Parliamentary Committee Notes: Increased Funding Levels for the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI)
Issue:
The total funding sought by the OCI in Main Estimates for 2024-25 is $7.5M, representing a 33.9% increase over the previous year. Committee members may ask the minister to justify this increase.
Proposed Response:
- This funding increase will address urgent and critical operational gaps and allow the organization to meet its mandate as an effective and efficient correctional oversight agency.
- More precisely, this funding will allow the Office to support key principles of effective prison oversight.
- These include improved accessibility of the Office to federally sentenced inmates, prison inspections and investigations of systemic and thematic issues conducted by diverse teams to better respond to a more diverse prison population as the demographics change to more issues involving Indigenous and Black populations, as well as higher mental health, addictions, and trauma based issues.
- It also includes better completion of mandated reviews as well as transparency and accountability through accurate and timely data collection and reporting.
- Funding will also address considerable gaps in key internal services and functions, such as communications and access to information and privacy.
Background:
The OCI’s Main Estimates in 2023-24 total $5.6M. To this amount, $1.9M was added for 2024-25 via the Annual Reference Level Update Exercise bringing the organization’s total Main Estimates to $7.5M.
The total funding increase of $1.9M in 2024-25 is attributable to negotiated salary adjustments for unrepresented groups for $0.4M (including EBP). Additionally, an approved Program Integrity Submission to the Treasury Board will provide the Office with $1.5M (Including EBP) to address urgent and critical operational gaps and allow the organization to meet its mandate as an effective and efficient correctional oversight agency.
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