Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue No. 15 - Evidence - March 8, 2017
OTTAWA, Wednesday, March 8, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 11:31 a.m. to study the issues relating to the human rights of prisoners in the correctional system; and Consideration of a draft agenda (future business).
Senator Jim Munson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning, senators. I see we will hear one of our witnesses via video conference.
Before we begin, I would like to have all our senators introduce themselves. The deputy chair is not here yet.
Senator Martin, why don't you start.
Senator Martin: Yonah Martin, from British Columbia.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Senator Maltais from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Pate: Kim Pate, from Ontario.
Senator McPhedran: Marilou McPhedran, independent senator from Manitoba.
Senator Hartling: Nancy Hartling, from New Brunswick. Happy International Women's Day.
Senator Bernard: Wanda Thomas Bernard, from Nova Scotia.
The Chair: As your chair, I'm Senator Munson, from Ontario. I would like to begin by acknowledging that today is International Women's Day, a day in which we recognize the crucial impact of women in every — and I mean that — aspect of our lives.
With that in mind, for our witness from the University of London, as you know, we began this study on the human rights of Canadian prisoners in Canadian prisons, and we do need an international perspective.
Part of the major focus — and here it is International Women's Day — there are so many indigenous women in our prisons in proportion to the population of our country. We think of them today on this International Women's Day. We really think of them and their human rights on this very special day, because we're hoping, with our study, that we can make a difference in their lives and in the lives of all prisoners.
As we continue our study, we welcome Sarah Turnbull, Lecturer in Criminology, School of Law, University of London. She is with us via video conference. And shortly, Bonnie Brayton, who is the National Executive Director of the DisAbled Women's Network of Canada.
We welcome you both to our committee. We'll start with Ms. Turnbull.
You have the floor. Welcome, and thank you very much for joining our conversation this morning.
Sarah Turnbull, Lecturer in Criminology, School of Law, University of London, as an individual: Thank you for the invitation to speak to the committee today. As senators have mentioned, it is International Women's Day, and it's a special privilege to be presenting on this day, to underscore the importance of women's rights as human rights and the pertinence of issues of diversity and equality to the work of this committee.
I understand that today's focus is on women in prison, so I'll do my best to speak to this specific issue, as well as to the intersections of gender, race and punishment in Canada. More specifically, I'll aim to address the incorporation of concerns about diversity into the policies and practices of corrections and conditional release, of which concerns about women prisoners are integral.
I'll start with the observation that the racial, cultural and gender character of the offenders in the prison population in Canada, as in other post-colonial countries, has changed significantly over the past few decades. As a consequence and as I'm sure you're all well aware, Canada's corrections and conditional release systems are increasingly required to deal with the implications of diversity in policy-making and operational plans. This ranges from the handling and treatment of prisoners to the types of services and programs provided, as well as to the issues of staff training.
Consequently, a one-size-fits-all approach runs counter to human rights norms, to the constitutional rights of indigenous peoples and to the multicultural ideal of diversity.
Importantly, this committee has recognized that the most vulnerable people are overrepresented in our prison systems, and the committee's mandate to consider the situation of disadvantaged groups, including indigenous and racialized peoples and women, is commendable.
Diversity is, I suggest, an integral aspect of how we understand and respond to prisoners' human rights. Both the Correctional Service Canada and the Parole Board of Canada have attempted to incorporate issues of diversity in both policies and practices affecting the federally sentenced prison population.
The Parole Board, for example, offers elder-assisted hearings and community-assisted hearings as means to make the parole process fair and more culturally relevant and appropriate for indigenous prisoners. Yet more broadly, when we talk about diversity in the federal prison population, to which prisoners are we referring? Does the term "diversity'' just include prisoners who are different based on their gender, racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, indigenous or sexual identities? How might attending to diversity be different from commitments to anti-racism, antisexism or decolonialism in policy and practice?
It's important that we look critically at how ideas about diversity are defined and how they're implemented. Doing so challenges us to think about the origins of the current system and how standard ways of doing things have been modelled on the often taken for granted norm of White, English- or French-speaking male prisoners. Our current systems of punishment were founded on White epistemologies and customs that have been developed in large relation to male prisoners who, we know, make up the vast majority of those who are federally sentenced.
I know this isn't a novel argument. However, in the context of addressing vulnerable and disadvantaged prisoners, I think it's worth repeating.
When we're thinking about the inclusion of diversity, it's important to consider whether adding in diversity to existing policies and structures really works to address the specific realities and experiences of indigenous, non-White and non-male prisoners. Thinking about diversity also means thinking about often taken for granted norms of Whiteness and masculinity in corrections and conditional release policy and practice.
In my own research, I've been particularly interested in the development of culturally appropriate and gender responsive policies and practices in the Canadian penal system. Canada's commitments to the Charter, the Canadian Multiculturalism Act and various international conventions related to human rights recognize the importance of equality and diversity for the treatment of diverse prisoners.
Both the Correctional Service and the Parole Board have, as I've mentioned, taken steps to address the specific needs of indigenous female and a group of so-called "ethnocultural offenders.''
My research has shown that policy approaches to questions of diversity tend to treat issues of difference separately. If you look at the CSC's website, for example, three prisoner groups are identified: primarily women, Aboriginal and ethnocultural.
My work on the implementation of diversity initiatives at the Parole Board of Canada found a similar approach that focused on these three groups as distinct entities, yet the concept of intersectionality draws attention to how different facets of identity work together and cannot be teased apart. Identity and related issues of power, privilege and penalties are experienced simultaneously.
In relation to women prisoners, the most recent annual report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator indicates that the number of federally sentenced women incarcerated in Canada has increased by 35 per cent since 2004-05, with the number of indigenous women rising by 57 per cent over this period. There's also been a notable growth in the number of Black and Asian women who are imprisoned federally.
Additionally, according to the same report, indigenous women now account for 36 per cent of federally sentenced females and they're significantly overrepresented in maximum security and in segregation.
Such statistics point to the diversity of the women prisoner category as a whole. In addition to different racial and ethnic backgrounds, women prisoners are also diverse in terms of their age, their sexuality, their class backgrounds, their abilities and their gender identities for a growing number of transgendered people. Part of the challenge is how to usefully respond to these differences within the category of women prisoners and how this group relates to Aboriginal and ethnocultural categories.
For instance, in my research women prisoners tend to be treated as a homogeneous group, while Aboriginal and ethnocultural categories tend to assume a male norm. As I argued in my book, Parole in Canada, the risk of this silo approach is that it may inadvertently lead to the exclusion of the particular needs and experiences of women of colour and indigenous women prisoners.
I concur with a point made by one of the previous witnesses, Dr. Akwasi Owusu-Bempah about the need to consider the heterogeneity of the ethnocultural prisoner group amongst the federally sentenced prison population. This category tends to capture all prisoners who aren't White or indigenous — a very diverse population who don't necessarily share a common set of needs, concerns or experiences. In relation to my current research, this group also includes foreign national prisoners who may be facing deportation as a consequence of their convictions.
Being in Europe, I know that in many Western European countries the proportion of non-citizens in prison has been increasing yet in Canada it's very difficult to access statistics on the numbers of foreign nationals in the federally sentenced population. Research on foreign nationals shows that this group of prisoners may be more isolated when imprisoned due to language barriers and access to conditional release. They may also have unique needs in relation to their human rights in cases where they're facing deportation and/or where they may end up in immigration holding, otherwise known as immigration detention, after the completion of their sentences.
I submit to you that foreign national prisoners, a diverse category in terms of their gender, racial ethnic backgrounds, may be a vulnerable and disadvantaged group in prison and might be of interest to the committee going forward.
A final point I would like to make relates to the need for independent academic research on the lived experiences of federally sentenced prisoners while they're incarcerated and once on parole. It's nearly impossible for academic researchers to get access to Canada's prisons or to the federal parole system. Many academic researchers are left using the Access to Information Act to obtain information or by trying to speak with people once released from prison and no longer under any form of supervision. It's also difficult to speak to policy-makers or the various staff who are tasked with the challenging work of running the federal parole and corrections system on a daily basis.
I suggest that the barriers to carrying out independent academic research makes issues of prisoners' human rights in particular and the federal penal system more generally less transparent and thus less well understood. Researchers in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, where I'm currently based, tend not to face such pervasive restrictions to academic research and are often allowed into prisons and other sites of confinement to carry out research with imprisoned people and with staff. In order for us to have more informed consideration of issues of human rights in federal corrections and conditional release, I believe it's important for greater accessibility to the very sites and conditions of confinement in which diverse prisoners find themselves.
I thank you kindly for your time and your consideration.
The Chair: Thank you very much. As senators line up to put their names on a list here, I will introduce Senator Salma Ataullahjan, the deputy chair. She is here briefly for this particular meeting. You are very interested in this subject. It is International Women's Day and we are talking about women in prisons.
Senator Ataullahjan: I was doing some speaking notes for an engagement that I have on the same topic so I apologize for being late.
The Chair: Senators, if you want to put your name on the list, please do so. I will ask a couple of questions that I am concerned about. I normally don't do that until the end, until everybody else asks a question, but I'm waiting.
There are female offenders in this country and they're enrolled in residential mother-child programs that allow children to live with their mothers during incarceration. In your opinion, would it be desirable to increase these numbers and is there information from your studies on how that could be done?
This is to Ms. Turnbull. We're waiting for Ms. Brayton, who has just arrived. Do you have any points of view on that?
Ms. Turnbull: I would say the first point to start from would be whether the women need to be in prison in the first place. Unfortunately, the area of mother-child programming isn't my exact area of expertise. I think family unity is an important aspect. Of course, there are issues around raising children in sites of incarceration. Perhaps alternatives could be pursued for those women.
The Chair: In any of your studies, do you have anything on double-bunking? I understand double-bunking has increased. Do you have a view on that causing violence and other behavioural issues amongst female offenders? Do you have any idea of what Correctional Services Canada is trying to come up with something else besides double- bunking, which is an issue both for men and women?
Ms. Turnbull: Again, that's not quite my area. I understand that in 2014 there was a renewal of different funding towards the federal corrections system in which there was an attempt to expand particular units around the country so that there are more beds, perhaps to avoid the issue of double-bunking. Again, I would urge the committee to consider broader practices of decarceration to avoid the numbers of people in prison that would then lead to overcrowding issues and double-bunking.
The Chair: Thank you for that. We'll have lots of questions for you.
We have Bonnie Brayton with us now.
Bonnie Brayton, National Executive Director, DisAbled Women's Network of Canada: I'm waiting for my speaking notes.
The Chair: While you're preparing, we will go to Senator Martin.
Senator Martin: Thank you, Professor Turnbull. I was interested in what you said towards the end, that there is a lack of academic research because of the access to the women in the prisons. I'm wondering about the body of research that's in Canada versus elsewhere. Would you expand a little bit about the need for that and what have been the barriers to date?
Ms. Turnbull: It's been very difficult for researchers to get into prison to speak directly with those who are incarcerated. There's a lot of other research from other countries, such as the United States and also within England and Wales, where researchers generally have greater access to prisons and other sites of confinement, as I mentioned, in which to collect different forms of data so things moving beyond just numbers of people in different institutions, but more substance to the daily lived experience of incarceration, especially for female prisoners, understanding what their day-to-day lives are, the barriers and difficulties and challenges that they face at that daily level and also, in addition to the staff, the people tasked with caring for them and the sorts of issues they face as workers in carceral settings. In Canada particularly, because of the access issue, we don't really have a lot of in-depth studies of what it's like in women's prisons from a more grounded, ethnographic or qualitative approach, which provides the important detail to understanding on a very granular level what potential violations of human rights are like and how they're experienced.
In terms of barriers, often applications that go to Correctional Service Canada are just rejected. It's difficult for researchers to get permission to enter any facility to undertake such research. I think that leaves a gap in terms of again that daily-lived experience of what confinement is and how human rights are observed or not on a day-to-day basis.
Senator Martin: I can understand there are certain privacy issues in terms of the overall process, what is in place to allow such research to take place. I can see the complexity of this issue and why we need to continue to find strategic ways to gather this data and information. The study we are undertaking is a long-term study, but this will definitely be an important study to add to the information that is available at this time for researchers and professors like yourself, then.
Ms. Turnbull: I think the work you're doing is great. It's commendable.
The Chair: Senator Bernard, you have a supplementary on the research component.
Senator Bernard: Thank you. I absolutely agree with you and have personally faced some of those challenges in terms of trying to do research inside prisons. Do you have any specific recommendations for us that we might be able to consider? How do we break through the barriers?
Ms. Turnbull: It's a challenging question. Having worked in the U.K., I understand there's a bit of a different relationship between the prison system and academia, where there tends to be more of a symbiotic relationship rather than the work of the correctional systems seeing the work of academics as not being relevant. To break down some of those barriers, it might involve a shift in the culture of CSC, the Parole Board, around seeing independent research not as a threat but as an important aspect of knowledge about the sort of experiences of people who are incarcerated and those sorts of conditions.
Critical, independent academic research is an important aspect of running different perspectives to the research that CSC might produce in-house, in addition to the statistical information that's collected. Again, I'm a qualitative researcher, and I think talking to people or spending time within these sites of incarceration is an important way that we can better understand what those daily-lived experiences are.
If we talk about issues of human rights in the abstract, we can forget that these are the lived experiences that happen on a day-to-day basis. It might be small things; the denial of a halal meal or not having access to a sweat, but if you're incarcerated, these are really big issues. I think having people in the institutions that can do the research will help us to understand better what's going on.
The Chair: Thank you.
I think it would be a good idea to have your points of view before asking more questions. I think I was unfair to Ms. Turnbull asking her specific questions which weren't her expertise.
Ms. Brayton: Thank you for filling in.
The Chair: I'll introduce you again. Senator Omidvar has joined us today as well.
Bonnie Brayton, National Executive Director from the DisAbled Women's Network of Canada. You have the floor. Welcome to the conversation.
Ms. Brayton: Thank you very much, Senator Munson. Thank you, Sarah, for your comments as well. Thank you to the committee for inviting us to be here today. It's such an auspicious day, since it's International Women's Day. It is very timely.
I will be submitting a written brief which will support a lot of the points that I bring up today. I had to prepare speaking notes, but I'm quite delighted to be speaking about this subject. It's quite serious, and I really appreciate that the committee is studying this issue.
Victimization and criminalization, the reality of women with disabilities in prisons. Good morning. Happy International Women's Day to everyone here and watching. I'd like to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered on the territory of the Algonquin people, and that we are in a time of truth and reconciliation with the First Peoples of Canada at this time. By so doing, perhaps we begin by also acknowledging the specific problem of the over-representation of indigenous people, including women in the correctional systems, another example of what we would characterize as systemic oppression.
In terms of the information I wanted to share with the committee today, it really is very focused. In preparing for today, some of the research I had was reinforced by more research as I looked. I understand this is a study you'll be undertaking for some time so I appreciate we will have time to submit more research.
In talking about an over-representation, which we just mentioned around the context of indigenous women, studies have been done in Canada, U.S. and Australia that document clearly that upwards of 40 per cent or more of all women in prisons are women with disabilities. Who are those women? What kind of disabilities are we talking about? A range of disabilities, of course, but there are some women in particular we should be thinking about in the context of why this over-representation and where this goes from a systemic perspective.
Again, one of the studies I based this on is a study done in Canada by a woman by the name of Dr. Angela Colantonio. She undertook a study of women in prisons in Ontario. That study confirmed that almost 40 per cent of women in prisons in Ontario had two things in common: first, they had a traumatic brain injury; and second, they had a history of childhood sexual abuse. I think that's quite striking that nearly half of the prison population had those two things in common in the female prison population particularly.
In terms of the other women we're talking about, they are women with learning disabilities or mild intellectual disabilities. Again, in terms of data that is from Canada, specifically from a study done in Alberta, the representation of women with intellectual disabilities and learning disabilities is three to six times higher in prison than in the general population. Think about what that means in terms of the criminalization of women with disabilities.
Again, women with mental health problems and mental health diagnoses, often in the other two cohorts I mentioned, brain injured women and women with mild intellectual disabilities, the manifestation of a mental health disability often comes because there may or may not be a diagnosis of a brain injury or learning disability. Again we're talking about women who are labelled, but not labelled correctly with a disability. Rather they are labelled for their attitude, their problems and for the things that are undiagnosed but are actually manifestations of their disability.
I also want to point to the fact that we have women in other institutions who are ending up in prisons due to lack of appropriate housing when it comes to women with disabilities. One of the examples that I would cite is a young woman with a brain injury who committed suicide last year because she was being housed in a senior's residence. She had been forced into that housing because there was no other appropriate supported housing for her in the community. We do not have adequate housing or supports for these women in the community, which is why they end up in institutions and sometimes incarcerated in prisons.
Another example I'll bring forward is a case a few years ago I found quite disturbing. A woman in Nova Scotia was in an institution there because the small group home she had been in was closed due to budget cuts. She was moved into an institution where she had a problem with one of the people in the institution, and instead of the problem being understood to be one that was linked to her disability and the lack of disability supports, she was charged with assault.
So, again, I come back to this idea that what we are doing with women with disabilities is we are criminalizing them rather than supporting them. We are setting them up to be victims or to be part of the prison system.
Coming back to Dr. Angela Colantonio, Dr. Colantonio did a study of the homeless population of Toronto. We find that upward of 50 per cent of women who are homeless in Toronto had one thing in common as well, which was a pre-existing brain injury before becoming homeless. What I'm trying to ask the committee to think about and consider is not just women in prisons but the women who are on that path because they are not being supported, because they don't have housing and because of the fact that there are no programs and supports in place for them to live in community with dignity, with the opportunity to have a job and to move forward in their lives.
I strongly recommend the committee look to, and I will certainly share information from, Dr. Jo-Anne Wemmers. She's a well-known criminologist who has looked closely at the phenomenon of criminalization and victimization and the links between those two.
Another study that I will bring to the attention of the committee and that I will share, again, in my written brief is actually linked to the Supreme Court decision around sex work in this country. A couple of years ago, a study was done of sex workers in British Columbia. It was a qualitative study of some 3,500 sex workers in British Columbia. This isn't data the researchers really focused on, but it's something that DAWN Canada saw and I think really makes a strong point as well: 35 per cent of those sex workers identified as having a long-term disability before they became sex workers. So more than one third of sex workers in this study are women with disabilities. They are not necessarily wearing that label. Nobody is really supporting them in that context, but that's who they are.
I repeat, there are some clear patterns there.
The thing that I wanted to do, and it's a little outside of perhaps what we might think, but there's a decision DAWN Canada had at the Supreme Court that was linked to an incident of violence against a woman with an intellectual disability who was being sexually assaulted. I bring forward the DAI decision because the fundamental issue in the DAI decision was that this young woman was not believed. She was not believed by the Crown, by the judge or by the defence. The approach they took in the provincial decision was to try and undermine the fact that she was not able to tell the difference between the truth and a lie.
I bring that back not around the specifics here but to make the point that the reality is that the justice system does not support women with disabilities, does not believe them and does not understand the specific needs that women with disabilities would require, regardless of whichever side of the justice table they may find themselves.
On segregation, I was going to say I had the honour to be associated with Dr. Renu Mandhane when she was a researcher at the University of Toronto and did a report that will be shared with the committee, either by myself or someone else. It's called "Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading?'' and it's an important look at the reality. We have well- documented evidence for the conditions and situations for women with mental health problems in prison.
Of course, this report focuses specifically on the Ashley Smith case. I am sure you're going to hear about Ashley Smith from lots of people. I think it's really clear that we need to make the point that this is a young woman of exactly the profile I described: someone who was criminalized instead of supported. As we know, Ashley's crime was throwing an apple at a postal worker. From there, we know how badly we failed her, how badly the correctional system failed her, and how ultimately her death was caused by segregation and by what were completely unacceptable conditions for her in the context of her being in prison.
I wanted to say that we need to start to connect the dots between violence against women and girls with disabilities and their overrepresentation in prison. One of the common threads — and I mentioned this earlier — is childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse or neglect. Coming back to the reality that there's this connection between the overrepresentation of women in prisons in a particular context, it's that we are not going to the root causes and the societal issues that bring these women to this place.
Another piece of data that ties into the larger picture I'm trying to portray around who these women are is that the rates of traumatic brain injury among women is something that is not yet well documented but the evidence is beginning to build. I shared some information about traumatic brain injury and women in prisons, and I'll share another study: Dr. Angela Colantonio and other researchers in Canada have begun to look closely at the rates of traumatic brain injury for women in shelters and transition houses. It's between 35 and 80 per cent. So between one third and three quarters of women who are going through transition houses and shelters have a traumatic brain injury. This isn't surprising given what we're talking about, which is women who have experienced violence and, in many cases, repeated violence.
What's particularly important to understand is that the research — and again this research is something the committee will have time to study more closely — points to the important differences between men and women in terms of how brain injury affects them. It also speaks to the larger issue that we're talking about here, which is that women are becoming disabled through violence in our society at alarming rates, and that this overrepresentation in prisons is one of the manifestations of violence against women in our society.
I would take this one step further and ask the committee also to consider the rates of disability in the indigenous population, which are higher than they are in the non-indigenous population. We have anecdotal and not-fulsome data because the data hasn't been properly collected, but the rate of disability among indigenous women is at least 35 per cent. That means at least one third of all indigenous women are likely to be living with a disability of some type.
Further to that, the committee may want to consider making recommendations to the missing and murdered women's inquiry in this regard insofar as they are looking at systemic issues. I do not believe the inquiry has yet even opened up a discussion about the systemic issue of disability and its impacts in terms of the larger picture for missing and murdered women.
In terms of coming to the work of two organizations that I believe need to be highlighted in this regard, I'll mention the Canadian Association for the Elizabeth Fry Society and the work of DAWN Canada. There is also the Native Women's Association in Canada in terms of their work and focus on the huge overrepresentation of indigenous women, including indigenous women with disabilities in prisons.
It's hard to know where to start in terms of acknowledging CAEFS. Senator Pate is here with us today. So honoured to be with you today, senator, especially given it's International Women's Day and the subject of this study. The Elizabeth Fry Society has been saving lives for many years, including the lives of women with disabilities in prisons, through the advocacy and work they continue to do.
I would have some recommendations, because I assume that is something that you do want to hear from me about. I certainly think this study needs to continue, and I hope I will be called back at a later date when we have more of the evidence, and we can look more deeply at what all the implications of all the research is.
DAWN Canada has a four-pillar approach to the way we do our work. If we were to look at that four-pillar approach, our recommendations would be to undertake a thorough literature review. Thankfully, there's the beginning of a significant body of research. The next step, of course, is to speak to women in prisons themselves. Such an important part of how you get to the root issues and how you get to root solutions is by speaking with these women, by understanding better what their lived experiences are, and how they've affected them and brought them to this place in their lives. It would be important also to include and provide peer support and programs to support their healing and their reintegration, and ensure that they have the appropriate supports when they leave the prison system — not the kind of supports that brought them to prison, but the kind they should have as they exit.
It would be to educate incarcerated women about their rights and ensure that there are appropriate, real, accessible avenues for complaint by these women.
We must educate prison staff about different types of disabilities and how they affect or impact behaviour, and ensure that what happened to Ashley Smith never happens again.
And we must ensure that there is an appropriate mechanism in place for any complaints by prisoners and that an independent body reviews these complaints.
Obviously, that policy reform is urgently needed in the justice system, including in our country's position on prison reforms. I think it's long overdue for Canada to begin to really look at alternative forms; the prison system has clearly not been a good response.
Women with disabilities experience the highest rates of poverty, violence, employment and incarceration in this country. One in five women in Canada lives with a disability, yet there is only one organization, DAWN Canada, and a tiny handful of peer support groups across the country. And so until I sat here with you today, there's been no leadership on this issue, so again I thank you and appreciate the leadership you have shown.
I leave you with the thought that my blog today, for International Women's Day, was focused on 10 years from now. What I'm asking this committee to do, what I'm asking the Government of Canada to do and what I'm asking the Department of Justice to do is to take a long view on this. That will ensure that what we look at are real solutions over the long term and that we do not make this another political issue or let anyone make this a political issue, but rather understand that it's a long-overdue step in the right direction to begin looking at this and to re-examine alternative forms of justice and courts, especially given the data and statistics I shared with you today.
Thank you, and I am looking forward to talking with all of you. Merci.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Through the disability lens, you certainly spoke to my heart and the heart of others here. It's an incredibly important issue in Canadian prisons, and your testimony is very insightful for all of us. We do have a number of questions, and I do have a list that begins with Senator Hartling.
Of course, not to be forgotten, Sarah Turnbull, the lecturer in criminology at the School of Law at the University of London, is waiting patiently, so questions to both would be wonderful. Thank you.
Senator Hartling: Thank you both for being here. I really appreciate that. You have presented lots of interesting facts and I appreciate knowing more about what you're studying, what you know about and working with people.
Dr. Turnbull, I was interested in your comment about foreign national prisoners. We have just been looking at immigration, and I think that's really interesting, because I hadn't really thought about that but it's a good point. Already, people who are in prisons are disenfranchised and marginalized and we do not do too much for them, and this would be another group that would be very marginalized. I'm wondering two things: Do you know if there are many women in that category? What are some of the steps that we need to take to help break the isolation and the vulnerabilities that you mentioned?
Ms. Turnbull: Thank you for your question. As I said, of the numbers in Canada, it's hard to know how many foreign nationals there are and if they are facing deportation as a consequence of their conviction. There definitely would be women. I worked with Kelly Hannah-Moffat during my PhD studying parole board decisions, and there are women there, typically for drug couriering offences that were facing deportation. Deportation interacted with their parole.
Basically, if people aren't sure where they are going to be, if they are going to be released on parole to Canada or if they face a deportation process, that produces great uncertainty for women and men. But some foreign nationals might have great ties to Canada, have had long terms of residency and be very connected. Others might be more recent arrivals and have experienced barriers around language that might make it difficult for them to understand the Canadian prison system and even what they might face afterwards.
I think one of the other things is that if prisoners are being sent from prison to immigration holding in preparation for deportation, again, immigration detention is indefinite in Canada. So people might be facing a determinate prison sentence but they might not know what's going to happen afterwards. This uncertainty causes a lot of stress and usually could lead to mental health issues around anxiety and depression, as well as suicidal ideation.
I raised the issue of foreign national prisoners mostly because when I was doing my research on the National Parole Board, they were grouped into this ethno-cultural offender category. Some might be racialized people and there might be language issues, so I think they cut cross the committee's concerns about racialized groups in prison and potentially those that are vulnerable also in terms of lacking residency or permanent resident status in Canada.
Senator Hartling: Thank you. I have a question for Bonnie. Nice to meet you. I have heard your name throughout the years but we have never had a chance to meet. Thank you, also, for your good work with DAWN.
Thank you for expanding on the issue of disabilities. That was really helpful to look at how the definition has expanded. I guess I would like to see a lot more prevention, and you probably would too, but that's not happening at the moment.
In the prison system, for women with disabilities, do you feel that there are adequate resources especially in dealing with things like sexual abuse, mental health and brain injury? Are there enough resources? Do you know what kind of supports are there?
Ms. Brayton: I was going to say that most of what I know I know from the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, because they have done a good job of documenting what has been going on. What I do know and what I think is quite clear is that there's not really even any kind of an official acknowledgment around how big the scope of the issue is.
I just said 40 per cent of women in prisons. I mean, that's nearly half the prison population. With that kind of a number you would think there would be programs, but no, there aren't any programs, and in fact there's no screening. The screening issue is a large one, and again, paying attention to the issue of human rights and disclosure, it's important to understand that there are ways to do screening around understanding a woman's needs without necessarily undermining her right to privacy or her right not to share what her specific disability is, for example.
I give you the example of the issue I raised around women in transition houses and shelters. Transition houses and shelters have a screening process. They bring women in, and they have a whole bunch of questions they ask them, and there are questions they can ask them that then provide an opportunity to say, okay, this is an indication there's a likelihood this person has had a brain injury. From there, of course, the diagnosis is critical.
So I'm not even sure where to start with the shopping list for the question you've asked because to be really clear, there aren't adequate supports for women with mental health problems. We have a huge problem, again, around women walking around with disabilities without the benefit of that recognition. Again, it's not because I like the label — there's a huge stigma attached to disability — but at the very least when there's a recognition that there's a disability, there's a recognition that there's something different and something else to consider when looking at the situation.
I appreciate your question and I would certainly say that we would recommend strongly that there be a full review of what resources there are currently, and I'm quite sure that it would lead to the possibility of making recommendations around what specific things would need to be done.
It's a broad question, and disability is, again, as you said, an evolving notion. It is, in fact, the UN definition, that it's an evolving concept.
What I will stress is that this sort of huge and sort of hidden tsunami of brain injuries in Canada is something we are hearing more about in the context of football players and athletes and sports, but we're not talking about the impact on women in a particular way that we need to.
To be really clear, it's not to say that all the women who are in prisons are women who have had a traumatic brain injury from being hit in the head. It could be from a car accident or any number of things, but the fact is that brain injury is this huge issue in our country. If I was to show you a pie chart, senator, here is everything else in the pie in terms of disability, and the rest of the pie is brain injury. So we're talking about something that is huge that is not being addressed, and it is manifesting itself in all kinds of ways in terms of the cost: The human and financial costs to society are enormous.
Senator Hartling: Thank you. I appreciate that, because I think it makes you think about the type of treatments that would be needed in prisons, especially behaviours related to various diagnoses. Segregation would not be the thing to do for someone who has been sexually abused, or whatever.
Ms. Brayton: Absolutely.
Senator Hartling: To your point, I think it's important to look at what's there, and then at what resources would be needed.
Ms. Brayton: Yes, and again, one of the things that I'm sure the committee will come out of this with is some strong recommendations about preventing women from ending up in prison. And I think where DAWN really wants to go is the prevention piece, because we have a problem. Like I said, we're incarcerating and criminalizing women who are victims.
The Chair: We do have lots of time today, senators, so take your time. We can go to 1:00 if we have enough questions, and then we have a brief in camera meeting dealing with Senator Omidvar's proposal, so we're good.
As long as we have a quorum, we can do this. Some senators are away on Senate business and other senators have been called into business, but we have the dynamic six here.
Senator Omidvar: Certainly it's a very busy day, but I appreciate your testimony, Ms. Brayton. I'm sorry I missed your testimony, Ms. Turnbull, but I have a question for you that I think all researchers love.
I wonder if you could comment on the state of research in the context of women in prisons. If you had your finger on the button of research funding, what kind of research and questions would you be looking to answer that would help us? One of our recommendations could be, when we come out of this marathon study, that we need to know more. What would that look like, from your point of view?
Ms. Turnbull: Thank you for your question, senator. I did address the issue of research in my remarks. I raised the concern that research access in Canada is very restricted. It's very difficult to get access to Canadian prisons, as well as the Parole Board at the federal level. I think the state of research on women's prisons in Canada is particularly weak in the sense that most academic researchers cannot get into women's prisons to speak with women to do any observational research, like ethnography, to understand what the daily lived experience is like for diverse women in different prisons across the country.
In terms of the state of research, I think there's a lot we can improve on. As I mentioned to one of your colleagues, it is really important to understand these day-to-day lived experiences of human rights. We often talk about human rights in an abstract form. But to see how it plays out in interactions amongst prisoners, with prison guards on a day- to-day basis, access to grievance procedures, use of force and these sorts of issues that impact women in their day-to- day lives in prison, I think we need to know a lot more about that.
It's not so much that funding is an issue. I would say it's access and being granted permission to a reasonable level of access to prisons, to the Parole Board, to women on parole to help understand some of those issues.
Again, as I mentioned to your colleague, it's important to perhaps have a cultural change at CSC, the Parole Board so that academic researchers aren't a threat, that it's part of improving our knowledge. I think that would better allow you to do your job as senators in this important study you're undertaking.
Senator Omidvar: May I have a follow-up? I hear what you're saying. It's access. Is there a best practice in terms of accessing prisoners, whether they are women or men, in other jurisdictions around the world that we could look at and cite in our study, stating that we don't have this access, but Sweden has it or Norway has it, and this is how they do it? That's the kind of practical information that would help me a great deal. Is there some?
Ms. Turnbull: I am currently based in the U.K. and the relationship between academia and the prison service is quite different. There tends to be generally better access not only for academics like myself that are based at the university, but also for graduate students to do in-prison research. This also occurs in other jurisdictions including Portugal, Norway, other countries.
Senator Omidvar: That's interesting. I would not have thought Portugal.
Ms. Turnbull: It takes negotiation and it's not being unrealistic that there are important security concerns and people have their jobs to do on a day-to-day basis. I've done research here in the U.K. at immigration removal centres where I was trained to use keys and have very wide access to these sites of confinement. That allowed me to spend quite a lot of time with people, to build up the rapport and to understand what's going on in that granular day-to-day basis of experiencing confinement.
There are a lot of models from other countries that show it's worth it to allow at least some independent academic researchers in to do not just quantitative but also qualitative research, as Bonnie mentioned, to speak to women and men in person as a way to understand their lived experiences.
The Chair: Sure. I have a supplementary question. You said "trained to have keys.'' How does that work?
Ms. Turnbull: Basically, I was trained so that I could use keys to let myself move around the centre so I could talk to people in different places where they were, the library or common room, an arts room. I didn't need to be escorted by a staff member. I wasn't involved at all in opening doors for anybody else. It was just me. I could let myself in and out so I didn't need to be escorted by a staff person, which didn't put so much of a burden on the institution for escorting me around when they needed to do their own jobs.
The Chair: Senator Omidvar, I think you have a question for Ms. Brayton.
Senator Omidvar: It's a stunning statistic that 40 per cent of women have a disability, and then you went on to say that —
Ms. Brayton: Yes, that's probably low, too.
Senator Omidvar: And you went on to say that most of them are possibly brain injured.
Ms. Brayton: It's a mix, and I was going to say there's a high number of women with brain injuries. In addition to those women, there are women with physical disabilities, and I know that there has been documentation provided by Elizabeth Fry Society that has shown the lack of disability supports as well.
Senator Omidvar: Can you tell me if these disabilities are from before they become incarcerated or after?
Ms. Brayton: Yes, before.
Senator Omidvar: And does the rate of disability rise after they become incarcerated?
Ms. Brayton: I don't know if that data's been collected. I was going to say in terms of —
Senator Omidvar: I am just curious.
Ms. Brayton: Sure. One of the things that I wanted to speak about, because you brought up the question of research, is the issue of childhood sexual abuse. I think one of the most critical things that has been avoided — I'm really tired of it, and I have to say it's one of the most pressing things to do around violence against women — is going to violence against girls, and specifically to childhood sexual abuse.
This is a topic that everybody wants to avoid. It is urgent and important that we begin to get at this issue and that we begin to do the research that needs to be done. And it makes everybody uncomfortable. I sit on the Minister of Status of Women's advisory council to end violence against women, and one of the things that we talked about and have been pushing for is the urgent need for research into childhood sexual abuse. Understanding those women and those victims is part of how you get to those systemic issues and you begin to address this at a systemic level.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you.
Ms. Brayton: Again, in terms of the data that I shared with you, some of the data that we have from Australia and the U.S. has higher numbers than the ones I have said. More research is needed, but with the body of research we already have, it's quite clear that this is an enormous issue.
It could be close to 50 per cent without that being at all surprising.
Senator Pate: Thank you very much, Sarah, and to Bonnie, it's good to see you again.
I appreciate all the work you have both done. Sarah, I have known Kelly Hannah-Moffat since she was a student with us years ago. She has made a number of contributions.
The work you talked about with Renu Mandhane, the Ontario Human Rights Commissioner and was the Human Rights Centre Director at U of T is really important. Thank you for your contributions to that, as well as to all the advocacy work and human rights training that DAWN was involved in with the Native Women's Association of Canada and the Elizabeth Fry Society in women's prisons.
I have a series of observations I would be interested in both of your comments on.
Sarah, you talked about the issue of access to the prisons. There are two issues that I see as particularly germane to the Canadian experience. One is the Correctional Service of Canada sees themselves as experts on what happens in the prison system. They have a team of researchers. That's predominantly who they rely upon for the research. I'd be interested in your comments on that.
Second, what you just talked about last, I would argue that the access would need to be one built on trust. One of the things that happened with the research that Bonnie talked about that was done by the human rights centre at the University of Toronto around mental health in particular involved the building of trust with teams of regional advocates that were going into the prisons who then vouched for essentially the researchers, and so women spoke to them. In my experience, researchers have had access in the Canadian prisons for sure. When they've gone in, and especially if given keys, they tend not to be trusted by the individuals who are in prison. They tend to be seen as essentially in the pocket of corrections. So in my experience, very few of those individuals have actually had access to the very people who have some of the most complex stories to tell of the intersections of race, disability, impoverishment and all of the other pieces we're talking about.
That's one piece. I'd be interested in that.
You talked about children. Do you know of any other countries that have done what South Africa did with the Hugo case, when Nelson Mandela freed all the women who had children under the age of 12 as one of his first acts as president, recognizing the impact of imprisonment on children and basically on generations to come. Do you have any situations like that?
Did you follow what happened here in Canada when Correctional Service Canada did actually hire an independent researcher? It was after the Human Rights Commission in 2003 found in their report that on many fronts there was discrimination on federally sentenced women. Correctional Service Canada hired Dr. Moira Law to do an independent research. When she came back with findings, she argued that the classification scheme was discriminatory. One of the recommendations she had was that every woman is started at minimum security. Her contract mysteriously ended. That research, to my knowledge, has never been picked up. If you know of anybody who has picked it up, I'd be interested in that.
Bonnie, you talked about the range of mental health issues. It probably won't surprise you to know that in fact corrections over time has argued that anywhere from 30 to 90 per cent of the women inside have disabling mental health issues and disability issues.
One of the possibilities would be to take section 29 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and combine it with other sections of the act, like section 81, to actually release people into communities. For instance, if DAWN Canada said we would like to sponsor two or three women who are in the same situation Ashley Smith found herself in or Kinew James, that might be a possibility. It's only policy that is limiting that right now. Is that something that would be of interest to your organization?
These are wide-ranging and general comments, but I'd be interested in both of your perspectives.
Ms. Turnbull: Thank you, Senator Pate, for your questions. It's great to see you at last in sort-of person.
Regarding the issue of CSC's in-house research and seeing themselves as experts, I hope that perhaps there could be a cultural change in which academic researchers and independent researchers weren't viewed as a threat to what they do, but again in the spirit of producing knowledge, and different kinds of knowledge. My understanding is that the CSC researchers take a particular methodological approach. They perhaps don't approach research the same way that academics might in terms of maybe longer-term qualitative research and spending a lot of time within the institutions for ethnographic-type research.
I gave the example of drawing keys as more about the level of access. I definitely would agree that it's best practice. You definitely raise an important issue about how to build relationships of trust with people who are marginalized and, within research, approaches that might be more exploitative in terms of taking knowledge from people who are already marginalized and used as data purposes. I think there are different types of approaches.
A project I'm working on in Canada that is more participatory involving community partners is one way. I think having diverse researchers go in, so it's not just sort of White women like myself, but others that the diverse women and men might be able to relate to better.
Research studies that are over a long time, that allow people to be in institutions over months or years, allow prisoners to get to know the researcher and what they're doing. They're not necessarily agents of the state but trying to serve a more independent purpose. Those relationships of trust can be built over time if people are allowed in and get to know one another.
In relation to the impact of imprisonment on children, that's not my area of expertise. I'm sure you know much more about it than I do. But generally the literature I'm familiar with shows there are a lot of collateral consequences on the children of incarcerated parents, including more difficulty at school, in social life, and a greater risk of being incarcerated themselves. So breaking that cycle is really important.
Again, related to research access, most scholars would want to maintain their independence so that if they were granted an opportunity to undertake research in a federal institution, they would have rights to share the information. If the results weren't positive, particularly to the CSC, that it could still be shared. Things that might be viewed negatively are important if you're trying to reform the system and identify areas that need improvement. Hiding such contrary findings doesn't do anything to help us to better understand what's going on.
Senator Pate: Were you familiar with Dr. Law's research in that regard?
Ms. Turnbull: No, I was not.
Senator Pate: If you want a copy, email me.
Ms. Brayton: Thanks very much for your comments and feedback. Who are the experts? Clearly, one of the issues we have is that there's this attitude from corrections that they're the experts. In fact, what we can see clearly from the evidence is that they are not experts on disability or disability supports or on some of the really important issues that these women are facing in their day-to-day lives. They do not know how to support and communicate with them, and in some cases do not understand their behaviour in a really significant way. That comes back to who the experts are. The experts are the women themselves and other women who can support them. That brings me to the other point, which is the peer support and how important peer support is in any context, and in this context, it would be critical.
The notion again when we talked about what would be the possibilities for what we would want to see in a prison system is to absolutely increase the resources and supports in terms of peer supports for these women, including from inside and outside as well.
You talked about the issue of children. For women with disabilities, there's a real risk their children will be removed from them when they're born if they have a mild intellectual disability or brain injury in the first place. You can imagine the tragedy for these women again in prisons in terms of being separated from their children and in all likelihood not being given the opportunity to raise their children, simply on the basis that they have a disability.
The idea of alternative forms of incarceration, if you will, or early release is really important and valuable. Ashley Smith didn't belong in prison. She never should have been in prison in the first place. This was a serious error to have her there, to have continued that and to have seen over and over again that this woman was clearly in urgent need of important psychosocial supports in addition to the fact that she was not thriving. She was literally disappearing in front of our eyes. It's the most striking example, of course, and I don't want to belabour it.
The issue of an alternative court system is an important one for us to consider, particularly with the success we've seen with some of the alternative mental health courts that have already been established. Understand that, for example, through these courts, you're often able to take a much different approach to how you look at the individual in the first place, how you arrive at where they are and then going forward with what would be the best option in terms of — I don't want to use the word "rehabilitation;'' I really don't like that word.
I would generally support all of the points you've made. In terms of the specific question around the change — and again you're much more conversant in which sections we're talking about in terms of the change — but I support the early release. The early release piece is one of the most important ones we need to look at first in terms of a first step right now. It's only not being done because it's not being done, but it could be, and it would be a good way to get things moving in the right direction.
Senator Pate: I have a supplementary question. We will be visiting institutions. It's not decided how that will happen, but we're talking about whether it would be useful to have hearings and to have people like you join some of those hearings. But one of the things that's important to know is that peer support, when it was developed in the prison for women initially, was developed with outside services supporting them, which is what you're familiar with. It's now been taken in-house and is all trained by corrections and they're accountable to corrections. It's part of the reason the regional advocacy teams have developed advocacy workers inside the prisons doing that. So in terms of the language, for the committee when we're in the institutions, if we hear "peer support,'' those are ones controlled by corrections, and when you hear "advocacy worker,'' those are the peer support workers that were recommended by the jury in the Ashley Smith inquest and by others. The two positions ended up being very different.
In terms of mental health courts, it's interesting that you mention that because most of the people we're talking about would never have access to a mental health court — those who are ending up in the prison system. In the experience I've had in that area, often it's because they become more limited. In fact, mental health courts seem to have widened the expanse of the number of people with mental health issues ending up in the criminal justice system as opposed to limiting it. That's just a caution; you may want to look at that. Sometimes when good people are in there for a period of time, they operate well, but systematically they need to be widening that net of control.
Senator Omidvar and Senator Hartling raised an issue. One of the issues, and part of the reason that we don't have numbers, is that corrections isn't actually always asking about foreign nationals around status. Part of the reason that has been provided in the past is that the law has changed, so it's not clear who is listed as foreign nationals. You both may have seen in some of the media a couple of instances where it wasn't until a few individuals were getting ready to be released that people discovered that they were considered foreign nationals. They thought they were citizens, but they had never been properly registered. Most of them were wards of the state. As a human rights issue, the fact that when the state is your parent and they haven't properly registered, should you be classified as a foreign national? Should that be a whole different area? It's not my area of expertise, and some of the other senators may want to comment, but I'm interested in both of your views, as our experts today.
Ms. Brayton: I'm also not an expert. I get phone calls at all kinds of times of day and night, and it's often from a woman with a disability. One of the phone calls I received about three years ago was from someone whose friend was being held in one of the detention centres in Toronto. It was a woman with a disability. She was in need of a wheelchair and was denied her wheelchair and disability supports, including medication. One of the reasons we were contacted was because she urgently needed to have medication, and her medication was being denied.
I'm not an expert; I don't know enough about it, but I can say it's clear we should have a lot of concern about what is happening to foreign nationals and others — people like this who are being held and incarcerated simply because of their status and not because of anything else. It's disconcerting that, in addition to being held, they are being denied basic human rights. Thank you for bringing it up. Over to you, Sarah.
Ms. Turnbull: I'm not sure what the practice is in Canada. My research now has been in the United Kingdom. The Home Office here goes to great effort to determine the citizenship status of people who are in prison with an effort to deport those who don't have the right to remain. I believe that Canada, like the U.K., has also passed legislation that enables people who have permanent residency status to be deported if they commit criminal offences.
The question would be around the few individuals I met in Canada who were in federal prison and then were sent to immigration detention in Canada for several years after serving their sentences and what particular impacts that has on them, if they're going from one place of confinement to another and aren't able to access the programming or reintegration programs that might be available through conditional release. Again, a great uncertainty if they're fighting deportation is what is going to happen to them; it creates such great uncertainty.
The Chair: I have a couple of questions that I'd like to ask, first to Ms. Turnbull. Are there barriers to access parole by diverse women? Are there any barriers there that we don't know about?
To give Ms. Brayton a chance to think about this — it's about training in women's institutions. Since you brought up the whole disability issue, we've asked these questions about correctional officers and training, and it seems to be that, yes, there's training, but there seems to be a lack of it. Specifically on disabilities, is there proper training? I'd like to take a look at that as well.
Ms. Turnbull, go right ahead.
Ms. Turnbull: I can speak to parole hearings — elder-assisted and community-assisted parole hearings. In my research, I found particularly that many indigenous women had a lot of concerns about what the parole process was going to be like, and Aboriginal people in general having poor outcomes compared to non-indigenous people. I know the Parole Board has tried to do elder-assisted hearings as a way to make the parole process more culturally relevant for indigenous prisoners, women included. When I was doing my research, particularly on community-assisted hearings that are available under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, women offenders didn't really know about them, so they weren't used very often.
So different forms of making the parole system and the parole process more culturally relevant for indigenous women would be one way. Again, I'm just not sure what the level of interest is in elder- or community-assisted hearings among the prisoner population and what levels of resources are directed towards those hearings. They are more time- consuming and expensive, particularly community-assisted hearings, and they also require a community to participate in them and the reintegration of the woman back into a community.
I think that could be one barrier in terms of demystifying the parole process and having women understand what the parole hearing process is going to be like.
When I was doing my research, I found that the Parole Board had trialed different forms of hearing preparation for women in Nova Institution, again, as a way to demystify the parole process, but I understand that was cut back due to budgetary concerns. I'm not currently aware of the state of these sorts of diversity initiatives that are trying to make the parole system more equitable for women prisoners.
The Chair: Thank you. We're looking forward to hearing from indigenous women in prisons and the parole office on that issue.
Senator Pate: I have a supplementary question to that.
Sarah, I'm interested in that research, since that was a few years ago. Was that the one that was being done with Kelly Hannah-Moffat?
Ms. Turnbull: No. That was separate.
Senator Pate: You may not know that since then one of the things the Parole Board of Canada is doing routinely, even with elder-, circle- or community-supported hearings, is that it is now holding them by video conference. Do you have any comments on that?
Ms. Turnbull: Yes. I would raise that as a significant concern for procedural justice norms and having prisoners be able to fairly exercise their right to being heard in formats that are conducive to being heard and to having communication. In my research on reforms around Aboriginal justice to the Correctional and Conditional Release System, one of the emerging issues that came up time and time again was the belief, particularly among Parole Board members, that Aboriginal offenders weren't communicating properly, that they weren't expressing themselves in ways that Parole Board members could understand, and therefore they weren't making fair or quality decisions because of this barrier in communication.
If such hearings were being held by video link, I think that would be extremely problematic for how people can communicate, especially if there's a recognition of differences in how we communicate based on our own positions, identities and how we speak. Again, in an intimidating context like a parole hearing, particularly for prisoners who may not have access to these sorts of video conferences that others of us in the free world are more used to now, if they've been incarcerated for a long time, how would this extra element impact their right to due process in such a hearing? I think that is a very concerning development.
Ms. Brayton: I think it bears mentioning, even in the context of your first question to Sarah, that obviously one of the other issues that DAWN Canada would put forward is it is important to understand that a woman with a disability would need particular supports in the context of a parole hearing as well, including things such as plain language, having a person to support them through the process and being prepared for the process — all the same things that Sarah has indicated.
Similarly, there is the issue that there would be potential discrimination on the basis of a Parole Board not understanding, and themselves needing disability-specific training so they understand, in the context of women with disabilities, that they shouldn't have a standard sort of expectation, and that that's very individualized.
To go further to that in terms of the broader question around training in the prisons, senator, I'm glad you brought it up, because I think one of the key things we need to talk about in a first step is that the people who work in prisons, not just the guards, but the people on the medical staff, the social services folks and everybody else inside that prison needs to have a workshop.
And I don't mean a workshop in terms of oversimplifying it. Last week I was at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto where they invited me in to train front-line medical staff on how to support women with disabilities coming into the maternity ward. There's an assumption that people who are experts have expertise around specific things, and I have to say from my experience 10 years in with DAWN that the knowledge gaps around the realities for women with disabilities and what they need are huge. The need for training across all the sectors that we're talking about here, and specifically in the prisons, is really urgent. The Ashley Smith case is the case in point there: That was really a strong example of the lack of understanding and the gap in knowledge that's a huge problem with the correctional folks.
The Chair: That's very important. Thank you very much. We'll leave the last question to Senator Omidvar.
Senator Omidvar: It's actually not a question to the witnesses. It's a question to you, chair. I want some clarification on our mandate here, because we've heard about immigrant detention centres and as far as I understand, immigrant detention centres are not part of the federal corrections system. They're separate from the federal corrections systems.
If immigrant detention centres are in the scope of the study, that's a whole different area that we have to look at, because the numbers of children are incredible. I just thought that was off the books. I want a point of clarification.
The Chair: We can take a look at it. We're an open book. We're transparent. It's important, I think, that we don't leave any stone unturned, as they say. If our investigation, conversation, inquiry or visitations take us to immigration detention centres, why not? Your hand is up, so you can answer the question, or the observation, from Senator Omidvar.
Ms. Turnbull: If I may, immigration detention is one of my areas of research in the U.K. I think Minister Goodale recently announced a re-examination of the immigration detention system in Canada, as CBSA has MOUs with provincial facilities to house immigration detainees. Yet again, immigration is a federal matter and it's being delegated to the provinces because there are just three detention centres, so it could be an interesting area for the committee to look at, as they kind of get lost. There's not much oversight around immigration detention. It's quite a hidden phenomenon in Canada.
The Chair: Thank you very much for that. The last word goes to Ms. Brayton.
Ms. Brayton: Thanks very much. I want to point out something else to the committee, because I understand this study will go on over this year. Minister Qualtrough, the federal minister for disability, has been charged with new federal legislation, as many of you know. It would be important for the committee to consider whether or not, in the context of federal legislation, including federal jurisdiction in terms of federal penitentiaries, this could be something else to receive recommendations on. If that was the case, then DAWN Canada and other national disability organizations would be happy to come back to the committee with some discussion about that if, at a later date, you begin to look at legislative implications. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you both very much. This has been a very insightful 90 minutes on International Women's Day.
We have learned a lot of things that we didn't know 90 minutes ago. We do know, some of us, that are in this exploratory stage of what is being called a landmark study, and we hope it's going to be that. We hope to have a preliminary report out at the end of June and another preliminary report before we have a major report sometime in 2018.
Ms. Turnbull, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to going to London next week, so I hope the weather is fine there. It should be.
Ms. Brayton, as always, we're very happy to have you here.
With that, we will suspend and reconvene in about two minutes for the in camera portion.
Thank you.
(The committee continued in camera.)