Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue No. 18 - Evidence - May 18, 2017
MONTREAL, Thursday, May 18, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 6:51 p.m. to study the issues relating to the human rights of prisoners in the correctional system.
Senator Jim Munson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good evening. We are the Senate Human Rights Committee, studying the rights of prisoners in the correctional system. For background, we've been on the road for a week. We were in Joliette today and at the Healing Lodge as well. We have been to Millhaven, Collins Bay, Bath and Joyceville, and it has opened our eyes to what is happening in our system.
The study may take a long time because we feel it's very important that we take a thorough look across the country. We've had six hearings in Ottawa with 23 witnesses, but there's nothing like being on the road and getting a reality check inside the system, to see what we have seen and hear what we have heard.
We want to thank our witnesses for being here tonight. From Relais Famille, we have Isabelle Parent, President of the Board of Directors, and Kim Parisé, Coordinator. We also have, from DESTA, Pharaoh Hamid Freeman and Will Prosper.
We will start with Isabelle. I thank you very much for coming. We're looking forward for your testimony, but before we do that, I would ask committee members to introduce themselves.
Senator McPhedran: Marilou McPhedran, independent senator for Manitoba.
Senator Pate: Kim Pate from Ontario.
The Chair: And I'm Jim Munson, chair of this committee.
Please go ahead.
[Translation]
Isabelle Parent, President of the Board of Directors, Relais Famille: We are a non-profit organization that is recognized and funded by the ministère de la Famille. We are the only community organization in Quebec devoted to the families and loved ones of persons whose detention is pending, persons in custody, or persons who have been released after serving their sentence. It is important to know that maintaining family relations is a crucial factor in the social reintegration of the former inmate.
There are significant differences in the rate of recidivism of inmates who have regular visits from family members. Strong family ties have an important impact on the rate of recidivism. The Parole Board of Canada and the Commission des libérations conditionnelles du Québec both consider the presence of family and relatives to be a crucial element.
Relais Famille has been in existence since 1998, and our mission is to help families. We provide direct assistance to families and relatives who want to get through this difficult time without letting themselves be overcome by feelings of shame, fear, rejection, or guilt that are often provoked by their environment.
These people need to vent, to be listened to and to be given moral support. They also want to obtain information about the justice system and incarceration process, which is often an unknown quantity to them. We are there to direct them to the proper places and to help them.
We listen to their concerns and direct them to other organizations. We meet them for appointments on an individual basis. We also hold discussion groups in order to allow dialogue among people who are experiencing the same difficulties. We offer writing and art therapy workshops. We accompany the families to the court house and to the penitentiaries. We provide information on the incarceration and legal processes. We also offer recreational activities, such as community celebrations in prisons. We organize conferences on various topics to help people overcome these trials. We organize activities to help young children better understand what is happening to their parents. We obtained a subsidy from the department to create reading comprehension workshops aimed at children from zero to five years of age.
In short, our organization is there for all of the friends and relatives of offenders. We offer confidential meetings, in groups or in private. We help families to break their isolation by encouraging them to discuss their situation with other persons who are grappling with similar problems. Our objective is to support them all along the way.
So that is our organization's mission. I don't know if Kim would like to add a few comments.
Kim Parisé, Coordinator, Relais Famille: Yes. In fact, the conferences are often about parole, the justice system, depression, and sometimes we present personal accounts. For instance, we once had Monique Lépine as a guest. These are all people who have experienced difficult times in connection with the criminal environment. We support these people in their journey so that they do not feel alone.
This concludes our presentation. We would be pleased to listen to you and to reply to your questions. Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you.
We also have with us tonight Ruth Gagnon, Director General of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Quebec; and from DESTA Black Youth Network, Pharaoh Hamid Freeman and Will Prosper.
We have lots of time to have a conversation and there will be many questions, but we'll ask DESTA Black Youth Network to give us a presentation first.
Pharaoh Hamid Freeman, DESTA Black Youth Network: Thank you for having us.
DESTA is the Black Youth Network. We're located in Little Burgundy but we serve Montreal at large. We serve young adults between the ages of 18 and 35. We have four major pillars at DESTA dedicated to serving the needs of the disenfranchised, so people who are going through situations. We have continuing education as our first pillar, where basically we offer free tutoring. We offer a facility for learning. We have a relationship with the Eastern Township School Board where participants can come through us to get their high school diplomas. Through our relationship with New Friend, out of Frontier College, we're able to provide the students with the support they need to be able to get their high school diploma at their pace. We subsidize the cost of the materials or whatever books they need to be able to graduate.
At DESTA we make sure that we go at the pace of the participant, understanding that we have people who are coming out of incarceration. We have people who are coming to us with mental health issues, single parents, et cetera. Within our education pillar we go at the pace of our participant.
Our second pillar is mental health, wellness and personal development where we offer one-on-one counselling. We offer group counselling. We don't do clinical. Many times, if there's anything that goes beyond active listening and just general support, we have professionals that we either bring in house or that we'll bring our participants to; but we still stay involved with the professional as well as the participant, just to keep the relationship.
We also offer support to the families of those who are suffering from mental health issues and just need moral support. They have questions; we have answers, et cetera. Within the health realm we also do yoga and meditation. We have a greenhouse as well. We encourage our participants to go there, just to give them a different environment. For some of the ones who are coming out of incarceration, it's just a different world altogether. That's what we do within health and personal development.
Our third pillar is our justice pillar where we receive collect calls from inmates who are currently working with the Cowansville Institution. We have inmates who call us collect. We do over-the-phone counselling with them. We do advocacy to help them to get into proper halfway homes. We liaise with their parole officers, but we also give the support to their families.
The demographic that we primarily serve is within the Black community. All our services are open to everybody but the bulk of our participants are coming through to us because they're Black. We give them that additional support, as well as the support to their families.
Then the fourth pillar we have is a community resource and a directory. We have about 350 members who are dedicated to supporting these disenfranchised individuals. When we have a person coming out of incarceration, we could pool from the businesses and organizations, as well as the individuals from the community, to either offer mentorship, stages or job placements. It just gives them an opportunity where basically even though they have a criminal record they can get back into society and be able to work and support their families.
Those are our four pillars and how they all kind of work together. Obviously, as the inmates come out, we have all the different elements to give them what we call a more holistic approach to supporting them and getting back on their feet. Through the network, it just gives them access to a different environment and a different collective of people to prevent them from going back into the same circle, which is what got them into trouble to begin with.
That's our focus. DESTA is really there as a support to hold the people within the community and give them a second chance, an opportunity to reintegrate. That's DESTA.
The Chair: Thank you.
Will Prosper, DESTA Black Youth Network: Thanks for having me today.
I also work with DESTA. I'm going to try to do the best to a resumé because I was just advised, not too long ago, that this was taking place. I must apologize if there's any trouble going through this.
I used to be an RCMP officer for five years in Manitoba, working in Norway House in First Nations territory. In that time I got to see lots of involvement with the prison system, the police system and everything that was going over there. I'm also part of La Ligue des droits et libertés, the Legal of Rights and Freedoms in Quebec.
What I'm mostly doing in community-building right now is working for Hoodstock, a social incubator organization, to find alternative solution when the system is failing us. This is established in Montreal North, one of the first of such ridings not only in Montreal, not only in Quebec, but in the whole of Canada, with most of its population being of Asian, Black and Arabic descent. Lots of the population is living below poverty of course, and we are trying to combat that.
You have to understand that we are losing lots of our youth through the criminalization of our community. In 2015 a report came out of McGill University that established the primary reason for the bigger presence of police officers in cities all over Canada had nothing to do with the level of criminality but only to do with the number of people who are racialized and from First Nations.
If you have lots of racial profiling, just like you have in Toronto we had a situation also where our youths were racially profiled more often than anybody else actually. It was in Montreal North where the level rose by 126 per cent after the establishment of the anti-gang squad called Eclipse in Montreal. We had a police databank of 500 people in 2007-2008 associated with gang members. After they established this group called L'Escouade Eclipse, it rose to 8,867 persons in two years.
This increase in numbers is catastrophic for our community because it's a lack of access to jobs like being a police officer, working at customs or working in different airports because they won't have security clearance. Especially when investigating to become a police officer or any of these jobs, you have to give references. If I use Pharoah as a reference, I don't even know if he's part of the databank associated with gang members.
Chances are more likely that I won't even get that job, so I won't be there and working in the penitentiary afterward. If I'm not working in a penitentiary, you're avoiding having people of Black descent or Afro-Canadians working there who are more sensitized to the cause of Black people being incarcerated.
You probably know about the report of the Correctional Officer Howard Sapers. The number of people being arrested from the Black communities in the past 10 years has increased by 70 per cent. I believe for First Nations it was 35 per cent. Although the crime rate for the past 30 years has always decreased, we are seeing an increase of people from our community being incarcerated. Therefore, it's the problem of the jail. We need to treat them before they get in jail because the situation right now it's catastrophic for many communities and it feels like a colonization, especially for the First Nations and for the Black youths growing up in our neighbourhoods.
If you fight the real issues, it's mostly public health issues and the fight against poverty. If we start taking a look at that, we will be diminishing the prison population. That's what we should be looking at.
Just to give you a rough number, also, we are still going on a prison population that is increasing for the Blacks. It's doubling for women and it's only decreasing for White males. Everybody is doing the same amount of crime in whatever community, but the reality in Quebec is that if you're a Black person you're seven times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana. If you're more likely to be arrested, that means you're more likely to go to jail, of course. Once you are in the jail system in Quebec, they will place you. Depending on the neighbourhood that you're from, they'll associate you with being a gang member from the Blues or the Reds. Then they'll put you in a different jail cell within a population, even though you just have a street address and don't have anything to do with gang members. They'll associate with you with gang members. Chances are you end up developing a common ground. I shouldn't say common ground, but developing an education for the wrong reasons. That is going on right now in these prisons.
Also, another reality came out in a study about three months ago that told us Black people in Quebec jails right now, because of the question of gang members and stuff like that, are put in isolation for 23 hours to 24 hours more than anybody else in Quebec. There was an increase in past years because of that. That raises the question that lots of people before they come to jail, actually 12 to 25 per cent of the male population, have visited somebody for mental health issues. This means that lots of people being arrested right now have mental health issues. If you put them in isolation, it's just going to increase the health issues of the people who are in our jail system right now.
Lots of times we don't take into consideration the trouble, the physical difficulties that people get from being isolated for 23 or 24 hours a day. We held a press conference at Concordia University with somebody who suffered that for years. There were people in Canada who were put in isolation for four years and suffer from physical trauma from being in the jail cell.
The most obvious one is something we never thought about. If you're put in a small jail cell where you're close to the wall, you lose your vision and you have to use glasses. You're losing your physical capacity to see. If human beings read lots of books over and over, then they will be close sighted. I'm looking for the word in English.
An Hon. Senator: Nearsighted.
Mr. Freeman: Nearsighted, exactly. You also develop a problem with vision because you're living in a jail cell, incarcerated for a period of 23 hours a day.
I'm going all over the place because I didn't have time to prepare.
The Chair: You can slow down.
Mr. Freeman: I speak very fast; I apologize for that.
The Chair: No, it's okay. We all speak fast.
Mr. Freeman: Exactly, so I'll try to go slower. I figured that lots of people speak in English so that's why I was trying to go faster. I apologize.
Also a Black person is more likely to be beaten by prison guards. It's the same for First Nations people. That came from Correctional Officer Howard Sapers' report in 2014, I believe.
Also, something we need to talk about is that right now the number of female prisoners has doubled over 10 years. I mentioned the 12.5 per cent who had visited people that were helping them with their mental health issues. For the women it was 25 per cent. This mean that many of them are not being treated for mental health issues, but they get arrested afterward. Of course it's just going to become worse and worse and worse.
Also in the jail system right now, something that we take into consideration is the trans population. When we put trans people in our jails, there is violence against them. They are being beaten up, or even death is more present for people from the trans community. We need to find a different place for people coming from the trans community.
Also, a question was raised by a Black Lives Matter group and the Montréal Noir group here in Quebec about the rape of women when they are being searched in their personal parts by the prison system. They feel like it's an ongoing rape that the government is encouraging. It is taking place, being paid for by us and being done by the government.
I'd like to mention another story. I am talking about the story of a person who didn't want to be identified. We talked to some youth in jail or the prison system in Quebec. One of them mentioned that he had some trouble with a street gang. He was living in their neighbourhood. These people wanted to actually hurt him pretty bad. When he went to jail he said, "I don't want to be put in this block.'' He didn't want to be threatened. This is just one example I'm going to give you. Then the prison guard said, "We're just going to put you in isolation because there's no other place to put you. If we put you in another block, you're going to face other people that might do the same thing.''
He was placed in isolation, and after four weeks he said, "I've had enough; I can't go there anymore.'' He just decided to go over and take a risk, and he was beaten up pretty badly. He was in the infirmary for two weeks. After that they tried to put him in a different place, but they didn't have enough room to put him in a different place. That was taking place in the Donnacona prison.
Instead of investing in building concrete prisons, we have to take a look at what's going on in Norway and Sweden, where people are actually living in cabins. There are fewer security guards. It's very much healthier for the prison population. They have a lower level of recidivism. They manage to have a lower level because obviously people are more connected to nature than they are to a concrete block.
It's cheaper to have these different prisons. Right now we are investing, I believe, $127,000 per inmate at the federal level. It has topped at $210,000 for a woman in a jail cell. If we take these numbers down, we could really help these people, not to fight but to reintegrate into society.
This could be two, three or four jobs for our community. These jobs are very necessary to help everybody in the community. We will have less crime, instead of putting people in the concrete jungles that is jail right now. We need to find an alternative style.
Also in Sweden they do something that is really interesting. They have a mandatory psychological assessment, mental health assessment. They've detected 5hat lots of people who were incarcerated had ADHD. Once their ADHD was regulated, they were less likely to commit crimes. They are really looking at what they might have in mental health issues.
This is very sensible. I'm not saying that we need to be pushing pills, but it's something we really need to be looking at to make sure that we find an alternative for what we have right now. Right now 75 per cent of the people being incarcerated in Canada are being incarcerated for soft crimes. This means it is cases of fraud, breach of probation and damage to property, but it's not the rapist everybody is afraid of. If we are incarcerating people for these minor crimes, I don't know how effective we can be as a society. It's actually the opposite. These people should be in the population, instead of spending this amount of money trying to find alternate ways to incarcerate them.
My last point is on babies being born in jail and mothers having the right to raise their children in jail. I believe a couple of years ago it was cut down by the Conservatives. The age of the babies that were able to be in jail went from four to two years. That helps mothers and children a great deal to create a strong bond. Having babies growing up in jail creates a strong bond with their parents, and not a jail that is a concrete jungle.
That is the end of this long presentation. I apologize, but there are many things to say about the prison system right now. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Prosper. You said a lot of interesting things. We actually are going to try to take a look at the models in Norway, Sweden and Scotland as well.
We will hear next from Ruth Gagnon from the Elizabeth Fry Society. Welcome.
[Translation]
Ruth Gagnon, Director General, Elizabeth Fry Society of Quebec: Thank you. First I would like to thank you for this invitation.
I am here to share a few thoughts with you about women in the penal and correctional system. The mission of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Quebec is to support female offenders, exclusively. We have been helping them to reintegrate the community for 40 years. Our thoughts on the penal system are coloured by our experience and the reality and needs of the women we have helped for several decades.
To understand their situation and the issues they must face, we have to take into account the fact that women are a minority group within the penal system. History teaches us that women have always been the victims of systemic discrimination. Before anything else, everything has always been developed and thought of according to male reality. As a minority in the correctional universe, women are grappling with correctional culture and practices inherited from the male universe and the needs of the male clientele.
In Canada, between 85 per cent and 90 per cent of the population in penitentiaries or provincial prisons is male. For instance, women have inherited infrastructures with overly strict security that do not align with their needs, and are often very remote from their places of origin. Still today, they are incarcerated in facilities that can be thousands of kilometres from their homes and families.
There is only one women's prison per region in Canada. Many women serving provincial sentences are imprisoned in facilities for men that have higher security than the risk they represent would warrant, depriving them of establishments and programs that would be better adapted to their needs.
Some progress was made in the beginning of the 1990s when facilities for women were built by the federal government. Those facilities provided an incarceration model that was better adapted to women's needs, but their security level increased over the years, to the detriment of an innovative correctional approach that could have been developed.
It is difficult not to mention the impact of the Harper years, which hindered women's progress in the penal and correctional systems, and which were in part due to the increase in the number of women in prisons; there was an increase in minimum sentences; the creation of new offences; the abolition of conditional sentencing for certain offences; the advent of a correctional philosophy that favoured incarceration over parole; the repeal of the faint hope provision, which allowed a person who had been given a life sentence to ask the court for the authorization to request parole after 15 years; the mandatory remand to a maximum security facility for persons beginning a life sentence, even if they were rated for a medium or minimum security facility. Those are only a few examples of a decade of correctional policies based on an approach that emphasized security and punishment.
These paradigm shifts had an undeniable impact on the penal culture in women's facilities, where static security became more and more important, to the detriment of a mode based on dynamic security.
Women's prisons were not spared. Unnecessary security regulations were also imposed on them. And so in Quebec we inherited an expansion of the maximum security sector we did not need, in my humble opinion, an expense of several million dollars that could have been invested in services for women.
When you examine the situation of women in the penal system, you quickly understand that poverty remains the principal cause of female criminality. Here as elsewhere, we criminalize human misery. Whenever I visit a women's prison, I note the same thing: 85 per cent of incarcerated women have lived in extreme poverty. Poverty is fertile ground for the growth of social problems, and among incarcerated women the diversity of problems is important, as they are numerous and complex.
It must be recognized that incarceration has impacts on children and women, who lose their homes and their possessions. When they are released they have trouble finding jobs or a place to live. Those are only some of the consequences of incarceration.
Canada ranks fifth, as compared to European countries, regarding incarceration levels. It ranks higher than many countries on the European continent with comparable socioeconomic development.
Quebec is the province with the lowest parole rate. It has to be admitted; we incarcerate a lot, and yet paradoxically the crime rate is declining.
However, I want to emphasize that women serving federal sentences have had increased access to parole over the past few months. I can only emphasize the positive impact of this practice put in place by Correctional Service Canada, the Quebec Region Correctional Service and the Parole Board of Canada.
This important community reference, which has only existed for a few months, must be accompanied by the development of resources that can receive women when they leave prison. Certain regions or provinces have a shortage of local resources, which forces women to live in men's centres or to begin their social reintegration far from their places of origin.
In addition, there are few services for aboriginal and Inuit women that are adapted to their needs, both in urban environments and in their communities. The needs are great.
The bottlenecks in the court system, the overrepresentation of aboriginal and Inuit persons in prisons, the criminalization of homeless persons and individuals suffering from mental health issues, and the increase in the criminalization and imprisonment of women should be a warning that forces us to reflect and begin a discussion on our penal and correctional systems.
In a context of budget cuts, where imprisonment is the most costly and less effective measure to resolve the problems of persons experiencing severe social issues, I invite you to reflect on the following question: why does prison occupy such an important place in our society? Canada and its provinces could shift to a community focus and develop an effective policy of alternative measures, making imprisonment a real measure of last resort.
Such an important shift in our penal philosophy will not be achieved without the political will to bring it about, and a government committed to deconstructing the myth that prison is the only valid way to render justice and guarantee the security we expect from our governments.
In the meantime, we continue to invest large sums in the prison environment, to the detriment of our need for education, health care, affordable housing and support for low-income elderly people.
Thank you for your attention.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have questions and we have some time for discussion. It's very important testimony for this committee.
Senator McPhedran, would you like to start?
Senator McPhedran: I would like to direct my first question to Ms. Parisé and Ms. Parent, if I may, about what you're seeing with domestic violence in families.
One of the things we have noticed in our tour was that a number of the male prisoners we met had a history of domestic violence. I think it's fair to say that we heard genuine regret, but an acknowledgment that this was an issue.
In order to have families move to a better place together, I'm wondering if you have a program or a policy or anything you'd like to share with us about that. How do you respond to situations where there is domestic violence, which of course we know impacts very seriously not only on the mother and the family but also on the children?
[Translation]
Ms. Parisé: In fact, we have discussion groups that allow everyone undergoing such difficulties to talk about them. We do not provide direct assistance to inmates or those who have committed violent acts. We help women who were victims of family violence. Thanks to discussion groups and writing workshops, they have an opportunity to share their problems. So that is really what we do. We also want to offer conferences on family violence.
Relais Famille does not yet have programs on family violence at this time. The discussion groups allow people to share. We can meet them individually to listen and provide advice, but as for specific programs —
Ms. Parent: But we direct —
Ms. Parisé: We direct them, exactly, that's it. There are programs or organizations that specialize in family violence. We can provide their number, and provide advice —
Ms. Parent: If we can't provide a service, we never leave a family or individual without an answer. We direct them to places or organizations that can help them. We don't deal with everything, for instance family violence. People come to share their experiences with others. We are there to listen, to communicate with them, to help them get through these painful moments. If we don't have the resources to help them, we direct them to other organizations or specialized centres that do. Thank you.
[English]
Senator Pate: Thank you all very much for being here. I would like to ask each of you to identify what you would see as the top three human rights issues for your organizations so that they could help inform the issues we are looking at. You may have covered them, but there were many more than three issues. I'm not trying to falsely limit, but one of the things we're trying to do is look at interim recommendations as well as some longer term recommendations.
As well, which sections of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act are you using to help get people out? In particular, if you look at section 29, it allows you to take people out for health reasons. Section 81 allows people to serve their sentence in the community, and section 84 allows you to be paroled into the community.
They're specifically focused on indigenous prisoners, but the legislative intent was to look at other groups of prisoners. It could be for African Nova Scotians or African Canadians. It could be looking at trans people. It could be looking at other groups where communities could sponsor people into their communities to serve their sentence and/or be conditionally released.
Who wants to start?
Mr. Freeman: I want to reiterate, to make sure I got the question. What are the top three problems?
Senator Pate: In particular, human rights issues. The second question is whether you've looked at using those particular provisions.
Mr. Freeman: In our case with the inmates we visit or we receive calls from, we have a huge language issue in Quebec. We have the incarceration of anglophone Black youth who are inside. They're receiving French documentation from their parole officers.
Again, I'm talking specifically for the demographic I'm serving. We find it's a lot harder to get parole for our people because there's a certain stigma. It's like they have to overachieve to be able to prove they have been rehabilitated. We find that our people constantly have to jump through hoops to convince parole officers they are ready to be reintegrated into society.
Another issue that we're having is when being released, they are being placed into unfavourable halfway homes when they have to go into them. Again, it stems from language and it stems from their parole officers not properly advocating for them. I would say those are our top three.
The second part of the question was?
Senator Pate: Would it be fair to paraphrase in particular your second one as really the systemic bias of the classification system, programming system and paroling system?
Mr. Freeman: Exactly.
Senator Pate: Tie in the three in terms of human rights issues.
Mr. Freeman: Yes.
Senator Pate: Ten the second part was that in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act right now there are provisions that allow for prisoners to be taken out of the prisons for certain reasons.
Section 29 is for health reasons. It's usually used for physical health, but it could also be used for mental health reasons.
Section 81 allows prisoners to actually be effectively imprisoned in the community if they're sponsored by an organization, an indigenous organization or Black organization that could provide the kind of support and supervision that's required.
Section 84 allows people to be paroled into the community. Right now they tend to be used as institutional examples as far as we know, but if you've seen other examples, if you've tried to advocate for other ways, or if you have ideas about how that could be done, we'd be interested.
Mr. Freeman: We haven't implemented any of them. We have a pretty hard time when it comes to bridging with institutions. It's very hard to get the suggestions in, so right now we pretty much work with what we can get.
A lot of times it's the inmates themselves that are reaching out to us. It's not the parole officers; it's not the prosecutors. It's like pulling teeth to be able to get in and to implement any kind of change, especially because we're more recognized as an anglophone organization, although we're bilingual. Because the population we serve is primarily anglophone and who we're dealing with is primarily francophone, we don't get the time of day. It's really hard. We can't implement any of these right now.
Senator Pate: Access to prisoners is also an issue for you in terms of getting into the prisons.
Mr. Freeman: Big time, yes.
The Chair: Isabelle or Kim?
[Translation]
Ms. Parisé: I realized that there are a lot of problems with providing information to the family members of the incarcerated person, whether it is their mother or spouse, when they need answers to their questions. If they call the penitentiaries, they automatically are denied information, even if they are asking about a member of their family, such as their son or spouse. I believe this creates a feeling of powerlessness which breaks down the relationship that can exist between the two. As we mentioned a bit earlier, concerning reintegration into society, it is crucial that the family be involved to encourage successful reintegration.
When family members do not obtain any answers, this creates a distance between them. They say that they cannot even obtain information on the personal effects they have the right to bring to their son or other relative. This creates a distance. In my opinion, that is the main problem for our organization.
Ms. Gagnon: It is obvious; the fewer women there are in jail, the better that will be. Access to parole remains an important priority for the female clientele.
Unfortunately, incarcerated women in Quebec have very few opportunities to benefit from measures to prepare them for parole, such as escorted or unescorted temporary absences. That activity remains very underused.
Multilevel facilities are the problem. In Quebec there is no real minimum security sector or establishment. The women who are incarcerated in a minimum security facility in Joliette are really in a medium security facility.
As I mentioned earlier, over the years there has been considerable expansion of the facilities. People are much more concerned with security than 20 years ago. The last 10 years played a large part in this.
When the women leave the facility to take part in a program on the outside, they have to go through strip searches that are neither necessary nor acceptable. If this type of search is a condition allowing them to leave the facility to attend a program on the outside, I think that this creates a serious obstacle. A lot of women will not go because they don't want to undergo this type of search.
As for preparing to leave prison by taking personal development programs, certain programs are interesting, but there is very little provided in the way of post-high school college or university courses. They cannot take online courses because they don't have access to the Internet in jail. So the possibility of preparing for training is very limited. They would have to leave the establishment and go to a vocational training school. Sentences are often too short and the programs that would allow them to leave are often cancelled at the last minute because of security issues.
Vocational training in penitentiaries is unfortunately not very well developed, and is still based on a traditional model. In fact, the sewing workshop is the most popular, and it is quite limited.
In conclusion, incarceration is a reality. Time spent in prison should be kept to a minimum, and the investment should be made in the community experience. Prisons are not open environments. They are closed. Prisons are very secure, but they prevent women from being able to leave. Access to parole is still the best thing for women. The work should be done in the community and be supported by the community. That is what we think.
[English]
Mr. Prosper: Just to answer that as well, of course the human rights breaches for us happen before the incarceration in the racial profiling that lots of our citizens are getting from our communities and the lack of help for poverty or too far to try to find employment. That's something that we don't see. Lots of our population is dropping out of school. There are not many policies to fight against that. If we could counter that, it would be excellent.
In prison we have isolation, which we consider torture. We see that often. That was a huge part of my presentation. As well, overcrowded prisons are a huge issue. Lots of prisoners in Quebec are in overcrowded jail cells.
Also, when they're facing security guard brutality, there is a lack of services to denounce the attacks they're facing. Who are they going to call to complain about it? They face a lack of legal aid or assistance regarding the cases they're facing.
What we find also is that lots of prisoners, once they come out of jail and before they get in jail, we don't see progress in their education. We're asking why this aspect is not being treated correctly. Access to education is something that will help them progress in our communities. They're just facing exclusion, exclusion. Once they go in prison they're excluded from the education system. Once they go back with more severe conditions on their release, they're going to face another exclusion. It's just a combination of many exclusions that they're facing.
Senator McPhedran: There has been reference a number of times by different speakers about the social reintegration. When one reads about Quebec in the context of Canada, it's often cited as one of the better examples of social reintegration, including serving sentences in the community.
I'm wondering if each of you would care to comment on your assessment of serving sentences in the community as part of social reintegration.
Mr. Freeman: I could say from the sense of the Black community, I don't see it too much. What you said just now was almost surprising, actually.
[Translation]
Ms. Gagnon: I understand that in Quebec there are a lot of community organizations. I believe Quebec has about 4,000 community organizations, non-profit organizations that are involved in rehabilitation and the social reintegration of offenders. Yes, I must admit that there are a lot of community organizations in Quebec, which have a special feature that is important and which many other provinces do not have. Community organizations are included in the legislation on correctional services in Quebec. They are a part of that law. In Quebec, community organizations participate and co-operate in the social reintegration process.
That said, there can still be human rights issues in prisons because of overcrowding, et cetera. It is one of the provinces where there are a lot of services for the offender population.
The advantage of sentences that are served in the community, whether pursuant to a probation order or a suspended sentence, is that this prevents the person from being separated from her children or family. It also prevents them from losing their apartments and jobs. It allows them to stay in the community and to at least work to maintain their assets.
The problem is that once a person is incarcerated, he or she loses his accommodation. Often they will lose their personal belongings and be impoverished. When they leave prison, they no longer necessarily have access to the affordable accommodation they had before. There are many problems of that order. The penal system is such that if a person goes to jail, it is certain that when he or she leaves it he will face problems regarding material organization. Inmates need support and they will certainly be poorer when they are released than when they went in. The system is built that way.
In my opinion, it is clear that sentences served in the community, or community sentences, are a solution that is preferable to incarceration when it can be avoided.
[English]
The Chair: Do you want to add something?
Mr. Prosper: Please. Quebec has been cited quite often as an example for reintegration, especially at the level of the sentences being less severe, but we haven't seen that a lot with the Black communities because lots of our members from the communities complain that they don't receive the same kind of legal services from legal aid particularly. Most of the time they are cited to give guilty pleas just to make the process go faster. They don't receive the same kind of justice treatments as other people. We will receive longer sentences.
In the whole process also is the huge problem. The huge issue we see is that they are far more severe with the conditions upon the release of members of the Black community.
One thing that is lacking also compared to the federal level in Quebec for the Black and indigenous and women in prison is that we don't have as much data as we should have to verify lots of information. We need to have more data, so that we have access to all these kinds of information.
Are the legal aid services that we are getting for the Black communities less or as good as that for other people? Are the sentences longer for the same crime? We have studies that prove that, but we don't have a total study that will prove that. I think we need to put more emphasis on that. It is also very important to see what kind of training the judges are receiving in facing implicit bias.
The alternative justice system, we don't have that as much in the community. There's only one organization that does that. Trajet OJA has been doing that for a couple of years. They are not really presenting our communities as the most impoverished communities. As an example, that's what we're trying to do in Montreal North. We are trying to establish an alternative justice system to combat the criminalization of our youth. This is what we're trying to do.
Mr. Freeman: To quickly speak to that, some of the youth that we're dealing with are telling us that the parole officers or their legal aids are forcing them practically to plead guilty. A lot of them aren't aware of what's happening. We're talking minor marijuana possession. In terms of finding work after having that on your record, that one small infraction is really jeopardizing them and preventing them from reintegrating and working in the community and providing.
Mr. Prosper: To add to that, there's also something we call "une double peine.'' Some of them don't have their Canadian citizenship and they will offer a guilty plea based on lack of knowledge of the criminal system. What they'll find out is that if they plead guilty then they might be deported afterward. Then they face double sentences.
This is also a lack of knowledge of the justice system, the way it's constructed right now. Many immigrants don't have this kind of knowledge about what's going on.
The Chair: I'd like to ask a brief question on prisoner salary. The highest can be $6.90 a day, I believe, and the lowest could be about — ?
[Translation]
Ms. Gagnon: Six dollars and twenty-four cents a day before the 30 per cent deduction for lodging, food and telephone.
[English]
The Chair: We heard from prisoners in all the institutions I talked about, every one. We were in Ontario this week. The salaries have not gone up since 1984. Because of the way the system works, they end up walking out of a prison with $50. Toward the end of their incarceration they're told by their parole officer, for example, let's say in Quebec, "You're from the Gaspé, but you're going to a halfway house in Montreal, a big city, with $50 in your pocket.'' In terms of rehabilitating a person with limited skills, it doesn't seem to be working because 50 to 70 per cent return.
We're looking at making a recommendation on increasing the remuneration. As they say, it's a no-brainer, obviously. It's about your own dignity inside the system. It's value for what you do.
Perhaps you'd like to give your thoughts.
Mr. Freeman: I could speak to that because it's one of the situations we're currently dealing with. We have an inmate who was shot inside and he pressed charges against the institution. They didn't allow him to go represent himself, so he wasn't able to plead his case. He was then found guilty, and he basically had court fees to pay. We're talking in the tens of thousands of dollars they're charging him, and he's making $6 a day. He gets no advocacy.
We're currently trying from the outside to get him some kind of support, but it's almost impossible in terms of getting support for the individual who is inside and what he is making. The system is not reintegrative. It's really not in place to support them to get on their feet and to get out.
[Translation]
Ms. Parisé: Since we help families at the salary level of the incarcerated persons, I'm not really aware of that.
Ms. Gagnon: Offenders under federal jurisdiction have gotten poorer since 1984. Over the last decade, the Conservative government implemented several measures that really impoverished the prison population. The maximum salary you can earn in a federal facility is $6.24 before your 30 per cent contribution to your lodging, food and phone. This means the maximum salary is $5 a day. Often, the situation is complicated in order to avoid paying the maximum salary. In general, people earn $4, $4.50 and $5, no more.
So this is a situation that in my opinion cannot continue. Incarcerated persons cannot put money aside or meet their family responsibilities. They cannot contribute to the cost of educating their children. I find that this makes them completely dependent on their loved ones.
The luckier ones who can leave and begin their social reintegration in a community residential centre will receive help but the others, who are released directly into the street, go through difficult times.
It is a type of salary that can be compared to slavery. They work for $5 a day. It makes no sense. It is inconceivable for the federal government to maintain that policy.
In provincial facilities in Quebec, an inmate who works in a workshop or a laundry for instance, earns $3.50 per day. They provinces, which in principle are poorer than the federal state, can pay their inmates $3.50 per day. I think the federal government could do the same. Unfortunately, that is not the situation at this time. This whole issue, it should be said, is currently before the federal court. We are waiting for the federal court's decision on this matter. The issue of inmates' salaries was challenged in court.
[English]
Mr. Prosper: If you don't mind my adding to this, if poverty is a direct cause of incarceration, this $5 a day is definitely a direct cause of reincarceration as well. It's a huge issue and I'm glad that you asked that question.
I don't know if you have heard about a program in Texas called PEP, the Prison Entrepreneurship Program. They spoke with different companies in their communities and asked if they wanted to reintegrate the prison population. They tried to adjust their formation so that as soon as they get out of prison they have a job waiting for them at the end of it, to help them reintegrate to society.
This program is actually very interesting. I don't want corporations to be in jail. That's not what I'm asking for, but I think we can partner with lots of different organizations and groups to make sure a program is built to target what the inmates would love to do once they come out. If they end up having a job, lots of our brothers and sisters will be happy to have this kind of program. It's something that you should definitely take look at.
Also, we would like to add that for Black inmates there's also a reality that is very close and dear to us. We would like to have a program in the prison system that brings people from our communities to reflect our culture and values. We would like to have direct access to our community members so we can work with together to create a strong bond and fix what is broken. We should make sure that once they come back into the community we already have that close connection and that they are very appreciated and needed by our communities instead of feeling like they are leftovers and somebody that we don't like to have around. This program is something we think we should have also in Black communities that reflect our cultures and values to facilitate reintegration in our communities.
The Chair: That's what was said inside the prisons in Ontario we visited this week about culturally sensitive, or there's the Black community, the Muslim community, the Aboriginal community, that there is a continuing connection of the values. We heard that over and over again.
I was just thinking about the issue of employment in prisons. In Joliette today the women are working hard, in what seemed to be a cheerful environment, at making men's underwear for other institutions across the country. Ms. Gagnon talked about the Internet and so on and so forth. I am thinking about innovation and the idea of having closed circuit. How are we preparing individual prisoners to move into this new environment of tweeting and simple things like the connecting kinds of things for when they do get out? I'm just thinking about that, but that's just an observation.
Senator Pate: I have a question for each of you, but feel free to comment on the questions I'm asking others.
Ms. Gagnon, my first question is for you. Could you describe the model of the advocacy workers in Joliette and some of the issues around accountability? Is the grievance system working from your perspective? Are there good accountability mechanisms for prisoners to actually have their situations remedied when the law is breached or policies are breached?
For Ms. Parisé and Ms. Parent: You mentioned families not being able to get information on their loved ones. In my experience, that is often characterized as Corrections saying they're protecting the privacy of the prisoner when in fact, if they provided prisoners with greater access to Internet, Skype or FaceTime with their families, or greater opportunity for telephone calls without there being exorbitant rates, then more than likely families would hear from the individuals.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me by tightening up and then not allowing prisoners to have access, they then characterize their inability to communicate with families as a privacy issue when in fact it's really an issue of increased security and less access of prisoners to their families. The freedom of families to associate with their loved ones is curtailed. I'd like you to comment on that.
Also we've heard lots of complaints about ion scanners and about the difficulties of people getting in. Sometimes people drive for six hours or more for a visit, and then are turned away, with the prisoner not even knowing that the visit was cancelled and the family not knowing exactly why or how, and that sort of thing. Can you comment on those?
Then for Mr. Prosper and Mr. Freeman: As you were talking, it made me think of one thing we should include in this report. It will be for the whole committee to look at it, but it sounds as though you're talking about the need to have almost a preamble to the report about how the preconditions are contributing to the increased criminalization of the poorest and the racialized. Those who have experienced previous victimization and violence should be part of that. Maybe there should be recommendations around guaranteed livable incomes and presumptions of community intervention as opposed to imprisonment. Perhaps you would comment on that.
I don't know if you know about the provision in the Youth Criminal Justice Act that requires judges to actually consider every other system before they consider incarceration and then they give reasons why they're actually still using incarceration if they do. What that did was reduce or cut in half the number of young people in custody, but it also exposed exactly what you're talking about, the racism and sexism in the system, because the numbers of racialized young people and girls were reduced.
For each of you: If you want to comment on the questions I've asked the others, feel free as well. I just wanted to give you each something to chew on.
[Translation]
Ms. Gagnon: The problem with the grievance process in federal penitentiaries is that this is not an independent process. If a correctional officer mistreated an inmate and the inmate files a grievance, it will be evaluated by the officer's colleague. So we often say that the federal grievance process is somewhat incestuous because it is not really independent. In general, inmates have the impression that grievances are absolutely useless, because in any case the person who will evaluate the grievance will be a work colleague of the person concerned. So that is really a problem.
The Elizabeth Fry Societies of Canada can be present in prisons, can integrate the facilities. This is a situation which was hard-won following serious events that happened in the past in women's prisons, particularly at the Kingston women's prison in Ontario, following Judge Louise Arbour's commission of inquiry. This allowed an organization like the Elizabeth Fry Society of Canada to be present, to go and meet with and visit the women and to help them have their rights respected and support them in that.
Over the past year, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies won the right to work to train women to become advocacy workers for other female inmates and help them defend their rights, provide information on their rights and help them have their rights respected.
I think that in this way women have an advantage over male offenders, because there is no comparable service in any male facility. Honestly, I think that that system should be extended to men's prisons. This would allow rights organizations to work with persons who have special needs, like the black or Hispanic community, and men from other minorities — aboriginal and Inuit persons — and allow them to be supported by organizations who defend their rights.
Often, women from minority groups experience a lot of negative effects during their incarceration. In this regard, the fact that a community organization like ours can integrate a prison to meet women and have access to the prison population is an important advantage, and we make the most of it. We do our work at that level.
[English]
The Chair: We probably have 10 more minutes, but we do have two other answers and then Senator McPhedran would like to ask a final question.
We would like to have your final thoughts. This has been very informative.
[Translation]
Ms. Parisé: For me, the Internet is what is important. Personally, I think that Skype would really be a good idea, because it would help the family and the inmate to maintain their relationship. It would also be very positive for their children. It's very difficult for a child to not see his parents for a long time. Many of them live quite far away from the prison and do not have the opportunity to see their parents as often as they would like. This would of course have to be done under secure conditions; perhaps there could be a room supervised by guards that would allow for this type of exchange. I don't think the Internet should be accessible anywhere, any time, but this would really allow those who live further away to maintain a link with their families and to strengthen the parent-child bond.
Ms. Parent: Our organization is working hard on this because we think it is very important.
[English]
The Chair: Gentlemen.
Mr. Freeman: Concerning prevention, first of all, it's very necessary to create that preamble because what's happening right now is that our youth, especially, are going through the system unaware of the consequences of their actions.
One of the things we found somewhat difficult, though, was dealing with organizations like Batshaw, a youth detention centre. They are currently working on intermediate, transitional housing. They deal with youth until 17, and then after that they're looking to integrate them into the community.
What ends up happening is that we get an influx of young adults but we don't have the financial means as community centres to take that on. Then we have to go back to the institutions that are giving us the referrals and ask for per diems or whatever it is. It's taxing on them as well. It creates a vicious cycle where we want to give the help, but we're very stretched in what we can offer in terms of support. That's one of the things we're realizing we need to address.
Another thing, too, goes directly to the question I was asked before in terms of domestic violence. We're dealing with anger management with all of our former inmates. We are trying to prevent some of the youth we're dealing right now from getting into trouble. They don't necessarily identify with the people at the CLSCs and the health services being offered, they come back to us for help.
Again financially we're stretched in terms of being able to offer professional help by bringing in a Black psychologist or a Black social worker to deal with them. We need the resources to be able to provide those professionals the adapted services to the participants who need it.
I just want to touch quickly on the point of preventing inmates from getting access to technology. We're being faced with people who are coming out, and the anxiety level of how fast the world has become is creating isolation. Things are going way too fast. Because there's no integration, or giving them opportunities to get access to the Internet and stuff like that beforehand, again we're putting them in situations where it's like they cannot properly reintegrate into the community. Those are the things that we've experienced.
Mr. Prosper: Thanks for covering this part. It's good to give access to Skype, but we also need to give an alternate access for the children to visit their parents in the jail system because it's very violent for them to see their parents living in these conditions. It can be traumatizing for children to see their parents in these living conditions, so it would be nice to have an alternate site for children to visit their parents. That would be very important.
Also, the preamble is very important because we face criminalization that I have identified very clearly, but when you're living in poverty you have kids in schools right now who are struggling with empty stomachs and failing in our school system. Also, in our public schools, we have people that will graduate and will not be as competent as people living in areas with richer private schools. They will face this dichotomy, but they end up feeling they are not as qualified as the other children. That will influence them to drop out of cegep or universities just because they feel they are inadequate in the school system.
As an example, when I went to Calixa-Lavallée school in Montreal North there was a spelling bee for French in Grade 8 that I managed to win. I actually won the contest for all the different high school grades in my high school while I was in Grade 8. Then there was a competition for all of Montreal and I managed to win. I beat people in Grade 12, and then I lost in the semi-finals. I was just in Grade 8, and I ended up failing my French courses in the high school I was going to. You don't see a situation like that in other places because people will see that these children have some kind of aptitude or some kind of capacity and will invest in these children.
We are not investing in our children right now. We are failing them big time, which is actually excluding them and driving them to these kinds of violence. They might go in a different way or on a different path and end up in a criminalized neighbourhood also. It doesn't help us at all, especially when it's over police. Dropping out is something we need to take a clear look at.
I have mentioned before the justice system and the legal aid system. We feel like we have failed or been put in jail because we don't receive the same kind of justice from legal aid services as everybody else.
We have a higher rate of employment than the rest of the community. It's funny because even if you have a university diploma, as a Black person you are less likely in Quebec to find a job than a White person with no high school diploma. That's a reality for the Black community.
What does it do to people? It tells them that if they go to university, they're not even going to get the job they deserve like everybody else. That's why in my community one person out of ten has a post-high school diploma compared to four out of ten in Montreal. These numbers show the system is failing us in many ways.
That's why we need and it would also be nice to have a new preamble. We need to collect some data on racial profiling, overpolicing, and what's going on in jail. It would be nice to have different data on what we are facing as a community.
To finish, it's important for government to support initiatives like DESTA and different groups like it. We are also facing the problem that we are all living in precarious jobs, including my colleagues on my right. Even we are struggling at the end of the day, so we're not as efficient as we should be. It's hard to say, but it's what we call a system in crisis. That's what we are facing.
Senator Pate: In addition to what I was asking you, it sounds like in that preamble you're talking about the reallocation of resources to reflect systemic discrimination.
You mentioned the corrections investigator report. I just want to make sure I didn't mishear you. Rather than spending more time collecting more data, a lot of data show that there is systemic racism and systemic bias; that indigenous groups, Black groups and women are underprotected, overpoliced and overcriminalized, to have that context; and that it's a policy decision made by governments where that money goes, and it goes into policing and incarceration instead of into preventative work. Is that fair to say?
Mr. Prosper: That's a fair assessment that you've made. If we inject that money into our communities, it will help greatly to deal with that.
Maybe it would be nice to add that the judges and the Crown prosecutors have formation on their implicit bias also, to make sure that change. I believe that's very phenomenal. I believe in Quebec most of the Crown prosecutors, over 99 per cent, if not all of them, are all Whites.
The Chair: We're going to have a 30-minute town hall with others who have been waiting, so the last question goes to Senator McPhedran.
Senator McPhedran: This was a superb segue for the question I wanted to ask about the impact of racialization on several levels that I'm going to quickly summarize. This is just my impression from the last couple of days.
First of all, the decided majority of guards in every institution, except for Joliette and the Aboriginal Men's Healing Centre are White men. I have a particular question about youth because you referenced trans and issues around gender identity. I would also include sexual orientation, not necessarily trans but sexual orientation and gender identity. Looking at those marginalized groups, I would welcome thoughts on two points. The first is whether it would make a positive difference if there were many more Black guards in prisons.
Mr. Prosper, I invite you, if you wish, to comment on your own experience in a paramilitary organization, since you mentioned that you stepped away from your career with the RCMP.
The second part of my question is around the documentation because there are a number of references to research that is needed and documentation. Is it feasible or would you see it as desirable to have community academic partnerships in research about the impact of racialization? What would be the timeline that you would see for something like that, from your working experience? This is a question for anyone who is comfortable answering.
The first question, more geared to Mr. Freeman and Mr. Prosper, is about any other observations around racialization, and the second is the particular question about whether Black guards would make a difference.
Mr. Freeman: I believe they would. I don't know what else to say. Definitely it would make a difference because we're talking about a cultural break. There's almost a disconnect right now because the majority of the guards are White and we have a huge Black population that is incarcerated. In some of the stories we've heard it's almost as if some of the guards are scared of the inmates, which causes them to react in a certain way.
Again, this is just from what we've experienced and what I'm hearing from some of the inmates I'm dealing with. I feel it would make a huge difference in terms of the experiences our inmates are going through while they're incarcerated.
Mr. Prosper: Just to take the first part of the gender orientation, I think that's one point that is very important for Black communities and people of different sexual orientation. They feel lots of times that they are targeted more often. They face more violent crimes against them. Sometimes their testimony is not taken into consideration. When they end up in the jail system, they will face many grievous assaults from prison guards and prison inmates, from everybody. We need to find a safe place for people with gender orientation issues. That's why we need other blocks nowadays. Otherwise they will face more violence. It's very important that we place everybody in safety because this is our responsibility.
On the question you asked me as an ex-RCMP officer working in this First Nation territory, for me the reception from the community in the Cree territory was overwhelming. It was very good for me compared to the other people that worked on that First Nation territory. It was a seven-person in the detachment, and I was the only Black person working there. Even when I work with the band council, they will give me more confidence. They will feel like they're safer when they're talking to me. I will have direct access to them.
I was also coaching basketball over there and taking part of other activities. There was one bar in the community in which no police officers were allowed, but I was allowed and welcome over there. I created a strong bond with the people from that community and I still have lots of them as friends.
It also reflects at that time that working on First Nations territories was almost like Montreal North. You don't have many services that we see in other cities or other places. You don't have services for victims of conjugal violence. You don't have places for people that drink a lot. Sometimes every week we were arresting the same person for being drunk and disorderly in a public place, but there was no place we could bring him in the community to treat his alcohol disease.
We face stuff like that in Montreal North. I'm dealing with people in Montreal North that have the same kind of problem and we don't have a place inside Montreal North, but outside of Montreal North we have access to that. So you're sending them to Hochelaga, which is not the same reality that they're facing. That's a huge issue also.
I spoke about mental health issues. As a police officer we are not equipped to deal with somebody who is having panic attack. Sometimes it might cause death, like we've seen in what went on in Ottawa with somebody suffering from autism and other cases like it. It's very important for police officers to understand these conditions of people with mental health issues. If they can refer them to the right services or offer the right services, maybe it will prevent lots of them from being detained.
On the community academic research question, maybe I'm going to answer it another time, but yes, of course it's very important to try to deploy. Something we need to do also is that lots of people from the academic field are coming from White communities. We need to take in consideration these academic communities actually feel we'll go and talk to them and ask them different questions. We have qualified people to do research and they are more sensitive to many issues. It's important to have that because sometimes we're just going to create more oppression against certain members of our communities.
The Chair: Thank you. And for the other witnesses, if you have a short final thoughts, we would appreciate that.
Mr. Prosper: I'm sorry about that.
The Chair: No, no. This is extremely important because there's a theme around this about preventive things going on in the community so that we don't have to see people in these large concrete institutions. What can be done on the street will prevent all that, whether they are intellectual disabilities or mental health. That is what we have to really understand and have a rethink.
Your final thoughts, please.
[Translation]
Ms. Parisé: That was really complete, they answered well and I have nothing further to add.
[English]
The Chair: We want to thank you very much. This has been very insightful.
We are now going to have a town hall meeting with those who want to present, but I want to publically thank you Senator Wanda Bernard, who recommended that you gentlemen be here tonight.
Of course, we have the issue of women, the overpopulation of women in prison, particularly Aboriginal women, and family reunification because the family is a partner of the prisoner.
Thank you very much.
This is the town hall portion of our public hearings. We've been travelling all week and visiting institutions in Ontario. We've been in Montreal for two days.
Rene Callahan-St. John is here with us tonight on our study on the human rights of prisoners in the Canadian correctional system.
Rene, welcome. We'd love to hear your testimony.
Rene Callahan-St. John, as an individual: Thank you so much.
I'm a gay trans man and I live in Montreal. I started volunteering with a group that supports trans prisoners in the U.S. and Canada. I also frequent ASTTEQ, a community centre for trans people, and Cactus, which is a health centre for trans people. I'm a little bit involved in the trans community here in Montreal. Through my work volunteering with the Prisoner Correspondence Project I have heard of a few issues for trans people in prison.
Raise in pay: People need more money, a large daily allowance in prison. I think that's something the committee has already been talking about today. Specifically with trans people in prison, sometimes things like gender affirming items cost more. If they're already struggling to get by on the money that they have, and they have to pay more for things like lipstick, you might prevent them from getting things that affirm from their gender, which could have a really negative impact on their mental health.
Ease of access for community groups: I was speaking with a worker at ASTTEQ who is trying to visit trans people in prison, and especially with Quebec there are a lot of barriers. Sometimes people have to choose among their friends or family visiting, or a worker from a community group, because they may have a list of how many people can visit them. Ease of access for community groups is really important to the trans community and for trans people in prison.
I heard earlier the committee was talking about alternatives to incarceration, which is really great. I'd love to see fewer trans people in prison.
I've also been hearing from trans people in prison that there's a very long wait time to get access to psychiatrists for gender dysphoria diagnosis. I would like to see speedier access for trans people to psychiatrists.
Specifically on this point, trans persons realize that they are trans and decide that they may want hormones or want surgery, or maybe just want to talk to a psychiatrist about being trans. From the moment when they decide that they're trans and while they're waiting to get health care is when they will experience the highest rates of suicidality. Fast access to health professionals for trans people is very important, as is continued access.
Maybe it is not a psychiatrist coming in and saying, "Okay, you have gender dysphoria,'' and then leaving. What that prisoner actually needs is continued emotional support from a health care professional, and hopefully access to other trans people in the community.
I can say as a trans person having gone through the process of transitioning that at that point I did need a lot of support from a trans community, and from a therapist to help manage the anxiety and stress that come with that transitioning or choosing to transition.
Senator McPhedran: Mr. Callahan-St. John, could you just share with us a bit more about the Prisoner Correspondence Project and invite your colleagues to respond as well.
Mr. Callahan-St. John: I would say we have three main functions. We run a pen pal program for queer and trans prisoners. People that are in prison will write to us, and we will try and set them up with a queer or trans person on the outside to provide each with other emotional support or friendship, just to break up the isolation that queer and trans people face in prison.
Queer and trans people are usually more isolated in prison from the outside community, because there aren't many pen pal programs for queer and trans people in prison. Also, queer and trans people in prison may be isolated from their families, so we are trying to break that isolation by offering a pen pal program.
We also have a resource library with maybe 60 to 80 resources on things varying from legal aid, gender, sexuality, safe sex, and resources on like harm reduction in terms of drug use. We try to offer information to queer and trans people in prison.
From personal experience, I can't imagine going through a transition without having Google at my disposal or as a trans person because there are a lot of things. Any time I needed to know anything, I could always Google it, look it up on the Internet.
A lot of trans people in prison are isolated and they might not have that access to information. They might not have access to community. I also had a trans community that if I was going through something, a feeling, I could find a peer and talk to them about it, but trans people in prison may not have that. They may not have like a community support network.
What else do we do?
Parker Finley, as an individual: That's good.
The Chair: Senator Pate, do we have questions?
Senator Pate: Just to follow up Senator McPhedran's question, the Prisoners Correspondence Project is based in the U.S.
Mr. Callahan-St. John: It's based here in Montreal.
Senator Pate: My mistake. Is information that you're sending in to the prisons being received by people, do you know?
Mr. Callahan-St. John: No, it is not. Thank you very much for bringing that up.
Especially with Alberta right now, a lot of our things get turned away. They get sent back for what seem like quite arbitrary reasons. Sometimes they send a slip saying why something will be sent back. A lot of our content will have depictions of sexuality, but none of it is explicit. We've looked up the policies of what is considered explicit and our content is not considered explicit, but it is being denied on the grounds that it is explicit. We believe that may be because the sexuality displayed is homosexuality, usually. It is probably deemed as being more explicit than if it was perhaps like heterosexual depictions.
We don't send anything explicit into the prisons, but we our content is constantly being turned away and turned down.
Senator Pate: Further to that, do you know the publication Cell Count, the PASAN?
Mr. Callahan-St. John: Yes, we've heard of it.
Senator Pate: You probably know that those have been turned away from many of the prisons.
Mr. Callahan-St. John: Yes.
Senator Pate: Many of the arguments, as I understand, have been because it's promoting pen pal. What is being written on the slips that you're getting when your material comes back? Sexually explicit is one. Would it be possible to send to the committee some examples of what you've sent in and what you've gotten back in terms of responses from Corrections? That would be helpful in terms of whether it fits policy and it violates the law and that sort of thing.
Mr. Callahan-St. John: For sure, yes, we could send it. I think for Canada now we've started keeping track. We have started a database of what is being sent back because it's unclear why at times our things will be accepted into certain prisons but not in other prisons, even though they may all be federal prisons. We're trying to keep a database and keep track of it all.
It seems like Alberta is maybe more conservative and that would be why, but it seems as if it gets turned away based on who is working in the mail room. It's not about the policy. It's about who is working in the mail room and what they may dislike or like.
The Chair: Rene, you referred to alternative incarceration. Could you tell us what that would look like in your estimation?
Mr. Callahan-St. John: This one is hard for me because I would love to see a flourishing community support group. You need support groups in Quebec, in Montreal, but funding has just been cut for ASTTEQ, which is one of our major support groups. For me, what I would imagine as an alternative to incarceration would be funding groups that could support trans people. A group like ASTTEQ could do that, but their funding has been cut. They just need more resources.
Yes, if we had more resources, we could have programs. We could have work programs or community accountability.
Mr. Finley: I am just going to add to that. We have also been talking and thinking about before someone gets to the stage where they're being sent to prison. We have been thinking about actually building alternatives where we have fewer people in boxes and about reducing or cutting back on laws that particularly affect queer and trans people. For example, I can't remember the names of the people who did it, but there is research that shows that queer and trans people are more likely to be involved in street-based economies and economies that are criminalized.
A large part of that reason is because there's so much queer and transphobia in the workplace that people have a hard time finding jobs and are therefore pushed into doing jobs that put them in the place of being criminalized and then being sent to jail. Yes, we could think about somewhere else we could send those people, or we could also think about how to reduce the number of people going to jail and cutting back on those laws.
I know that one of those economies is selling drugs. I know with the upcoming legalization of pot, something that we were hoping to see but haven't seen yet, it seems that people who have a criminalized past or a criminal history will be barred from participating in the above ground legal economy. We can only assume this will push people further into these criminalized economies, because they won't be able to access the job that they are trained to do and have the expertise to do, although they were doing it illegally. Thinking about those things is also part of this broader picture.
The Chair: In your context with the trans community inside prisons, what kinds of stories have they told you in terms of attitude from prison guards, to attitude from other prisoners? You talked about their being in harm's way. It's not a very comfortable environment at the first place, I would think, for the trans community.
Senator McPhedran: I'm wondering if I could add to that question another dimension which comes out of some of the discussions or questions that we've asked in different institutions this week. When we've asked officials about gender identity issues, for the most part they've indicated that they're really not aware of there being gender identity issues. That's probably an interesting aspect of this as well. You may be hearing a very different side of that story.
Mr. Callahan-St. John: Could you repeat that?
Senator McPhedran: Officials, for the most part, have not been able to give us details on prisoners for whom gender identity is an issue. Whether it's transition or whether it's about what they identify as queer or trans, it's as though they aren't really apparent. They're not seen by many of the officials.
Mr. Callahan-St. John: I can say that we received a letter from a trans women who is in federal prison right now. There was a search of her quarters. She had makeup and it was all destroyed by the officers that searched her room. I guess she filed a grievance with the CO so that she could get it replaced and it wasn't replaced. It was quite a large ordeal.
From this letter I know of a trans person who feels targeted and who was targeted by guards.
Mr. Finley: Just to add to that, I think I know what you're getting at. We hear from many trans people who are not "out'' in the prison, such as a trans woman living in a men's prison, pretending to be a man and simultaneously being forced to also be a man in this institution, and making a personal decision not to be "out'' as trans to the people, the guards and fellow inmates out of a very real fear for safety.
That also comes with a huge problem. That's a huge mental health issue. That's a huge mental stress. I mean prisons are obviously already incredibly stressful places to be, but to be trapped within a cage within a cage is especially awful.
Did we miss the first question that someone asked us?
The Chair: I was just looking for stories that may have happened inside the prison system.
Mr. Callahan-St. John: I can give you one where a trans woman was targeted and her things were destroyed.
The Chair: Yes.
Mr. Callahan-St. John: Trans people wanting gender affirming clothing and being denied it is also an issue. By gender affirming clothing I mean like a trans woman wanting a dress and being denied a dress. It can cause a lot of emotional strain on a person, not being able to express their gender through clothing, and that seems to be happening a lot in Canadian prisons.
There is something I want to bring up. Through I guess my connections with the trans community, I heard of a death of a trans woman in Archambault prison in March. The circumstances of her death seemed to be quite graphic, the details of it. Personally I tried through my connections to find out information about this death and couldn't get anything. I've contacted trans groups like ASTTEQ. We've all been in contact trying to figure out the circumstances of the death, and we have not been able to get any details.
Information about deaths is supposed to be made public. The only information that we could find on the Internet was deaths from natural causes, I believe, but I don't think this person's death was from a natural cause. I guess it seems this person died because their genitals were removed, and we do not know if it was self-surgery, self-harm, or if it was an attack.
This was made aware to me and some of the members of the trans community about a month or two ago. We haven't been able to find out any information or even confirm whether there was a death or perhaps serious injury. This information has come out of Archambault prison through our community channels, but we haven't heard anything at all about it.
Mr. Finley: To contextualize that also, this is someone, a trans woman, who is incarcerated in a men's federal institution. The policy is still that "pre-operative male to female trans people are housed in men's prisons,'' and that "pre-operative female to male trans people are housed in women's prisons.'' The way to get access to switching a prison is to get a gender dysphoria diagnosis. There are then problems of the wait period and then to get the surgery. You have to go through those hoops. You have to get the diagnosis and the surgery in order to switch prisons.
Senator McPhedran: Do you have the name of the person that you're concerned about?
Mr. Callahan-St. John: No. We just heard. I guess from people who were in the prison told people in the community. I was very reluctant to bring it up today, but after about two months or so of trying to find out information and of not being able to get any, and neither have the community groups I'm involved in, I brought it up.
The Chair: Has this been a part of any media coverage?
Mr. Callahan-St. John: No media coverage.
Senator Pate: Without disclosing anything because of the stage of investigation, there is an investigation happening into that, just so that you know.
Mr. Callahan-St. John: Okay.
Senator Pate: I would say keep in touch. One of the challenges often is: If the individual, after there has been a serious harm, doesn't want that information out, then the information won't be released, or if there's a death and the family doesn't want the information released. Just keep that in mind as context.
Mr. Callahan-St. John: Okay.
Senator Pate: I don't know if you were here when I was asking the previous witnesses about using section 81 for trans prisoners, which is a provision that allows people to actually serve their sentence in the community and section 84, which allows people to be paroled into the community. I think you've partially answered the question because the lack of supports for the trans community generally would be a challenge to then say, "Let's offer support for community.''
One of the things that goes along with section 81 is funding, but it is one of the things you may want to have some discussion about. I'm happy to discuss the provisions, either through the committee or by getting in touch separately. I encourage that because in my experience, when I worked in the system, many of the trans women wanted to be in the women's prisons, but most of the trans men did not want to be in men's prisons. Nor did anybody want to be in seg, obviously. I don't know if you have some of that information or if it would be helpful, but if it would be useful, I'd be happy to provide that as well.
The Chair: We want to thank you very much for being here. I'm glad you did find out that we were here. I don't know how you found out, but we did put out bulletins that we were going to be here.
I have found over many years in the Senate that these town halls are incredibly good forums to be informed. There are groups that come before us, but at the end of the day, in a town hall like this one, the information is extremely important.
As I've said in the last week in Ontario at all the institutions, we are the Human Rights Committee and everybody has human rights, no matter who you are. Whether inside of prison or outside of prison, gender, or whatever the case may be, we're all Canadians and we deserve to be heard and we deserve to be respected.
We want to thank you very much for coming.
(The committee adjourned.)