Standing Committee on Public Accounts

Comité permanent des comptes publics

For immediate release

Ottawa, April 09, 2019 -

Under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, most offenders become eligible for release prior to the end of their sentences and as a result serve a portion of their sentence in the community. However, Correctional Service Canada (CSC) did not provide them with enough housing in the right locations, nor did it properly supervise them to ensure their successful reintegration as law-abiding citizens, according to a report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts presented today by the Honorable Kevin Sorenson, Chair of the Committee.

In the fall of 2018, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada released a performance audit that determined whether CSC provided adequate housing and community supervision to offenders. It found that although number of offenders released into community supervision had grown and was expected to keep growing, CSC did not have a long-term plan to respond to its rising housing pressures. It also found that CSC did not always properly manage offenders under community supervision; e.g., it did not give parole officers all the information they needed to help offenders with their health needs, and parole officers did not always meet with offenders as often as they should have.

As part of its report on this audit, the Committee has made five recommendations to ensure that CSC addresses these matters, so it can better help rehabilitate offenders and reintegrate them into the community as law-abiding citizens.