else is looking at it and questioning, then it tends to get managed a little more closely.

    In this situation, what we are not seeing is people who are measuring and reporting such that if the person who is doing the enforcement were reporting what they were doing on enforcement, then the person who is doing prevention would be able to challenge what is coming forward. Right now we don't have that information, so there isn't even the encouragement to look at that.

    For Parliament to then sit down and ask those involved in prevention what they are doing, because enforcement is going up and we don't particularly want enforcement to go up, so it's obvious that there are more people who aren't being prevented.... We would say, there's the interplay that has to occur. But somebody has to ask the question, and at this point the departments aren't asking those kinds of questions, so you're not getting that kind of answer.

    The Chair: Can you just confirm something for me? If the spending levels were close, it would be one thing, but they're not. Some interventions on either side wouldn't add up if you just looked at dollars. Obviously, if it cost you $100 to deliver a program to stop someone from using drugs, the alternative of incarcerating that person would be that much higher. So there's not even a comparison. It won't ultimately be a comparison of measurement of success if it's just the dollars, then.

    Thank you very much for coming today, both of you. Thank you for having done the work in the first place and helping us, both with some really great information and with some encouragement.

    I wonder, Mr. McLaughlin, if you would get back to us as to whether the provincial auditors, or some of them, are interested in having this be part of their study. That would be helpful to us in terms of our work. If any of them have done some evaluations in this area, we'd be very interested. I hope it's not inappropriate for me to ask you to be that conduit for the information.

    Mr. Michael McLaughlin : It's part of my job, Madam Chair.

    The Chair: Okay, and if you or anybody has an evaluation of, for instance, our anti-smoking initiatives, or if the provinces have a similar type of program, where there has been an evaluation of its efficacy or even its organization, that would also be helpful for us.

    Obviously, as we do our work, if there are other things that you think might be helpful to us, it would be really nice if you would let us know, since this problem does affect all of us. Let me say that although in the media sometimes it's portrayed that the government doesn't like the Auditor General or it's always a big bad-news story, I have always believed you perform a very important function. It's not about being adversarial; it's about saying how we can deliver government better. So as a government representative, thank you for the work you do. In this particular area, I think your report has been incredibly responsible and really has added to the dialogue. So thank you.

    Colleagues, we are going to be meeting again tomorrow from 3:30 until 5 p.m., to facilitate our western colleagues getting out to the 6:30 plane.

»  (1735)  

    Ms. Hedy Fry: Actually, I've managed to get on a seven o'clock flight. I just wanted to facilitate--

    The Chair: Either way, we're still going to stop at five.

    In terms of people's agendas...have we received official word?

    The Clerk of the Committee: I think unofficially you can....

    The Chair: Unofficially we have received our budget--thank you very much, Mr. White. A round of applause for Mr. White and for whoever chose him as House leader to sit on the Board of Internal Economy. We thank them too.

    So we will in fact be in Toronto on the Monday after the House break. If you can organize your own plane tickets to make sure that you get there, we'll sort that all out. But I know, in terms of planning my agenda, as much notification as possible is always helpful. So Monday to Thursday we will be in the Toronto area.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: Do we have permission from the House to--

    The Chair: We'll sort out all that part, too. But if you want to schedule it in and start talking to your staff, if you're booking your plane tickets or train tickets or whatever else, if you could know that....

    Ms. Libby Davies: Will we meet somewhere?

    The Chair: Yes. We'll give you all that information, but I just want to give you as much heads-up as possible. We will have more details tomorrow at 3:30, when we meet in Room 269, West Block, which would in fact be this room again.

    So again, thank you very much to our witnesses. We wish you lots of good luck and look forward to hearing from you again.

    Thank you. This meeting is adjourned.