Senator Gold, Correctional Service Canada received funding in Budget 2018 that it told our Social Affairs Committee was to increase the number of external mental health beds in community hospitals and mental health facilities to which prisoners can be transferred to receive the health care they need. Now, more than five years later, Correctional Service Canada has revealed to at least three Senate committees that, in fact, no new beds were created. Despite promises to provide written answers to the National Finance Committee by December, as well as to the Legal Committee, Correctional Service Canada has failed to clarify how it actually spent some $46 million in allocations, with additional amounts ongoing.

Will you please commit to providing a response regarding how the missing amount was spent?

Thank you very much, Senator Gold. I appreciate that.

Given the repeated calls of the Office of the Correctional Investigator, and the most recent inquest into the death of Terry Baker and that of Ashley Smith, as well as the countless other inquests and inquiries that people with disabling mental health issues be transferred out of prisons to mental health settings, could you please identify what other concrete steps the government is taking to ensure access to sufficient external mental health beds?