“The prison job training program costs 66 million dollars in salaries alone. It spends 62,000 dollars a year for each prisoner, but studies show it does not help them keep jobs or stay out of prison. Most inmates work other prison jobs that cost much less. The minister needs to explain why we are spending money on a program that does not work.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am returning to a question I raised regarding CORCAN last week. CORCAN is the inmate skills development wing of Corrections Canada. Last week, I asked why CORCAN employs 608 individuals, at a cost of $66 million in salaries alone, to train only 1,056 inmates in rudimentary tasks like farm chores, apple picking and sewing. The public safety minister responded to my question with a heartwarming story about a trip he took with the Governor General to a prison in Saskatchewan. That was a very unsatisfactory answer, so I am back again to point out that the per-prisoner cost of a CORCAN education per year is $62,000, which is half the tuition at Harvard University and is also more than the average Canadian earns in a year. At this price, one would assume that the investment is justified by astoundingly good public safety outcomes and a very low rate of recidivism for people who receive CORCAN training, but as it turns out, that is not the case. The government has defended CORCAN by pointing over and over again, when I raise these questions in this place, to a research report by Corrections Canada published in 2014 that found that former inmates who find post-release employment are less likely to reoffend. Of course that is true, but I am not sure that the government read the rest of the research report, because it concludes, based on measurable data, that “Involvement in CORCAN employment [while incarcerated] was not found to have a significant impact on the length of time that offenders retained their first job post-release” and that “CORCAN participation was not directly linked to reductions in recidivism.” In other words, CORCAN does not make a person any more likely to maintain employment after serving time in prison and therefore makes no difference to that person’s employment status and does not reduce their likelihood of reoffending. In fact, the research in the same study found “no significant differences” whether prisoners worked for CORCAN, worked a non-CORCAN job in prison or did nothing at all. Here is an interesting fact. Eight times as many prisoners, 7,944 to be exact, worked while incarcerated in non-CORCAN jobs last year compared to only 1,056 in CORCAN jobs, at a much lower cost. CORCAN is therefore as redundant as it is inefficient and expensive. Why are we spending $66 million to add nothing at all to the skills prisoners receive? The minister asked us to look at what he calls the remarkable success of CORCAN. I see no success whatsoever. Why does this program exist at all?”

“The government is cutting the wrong prison jobs to save money. It fired 25 workers who help former prisoners find jobs. It should cut the prison work program instead, which would save much more money and does not work. Did government researchers tell the truth when they called that program outdated?”

“Mr. Speaker, the government asked Corrections Canada to make cuts to save $132 million over the next three years. To that end, Corrections Canada has eliminated 25 community employment coordinators. These are the people who actually help prisoners find jobs after they are in prison. Firing these employment coordinators saved $2.7 million. Now, it seems to me the wrong cuts are being made. Eliminating a totally unnecessary and ineffective program like CORCAN would save at least $198 million, and that is just the salaries, over the next three years and would save the jobs of the employment coordinators, who actually make a difference in finding jobs for ex-convicts and making our communities safer. Does the government have it backwards? Were the researchers at Corrections Canada right when they said, in a report to the minister, “CORCAN is an outdated model”?”