THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 26, 2026
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs met with videoconference this day at 10:33 a.m. [ET] to study Bill S-205, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.
Senator David M. Arnot (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning, honourable senators, and welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. My name is David Arnot. I’m a senator from Saskatchewan and the chair of this committee. I invite my colleagues to introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I am Julie Miville-Dechêne from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Tannas: Scott Tannas from Alberta.
[Translation]
Senator Clement: I am Bernadette Clement from Ontario.
Senator Oudar: I am Manuelle Oudar from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Prosper: Paul Prosper, Nova Scotia, Mi’kma’ki territory.
Senator Simons: Paula Simons, Alberta. I come from Treaty 6 territory.
[Translation]
Senator Forest: Good morning. I am Éric Forest, and I represent the Gulf senatorial division, in Quebec.
[English]
Senator Pate: Kim Pate. I live here in the unceded, unsurrendered and unreturned territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation.
Senator K. Wells: Kris Wells, Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
The Chair: Honourable senators, we are meeting to continue our study of Bill S-205, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. Joining us by video conference for our first panel this morning, we are pleased to welcome various legal associations: We have Alison Craig, Criminal Defence Lawyer, Canadian Prison Law Association; Nana Yanful, Lawyer and Member, Criminal Justice and Police Reform Committee, Canadian Association of Black Lawyers; and Victoria S.B. Perrie, Vice-President, Indigenous Bar Association. Welcome, and thank you for joining us this morning.
Witnesses, we will begin with your opening remarks and then move to questions from senators. We will begin with Ms. Craig, followed by Ms. Yanful and Ms. Perrie. I would ask the witnesses to restrict your opening remarks to five minutes each, please. We will then move to questions after we have heard from each of the three witnesses.
Please proceed, Alison Craig.
Alison Craig, Criminal Defence Lawyer, Canadian Prison Law Association: Thank you, and good morning, senators. On behalf of the Canadian Prison Law Association, or CPLA, we fully support the amendments. I’m a criminal defence lawyer and parole law lawyer, and I see the devastating effects of segregation, structured intervention units, or SIUs, and the lack of medical and mental health care on inmates. I also see the differences in the outcomes of early release applications that are faced by disadvantaged and minority populations.
The Parole Board of Canada wants to see a prosocial support structure awaiting someone when they are applying to be released. Often, they are unable to provide firm answers about where they’re going to live, where they’re going to work, where they’re going to seek continuing treatment and the like. If you don’t have that, you are much less likely to be granted early release.
Amendments that make those supports more accessible and available are crucial.
In my 20 years, I have had many clients who have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of their experiences in jail, particularly segregation, being constantly locked in your cell in structured intervention units, the lack of mental health support, et cetera. That has devastating impacts on their ability to effectively rehabilitate and reintegrate into society.
On the contrary, the lack of mental health supports, community supports and constant segregation tend to perpetuate the things that resulted in them finding their way into the criminal justice system in the first place.
What has always been particularly frustrating as counsel is the lack of judicial oversight. Generally speaking, the only route to attempting to remedy those circumstances is going to the Federal Court, but that is a process that takes years. You have to exhaust innumerable internal measures and appeals before you can find your way to the Federal Court. Something that can be put in place to address these issues much more quickly is critical.
By the time you get through the Federal Court system, essentially the damage is done. The damage is permanent in terms of mental health impacts, or you have served your sentence and have been sent on your way.
I would also add this in terms of the need for judicial oversight: Parole eligibility periods are in place because gradual reintegration into the community is seen as the most effective process. When many, if not most, inmates first begin their federal sentence, they are given a prescribed program they have to take. The reality is until you take that program, you’re not going to get parole. The problem is: For the last six years or so, since COVID in particular, the waiting list for these programs is so long that you don’t get your program by the time you’re eligible for release, then your release is delayed and the whole process is disrupted. So inmates end up serving far longer in custody than they were intended to by the structured release program that we have in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.
It renders the gradual release program inefficient, and the ability to access supports in order to intervene and apply for a remedy is extremely important.
I would also just say that these mental health assessments and supports are absolutely critical. The vast majority of people who are serving sentences have mental health issues underlying their criminal convictions, including addictions, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder — all manner of things. To be blunt, there is almost no help in the federal system for any of that. It needs to be emphasized in the legislation. Adequate resources need to be there to properly address underlying mental health issues if we really want our system to be about rehabilitation.
Anecdotally, I can tell you that throughout my career, the clients with the far more privileged backgrounds who have the resources to obtain private mental health, addictions and other supports are far and away the least likely to ever end up in my office again. If we really want to make our system about rehabilitation and reintegration, that is where our focus needs to be in terms of legislation and resources.
As it stands right now, the overuse of segregation and structured intervention units has the opposite effect and perpetuates those issues. Then pile on top of that the fact that there is no emphasis on mental health, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
I’m happy to leave my opening remarks at that. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Craig. Ms. Yanful, please proceed.
Nana Yanful, Lawyer and Member, Criminal Justice and Police Reform Committee, Canadian Association of Black Lawyers: Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
My name is Nana Yanful, and I am here on behalf of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers, or CABL. CABL strongly supports Bill S-205.
Incarcerated folks are among the most marginalized and isolated in our society. Bill S-205 is about human rights, accountability and dignity, ensuring that our laws reflect the lived realities of those most impacted by the correctional system.
Nearly three decades ago, Justice Louise Arbour, in her Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston, documented the ongoing and systemic overuse of segregation, the resulting violations of human rights and the absence of a meaningful culture of legal accountability within correctional institutions. She called for greater oversight and for more law to ensure that the exercise of state power in prisons is constrained, justified and reviewable.
Yet, many of the concerns she identified over 30 years ago persist today.
Bill S-205 addresses that gap directly. By strengthening judicial oversight and providing meaningful remedies, it helps foster the kind of culture of law and justification that has too often been absent in corrections.
Given our limited time, I will highlight three key points.
First, one of the most significant features of this bill is the introduction of judicial oversight and accessible remedies for people in custody. Currently, there is a striking gap in our legal system. Before conviction, there are mechanisms to address breaches of Charter rights, but after sentencing, individuals who experience rights violations in custody have very limited and often ineffective avenues for recourse, as Ms. Craig mentioned.
This bill begins to address those gaps. By allowing individuals to return to court where there has been unfairness in the administration of their sentence and by requiring judicial authorization for extended confinement in structured intervention units, this bill reinforces a foundational principle: State power must be subject to oversight. This is essential not only for individual justice but also for maintaining the rule of law.
Second, this bill also aligns with the federal government’s stated commitment to addressing systemic anti-Black racism through Canada’s Black Justice Strategy. A key pillar of that strategy is confronting the mass incarceration of Black people in Canada. But addressing mass incarceration is not only about who enters the system; it is also about what happens once people are inside it. Conditions of confinement, access to care, use of isolation and opportunities for reintegration all shape whether the system perpetuates or mitigates inequality.
The provisions in this bill, including increased oversight, limits on isolation and the involvement of community-based organizations in reintegration, are concrete steps that move us closer to those goals.
Finally, CABL wants to emphasize that the bill’s provisions allowing community groups to support correctional planning and reintegration are not new in principle; rather, they clarify and strengthen what the Corrections and Conditional Release Act already contemplated. Sections 81 and 84 of the act recognize the importance of community involvement in the reintegration of Indigenous Peoples. The spirit of those provisions is clear: Effective reintegration requires culturally relevant, community-based support.
What this bill does is extend and make more explicit that approach for other disadvantaged and marginalized groups, including Black communities. This is both logical, necessary and grounded in the lived realities of Black people in the prison system.
Community organizations are often best positioned to provide the support, trust and continuity that state institutions cannot.
While this bill will not resolve all of the systemic issues within Canada’s correctional system, it is a meaningful and necessary step forward. It brings greater oversight, strengthens accountability and affirms the rights and dignity of incarcerated people.
Importantly, it aligns with broader commitments to addressing systemic racism and inequality in the criminal legal system.
CABL urges this committee to support the passage of this bill. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Yanful. Please proceed, Ms. Perrie.
Victoria S.B. Perrie, Vice-President, Indigenous Bar Association: Thank you, honourable chair and senators of the committee. Tansi. Hello. I am appearing today on behalf of the Indigenous Bar Association, or IBA. We represent Indigenous lawyers, judges, academics and students from across Canada.
The IBA strongly supports Bill S-205. We urge this committee to pass the bill to bring desperately needed rule of law, oversight and human rights compliance into Canada’s federal penitentiaries.
I’ll focus my remarks today on two areas: Number one, the compounding isolation of Inuit and northern First Nations and Métis people in southern SIUs; and number two, empowering community-based alternatives under sections 81 and 84.
Number one, the IBA strongly supports clause 5, which limits confinement in an SIU to 48 hours unless authorized by a superior court. To understand the urgency of this, we must look at the unique realities of Inuit and other northern-based people. The statutory criteria for penitentiary placement require proximity to home, language and culture, yet federal institutions are located in Canada’s South. When Inuit and other Indigenous People are taken from Nunavut and other regions of the Far North, they are severed from their communities and subjected to harmful pan-Indigenization, where generalized programming fails to reflect their distinct languages and cultures.
Consider the physical environment alone. There are no trees in Nunavut or the many other northern regions that our people call home. Arriving at a southern institution surrounded by a dense, looming forest is already a deeply unfamiliar, intimidating and alienating shock. Then to take that person who is already experiencing severe geographic, linguistic and cultural dislocation and place them into an absolute isolation unit of an SIU cell is compounding trauma. It’s isolation within isolation.
For Inuit and other northern Indigenous People, whose communities already face tragically high suicide rates due to the ongoing impacts of colonialism, SIU confinement pours gasoline on a crisis. Judicial oversight after 48 hours is an essential safeguard against this cruel and unusual treatment.
Number two, the IBA enthusiastically supports the amendments to sections 81 and 84. We agree with the bill’s sponsor and experts who have already spoken, like Dr. Palmater and the Assembly of First Nations senior legal counsel, that expanding these provisions to include Black, gender-diverse and other marginalized populations does not threaten Indigenous sovereignty. Ensuring that we are not committing cruel and unusual punishment or forced isolation in any community is a shared human rights imperative. Indeed, many of our community members have intersecting identities with those other interest groups.
The true threat to Indigenous sovereignty is not the inclusion of other marginalized groups; the threat is Correctional Service Canada, or CSC, acting as a colonial gatekeeper. Currently, CSC uses systemically biased risk assessment tools that weaponize Gladue factors against Indigenous People. Profound trauma is mischaracterized as “security risks,” resulting in Indigenous inmates being vastly overclassified as medium and maximum security, effectively barring them from community-based releases.
This is why we strongly support the bill’s addition of proposed section 81(5), which creates a presumption of transfer. By mandating that CSC must not deny a transfer if an entity and the incarcerated person both consent, Bill S-205 properly shifts decision-making power away from a flawed prison bureaucracy. If a nation applies its own Indigenous legal traditions and determines that it is willing to take an individual into a community-based healing lodge or restorative justice centre, CSC must not be permitted to override that sovereign decision.
In conclusion, honourable senators, Bill S-205 offers a necessary path out of a fundamentally harmful system. By strictly capping isolation and enforcing a presumption of transfer that defers to community sovereignty for all marginalized people, you will take a meaningful step toward justice and true reconciliation. Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Perrie. Thank you to all the witnesses. We’ll now proceed to questions from senators.
Senator Batters: Thanks for being here today and for giving us this important testimony to make sure that we make this bill the strongest it can possibly be.
My questions are to the Indigenous Bar Association representative, Ms. Perrie. First of all, given that Bill S-205 significantly expands section 79 to include all marginalized populations, do you believe that Indigenous communities should have been, perhaps, consulted more thoroughly before proposing changes to provisions that were originally created to respond specifically to the over-incarceration of Indigenous Peoples? I’m sure you would concur with the witnesses we heard yesterday regarding “nothing about us without us,” so how do you respond to that?
Ms. Perrie: Thank you for that question. Yes, I do feel that consultation isn’t something that can happen briefly, and it should happen in an ongoing way. I do not believe that the breadth of consultations that have already been completed should stop the bill from passing forward. Every day, we can work to get better, and the state that the bill is in now, I think, makes great strides toward a better future. I do hope to see ongoing consultations continue with all marginalized communities, especially within Indigenous communities.
Should they have been consulted more? Perhaps. Is consultation ever done? No. It’s an ongoing commitment and requirement.
Senator Batters: I appreciate that. I noticed the representative from the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers nodding at that. If you have something to contribute on that point, I would appreciate hearing it.
Ms. Yanful: I concur with my colleague Ms. Perrie that consultation with Indigenous communities specifically and with all racialized and marginalized communities needs to be ongoing.
Was there consultation? Yes, and exactly as Ms. Perrie said, is it finished? No, but there was input. This bill has been passed in some form three times already, so I think that there has been a lot of work done, a lot of research done and a lot of consultations done. I appreciate Ms. Perrie’s comments — that’s why I was nodding — that it never ends. It never ends. It’s important not to just continue to consult but also to implement and take action, and I think that’s where this bill is taking a step forward: action.
Senator Batters: Thank you.
Ms. Perrie, I hear that you support this bill and your organization supports it. Are there any unintended consequences of Bill S-205 that you see for Indigenous communities that Parliament might not have fully considered yet?
Ms. Perrie: Thank you for that question. At this time, I have not identified significant issues that should prevent this matter from going forward. This relates to my previous answer, which is that ongoing consultation is required. Just because the association, at this point, hasn’t identified any reason for this bill not to go forward, it doesn’t mean that tomorrow an issue will not be discovered once the policy is in practice.
Senator Batters: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I will be asking my question in French. It’s for Nana Yanful.
You said in your opening statement that Black people were victims of mass incarceration, and that it was essential to give the Black community the right to access community resources to support the reintegration of inmates. In concrete terms, I’d like you to tell us more about that mass incarceration. Can you tell us about the type of segregation Black people are subject to and how many are affected? I believe the numbers are pretty high. Numbers aside, what does that tell us about the Black community’s place in the prison system?
[English]
Ms. Yanful: Thank you, senator. Yes, in terms of the numbers, I think that’s fair. It’s very important. Black people represent approximately 4% of the population in Canada but nearly 10% of the federal prison population. There are three times the number of Black people in prison than in the general population. They are also disproportionately subjected to more restrictive conditions, including structured intervention units, or SIUs. They represent about 18% of people in SIUs.
In addition to the numbers, it’s also about the barriers they face in terms of programming and accessing programming. They are more likely to be classified as higher risk, they enter prisons being deemed maximum security more than other communities and they have fewer opportunities for gradual, supportive reintegration. The issue isn’t only about disproportionate representation. It’s also about unequal access to these mechanisms that are supposed to support rehabilitation and release. Without access, without judicial oversight and without more opportunities to challenge some of the restrictive conditions, there is a lot of isolation.
Prior to my current role, when I was the legal director at the Black Legal Action Centre, we would get calls every day from folks who were incarcerated, talking about some of these inaccessible legal remedies that Ms. Craig mentioned. Accessing the Federal Court as a self-represented person is untenable. It doesn’t exist. There were always challenges in accessing liberty rights, so it’s not only about the numbers. It really is about what is happening once you’re inside. This bill allows for more life, more law, to be breathed in for those folks who have really been forgotten in our society.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Prosper: Thank you to all of our witnesses. I really appreciate you being here and sharing your expertise and experience with us.
All of you mentioned certain aspects of rehabilitation and reintegration as being core elements in offering a better, more improved way to deal with the current situation that our prisons are facing. As part of that, Ms. Yanful, you mentioned a foundational principle with respect to oversight, and you linked that to the rule of law and systemic racism. You also spoke about community-based reintegration and referenced sections 81 and 84. Ms. Perrie, you talked about the linkage to, I think you said, profound trauma. In other expert evidence about this particular bill, we heard about the concept of deep trauma and that linkage to the definition of risk and enhanced security risk.
Ms. Craig, this is a question for you as well. Within your experience, could you share how this alternate paradigm, it seems, offers a real mechanism or tool by which access to justice and true equality can be achieved through these concepts of rehabilitation and reintegration?
Ms. Craig: Like I was saying before, one of the most glaring things I’ve seen throughout my career is that it is the people with resources and privilege in their backgrounds who are most likely to get bail, shorter sentences and be granted gradual release. Primarily, that’s because they have the resources to set up supports around them. They have the resources to arrange private counselling and trauma therapy. They have the resources to arrange housing when they are released.
Many folks from marginalized and disadvantaged backgrounds do not have that. When you go to the Parole Board, trying to advocate for your release, if you don’t have that structure and system around you, you are much less likely to be granted early release. That starts a snowball effect of not getting early release, being set up to fail and then finding yourself back in the justice system again afterwards because you don’t have those resources set up to support you when you are released.
It is critical that folks who don’t have the supports on the outside can get those supports in order to properly set themselves up for success when they are released.
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: Now it’s my turn to welcome you to the committee, Ms. Craig, Ms. Perrie and Ms. Yanful. My first question is for Ms. Craig. It’s about access to evidence issues that were brought to the committee’s attention. I’ll explain. Clause 11 of Bill S-205 sets out a new remedy, as described in new section 198. The remedy gives an inmate the ability to apply to the court to have their sentence reduced if, while they were incarcerated, they were affected by an unreasonable, unjust, oppressive or improperly discriminatory decision. In order to prove those things to the court, the inmate needs time-out-of-cell records, incident reports, placement assessments and grievance files. All of those documents are in the possession of CSC, the very institution whose practices are being challenged. Defence lawyers told the committee how difficult it was to access those records, describing the federal corrections system as one of the most opaque institutions in Canada. They said that records are hidden behind internal processes and that the very people who control the documents are often the ones who are alleged to have committed the misconduct.
Here’s my question: Should new section 198 instead include a mandatory automatic mechanism for disclosing those records in favour of the inmate? What is an inmate supposed to do given this burden of proof? How do you see the barriers and challenges inmates face in obtaining all that information?
[English]
Ms. Craig: I agree with what you said about prior defence lawyers talking about that. It is next to impossible to obtain records from both provincial and federal facilities.
Anecdotally, one of the things I deal with regularly is trying to get records from provincial facilities for sentencing purposes — lockdown records and the like. It is extraordinarily difficult, and we are often left just having to rely on our clients’ testimony, which is often looked at with extra scrutiny.
I do think it would be very helpful if a provision were added to the bill that specifically speaks to access to records. I think it should be mandatory that they be provided on request of the inmates or their counsel because the court does want to see evidence. Often, our clients will say that it is not enough; records should be there to support it.
On that note, it would be helpful if there were legislation to address the keeping of records because many of the records that I have been able to see, after fighting tooth and nail, are quite inaccurate. Adding something or creating legislation addressing the record-keeping and then the ability of inmates to access those upon request in a timely fashion would be extraordinarily helpful.
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: Thank you.
[English]
Ms. Perrie: To add to that, it is uniquely difficult for a lot of Indigenous People to be able to access the kinds of legal supports that are required to get those records as it currently stands. I do support Ms. Craig’s statement to add a provision to make it a requirement for the timely provision of those documents to clients. It is necessary.
On northern individuals, I predominantly practise criminal defence law in Nunavut in addition to my role at the Indigenous Bar Association. When you have a court system that has so few lawyers and when you have Indigenous People who require access to certain documents — and then having to bring an application to the court in order to get access to those documents — a lot of our Indigenous population doesn’t have access to the funds in order to pay legal counsel to bring these applications.
Can I bring a motion to the court in order to get access to those documents? Yes, but the next step is enforcement of that order and ensuring that the institution does it. I have personally come up with issues there in ensuring the institution follows the order and provides those documents to the court. Then the court has to review them as part of the two-step process for these documents to be released.
These are all additional costs that we are disproportionately putting on the shoulders of marginalized people who are already those who are more likely to be incarcerated. Thank you.
Senator Simons: Thank you to all of our witnesses. My questions are for Ms. Perrie. Tansi and hiy hiy for being here.
Your testimony reminded me of a case that I covered in my days as a columnist for the Edmonton Journal about a young man named Eddie Snowshoe. He committed a robbery with a gun in Inuvik. He stole $45. He turned himself in immediately. He was convicted and transferred to Stony Mountain, which was 4,000 kilometres away from where he lived and then, eventually, to Edmonton where I covered his story.
He was held in segregation for 162 days because the paperwork for his transfer to the general population got lost when people went on vacation. It was a horrific story with a tragic ending.
You raised a really vital point: No matter what the conditions of segregation or SIUs are, if people are thousands and thousands of kilometres away from the only community they’ve ever known and are someplace where they can’t speak their Indigenous mother tongue, is there any situation in which an SIU can provide them with the support they need, or do we need to have a more serious conversation in this country about building facilities in the North so that people can serve their time in community and not be isolated from their family and culture?
Ms. Perrie: That’s a great question, and I appreciate it.
We do need facilities in the North. It is not just the isolation and being far away from culture and land; it is your family being unable to come and visit you. It is just not something that is realistic for a family in Taloyoak, Nunavut, to come down and visit a person in the Millhaven Institution in Ontario. For one individual, we are talking about multiple flights and hotels — it’s over $10,000, I would estimate, just in travel costs alone, without having to pay for their own taxis and food. It is not something that’s accessible right now. It really puts our Far North relatives at a significant disadvantage to be able to leave the facility in a place where they experienced some of that community healing.
We call these institutions “correctional facilities” because they are supposed to correct behaviour and, hopefully, release an individual who has served their time and is now able to contribute to society in some way. But when we have someone locked in their cell for a significant amount of time and kept away from their family and culture — for example, a large majority of Inuit in Nunavut speak Inuktitut, so if we have an individual who speaks Inuktitut exclusively and is unilingual who’s brought down for a federal sentence, it is highly unlikely they will be around other Inuit, given the population in Canada of Inuit at all — those effects of isolation are already present for these individuals.
What you address is something that’s top of mind for the federal government right now with respect to reinvesting in the North and building up the North’s economic prosperity. Would a federal penitentiary in the North be a good step forward? Yes. But what would also be a great step forward is an alcohol treatment facility in the North. Nunavut does not have an alcohol or drug treatment facility. Investment in territorial programs in Nunavut, N.W.T. and the Yukon would also be a great step forward.
These things are, perhaps, outside the scope of this bill but are specifically brought in with respect to sections 81 and 84, which put that power to have an individual return to a community‑based program in the community’s hands. Thank you.
Senator Simons: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Forest: Thank you very much for your comments.
My question pertains to the community organizations. If I understand correctly, these people already have some family support, but the community organizations are mainly there for the most isolated and marginalized individuals.
Currently, are those community organizations able to do the job? How are they funded? Communities are often the ones taking on a responsibility that should fall on the provinces, territories or federal government. I’d like you to talk a bit about those community organizations. Do they have enough funding? Do they have the resources they need to properly fulfill their role and — it seems to me — significant responsibilities vis-à-vis the most vulnerable and marginalized individuals?
[English]
Ms. Perrie: I would suggest that, no, they are not funded well enough. Indeed, there is a long lineup of people waiting to get into these programs who will be released before they ever see the front of that line, so we do need more funding for these institutions.
I know sovereignty has come up in the other hearings with respect to this bill. From where does that ability come to give power to nations to oversee something that the federal government can do? When we are talking about First Nations, I think, partially, it does come into play in the Indian Act and in the signing of treaties with sovereign Indigenous nations. Indigenous nations and Indigenous People do have the right to govern themselves and should be given that ability. I think that’s what proposed section 81(5) is doing. It’s giving nations the ability to reach out and say, “We want this individual to come home, and we will take care of them under our own laws.”
Ms. Craig: I echo that. There is not nearly enough funding. They are grossly underfunded. There are a lot of wonderful organizations out there that would help people if they had the funds to do so. I am on the board of directors of one organization in Toronto called Keep6ix, and the phone never stops ringing, but we do not have the resources to help everybody. Anecdotally, when people are involved with that organization, it makes all the difference in the world — for today’s purposes — to their release plan. However, there is just not enough funding to help everyone who needs it.
The funding needs to come from the government. I think the organizations should be left to run themselves. We don’t want to turn this into all community organizations being run by CSC. They need to be run by themselves and be culturally sensitive. That makes them successful. Absolutely, there needs to be much more funding.
Ms. Yanful: From the Black communities’ perspective — we are not a monolith, as there are so many different Black communities across the country — there is a dearth of Black-led and Black-focused organizations that support folks transitioning out of custody. They don’t exist. If they do exist, they have very limited and unsustainable resources, as Ms. Perrie and Ms. Craig have said. That’s why it’s CABL’s position that clause 9 is very important because it recognizes the role that these organizations can play, but to be meaningful in practice, it needs to be paired with adequate and sustained funding. CABL definitely supports the amendment, but it can’t exist without resources, infrastructure and support from the government to expand these services, make them meaningful and bring this work to life. It has to be paired with adequate resources and funding, so I very much appreciate the question, senator.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Clement: Thank you. You are very eloquent speakers. It makes me proud to be a lawyer. It makes me happy to be able to say that. The three of you are great.
I want to say out loud again what Ms. Perrie said, which is that CSC operates as a colonial gatekeeper. That’s powerful. I also appreciated you saying that the inclusion of other groups does not threaten Indigenous sovereignty. I think it is important we hear that. I am always concerned about pitting marginalized groups against each other for access to something that can make things right and better.
Before I ask a question of Ms. Yanful, in response to the question from Senator Oudar around documents and access to documents, I just want to say that I interacted with a Black prisoner in January who was going through all these sorts of frustrations around accessing documents. He didn’t feel like there was any judicial oversight and just went on a hunger strike because he didn’t know what else to do. We are really putting people into terrible spaces, and they are already in terrible spaces.
Ms. Yanful, I want to talk to you about Canada’s Black Justice Strategy. Also, I wish you a happy Black History Month, and I wish you rest as of March 1 because during Black History Month, Black people do a lot of work. You mentioned Canada’s Black Justice Strategy. Can you speak more specifically about how the strategy supports or intersects with what is being provided in this bill? Then could you tell us how you are feeling about Canada’s Black Justice Strategy and whether you feel there is enough uptake around that strategy and how Black lawyers are feeling about it? Is it something we still need to be working on?
Ms. Yanful: Thank you, senator. Happy Black History/Black Heritage/Black Futures Month to all of you. As you can tell, I am losing my voice because, yes, a lot of labour happens during February. The bill fits squarely within the strategy. It is an opportunity to address systemic anti-Black racism and the disproportionate representation of Black folks in the system. Yes, it definitely starts to do that. It is a step forward.
The strategy also requires us to look at not just who is coming in or the numbers but also how people are treated. This bill addresses the overuse of isolation and segregation. It addresses the lack of meaningful oversight. It addresses barriers to fair, effective reintegration. It creates a mechanism for folks to challenge and address unfairness in the administration of their sentence in clause 11.
These are mechanisms or steps forward that address this disproportionate representation of Black folks in custody. It is CABL’s position that if we are really serious about addressing systemic anti-Black racism — if this government is serious about that — we can’t limit that conversation to policing or to sentencing, and we can’t be leaving that conversation only to February.
We have to examine what’s happening behind prison walls. We have to go beyond that. There also has to be action. As I mentioned before, this bill is really translating commitments from the strategy into concrete action. Are we doing enough with the strategy? No. It’s been extended because the decade for Black folks had been extended, and the work of the strategy is still in its infancy, sadly. More work needs to be done, and concrete action needs to be made.
I can’t speak on behalf of all Black lawyers or all Black communities. I would echo what Ms. Perrie said, actually. There are a lot of consultations. I just saw another one on the strategy, talking again to Black communities: What do you want? What do you need?
Just act. The strategy is so clear in terms of concrete action items, investments and resources that are needed. Instead, resources are being put into the very things that contribute to the disproportionate representation of Black folks in custody.
So, no, we’re not doing enough. The social determinants of crime need to be addressed. We need to have concrete action. We need real mechanisms for folks to challenge the unfairness being experienced behind bars. We need to be moving to action. I can’t speak on behalf of everyone, but I think we would all say more action and less talk.
Senator Clement: Thank you.
The Chair: As chair, I have the rare opportunity to ask a few questions. I would like all the witnesses to speak to a couple of things. We’ve heard many stakeholders and witnesses talk about Correctional Service Canada and its institutional culture with an ethos of working around or not complying with the intention of the legislation. Do you have any advice as to what observations this committee could make to the minister or policy-makers to address that foundational issue?
Second, I would like any comment you might have about Bill S-205 requiring a superior court to have a hearing after 48 hours. What minimal procedural package do you think would be meaningful? How do you get the records, the disclosure, the health, the evidence and the reasons for the SIU?
And would someone like to talk about this: From a practical perspective, how is it that incarcerated people will have timely access to counsel in a 48-hour review? What legislative and regulatory fixes could prevent that right to a 48-hour hearing from just being illusory?
Ms. Craig: Here are my thoughts in terms of the timing and whether it is essentially feasible to get all the records and everything together in 48 hours. In the bail system, you have the right to a bail hearing within 24 hours or to appear in bail court, which is theoretically a bail hearing. They manage to get it done. Because it’s there in the legislation, every morning in bail court, there they are: the bail brief, the criminal record, whatever records the Crown will rely on and the surety declarations.
They are all ready to go because the resources are put in place. Because the legislation requires that to be done within 24 hours, the resources are there to put those records together. If the legislation requires that this be done, they will have to hire someone who sits there and puts together the records in the morning or in the evening or whatever. It can be done because it is done in bail court all across the country every day.
Those are my thoughts specifically with respect to the timing. They will try to make it difficult. It’s not difficult because it’s done in bail court every day.
The Chair: Thank you.
Ms. Perrie: These questions are large and challenging, so thank you. They could be the subjects of their own committee meetings and hearings. This is with respect to all of them but particularly your first question with regard to the culture of not complying with the intention of the legislation.
Dr. Zinger has made some comments to this committee and has also published significant reports in volumes over the course of his role — which he has now left, of course — as the Correctional Investigator of Canada. He has made significant proposals. The Indigenous Bar Association takes the position that if those proposals were implemented, they would result in addressing that culture of non-compliance. It would also provide reasonable access to counsel as per some of his ancillary recommendations.
I don’t know if you need more recommendations from the three of us, but perhaps go back and review the recommendations that have been made by people who have had some focused time to consider these and to write academically and very well about them. Then you can look at implementing those changes.
Ms. Craig: I want to add one thing before I take my leave to get back to court. In bail court, we have the duty counsel system. State-funded counsel are there to assist people because of the reality that you can’t privately obtain counsel or get a legal aid certificate and hire your own lawyer in the time before you need to have a bail hearing. Adding something like that, if we are going to implement this legislation, would be of great assistance — a roster of lawyers who are there to help at the ready.
Ms. Yanful: Yes, senator, that would be the only thing I would add. There are currently so many limits or, I should say, constraints on the number of legal matters in which lawyers who practise in prison law can assist and for which they can get funded and paid. If this bill were implemented and if there were a requirement for more counsel for folks to be represented, then legal aid organizations would have to follow suit and amend some of those opportunities. Then defence lawyers and prison advocate lawyers could actually be compensated for their time.
That’s a huge thing because right now, many organizations are doing work for prisoners pro bono. In thinking through access to justice, yes, these laws are important, but the implementation of it, having counsel and representation, is a whole other can of worms. As Ms. Craig and Ms. Perrie said, there also needs to be some funding and some thought for organizations, like legal aid organizations, that support and pay for access to counsel.
The Chair: Thank you. The last question goes to the bill’s sponsor, Senator Pate. It has to be fairly concise because we are running out of time.
Senator Pate: Thank you to all of you for testifying. It feels a bit like back to the future. About 34 years ago, I was before this committee on Bill C-36, as it then was, the proposed Corrections and Conditional Release Act. I will make a couple of statements, and I would like you each to indicate if you don’t agree with it and what you would suggest.
I thought you put this very well, and Senator Clement had you clarify it. Some concern has been raised, predominantly by groups that are currently funded by corrections to provide current section 84 types of arrangements, that resources will be taken away from other groups if section 81 is expanded. When we were in consultation with groups like yours and members of your organizations, as well as many others, the recommendation was that this be put in so that corrections resources that are currently used to incarcerate would be transferred into the community and to community groups to provide supports.
As you’ve all indicated, one of the biggest roadblocks is a lack of resources. Ms. Perrie, you mentioned the need for a federal penitentiary up north. This probably won’t surprise you: I suggest that if proposed section 81 gets implemented in the way we are talking about it, small communities could actually implement either individual or small group settings that might preclude that from happening.
The first time I went to Iqaluit, there was one jail. The last time I went, there were four. They were locking up people in the jail who were homeless and who had alcohol issues because they had none of the resources you talked about. So it strikes me that putting more resources into those fundamental approaches might be better.
Ms. Craig, you talked about getting records; we all talked about it. One of the suggestions, in fact, that the bar association gave us about why to put in the requirement that corrections must establish why folks are being held for longer than 48 hours is that this would compel corrections to have to produce a record that currently — through the Federal Court system, through the human rights system and through the grievance system — is elusive. Would you agree with those statements? Please feel free to add. Because I know we have limited time, I was trying to compact them a bit.
Ms. Yanful: Senator Pate, I definitely agree with the first one: more resources into communities outside of corrections.
Number two, I agree that the wording of the amendment would compel. I like that it would compel CSC to prove why continued isolation is necessary, which then would have records that the incarcerated person could use. I think there were just those two. So yes and yes, to be concise.
Senator Pate: Okay.
Ms. Craig: Yes and yes for me as well, Senator Pate.
Ms. Perrie: I did have the opportunity to review some of the previous statements that have been made with respect to the first question. Frankly, I wrestled with it. I don’t think that inclusion ultimately takes anything away from Indigenous People with respect to funding, but it’s how that funding pot is being divided.
I understand that previous witnesses have given testimony that they are concerned about money that has been earmarked for Indigenous initiatives specifically will now be shared between all of the marginalized groups, and that is the concern. I don’t have enough information to fully make a submission because there aren’t budget breakdown materials that I have seen.
If it is the situation where a specific pot of funding that was reserved for Indigenous Peoples is now going to be divided between all of the groups that fall under these proposed sections, then I would suggest there may be an issue with that; however, if that is not the case, and there is additional funding or funding that is earmarked for each individual group and it’s not taking away any funding for Indigenous-specific initiatives, then I would not take issue with that.
As to number two, yes, I agree.
The Chair: Thank you. I wish to thank the witnesses again for their presence and for their obviously very valuable contributions to our discussion on the work that this committee is doing. Thank you for attending and assisting the committee.
I also want to thank you for being so accommodating and so patient as we managed the schedule changes to actually get you before this committee. That was very kind of you. We really do appreciate that. It has certainly paid off with your testimony here today.
Honourable senators, we are continuing our study of Bill S-205. For our second panel, we are pleased to welcome, by video conference, Dr. Alexander Simpson, Professor and Chair, Forensic Psychiatry Research at the University of Toronto and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. And in addition, we welcome Dr. John Bradford, Doctor and Professor of Psychiatry, Forensic Psychiatry at the Universities of Ottawa, McMaster and Saskatchewan. Thank you to the two witnesses for being here today, both by video conference.
We will start with Dr. Simpson. I would ask that you keep your remarks to five minutes or so, sir. In addition, Dr. Bradford, please keep your remarks to five minutes. Then we’ll move quickly to questions from senators.
Dr. Alexander Simpson, Professor and Chair, Forensic Psychiatry Research, University of Toronto, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health: Thank you very much, senator. Thank you to the Senate for providing the opportunity for us to speak to you today. I speak on behalf of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, or CAMH, from the position of having had a long involvement in forensic mental health and particularly correctional mental health service development. And for provision, I come to you from a correctional facility this morning, having done my morning clinic.
I would like to thank very much and pay my respects to Senator Pate for putting this legislation forward and for continuing to advocate in this most difficult area. I’m going to make some suggestions for some of the specifics in the legislation, and I’m happy to speak much more broadly about some of the other issues that the first panel spoke to.
The issue of segregation and SIUs is obviously one of long‑standing concern, and putting statutory limitations around the durations and defining the nature of what that should be are patently very good ideas. I’m not sure there is an evidence base to support the 48-hour limit that is in the bill, but from the context of discussions from earlier on, I hear that this may relate more to ensuring there is proper documentation, overview and practice rather than the time frame per se.
My colleague Dr. Roland Jones here at CAMH and I have just completed work for the British Columbia provincial correctional services on their use of segregation using a measure that Dr. Jones and colleagues here developed to measure the degree of mental distress of inmates. That evidence seemed to suggest that people decreased their mental distress after coming into segregation. Often, that is because people are acutely unwell when they come into jail or they are withdrawing or are still intoxicated. Those effects recede and people calm over initial days.
We did see an upturn in the degree of distress occurring over longer periods of time in segregation, particularly after three to four weeks.
We note the UN definition that beyond 15 days in solitary confinement is considered torture. The evidence base for that statement is not clear; the humanity base for that statement is very clear. Of course, it depends very much on what the nature of segregation and solitary confinement is in terms of how damaging it is. Is there time out? Is there contact with other supports? Is there meaningful human contact? Those sorts of issues come into the fold.
The issues there are complex. Oversight is vital. Also, I hear there may be legal reasons rather than, necessarily, scientific evidence-based ones as to why judicial oversight of the time set has been required. I make no comment on that.
The second issue was the recommendation regarding proposed section 29.02 that all persons with disabling mental health issues should be transferred to hospital. All inmates with acute mental health disturbances that result in severity to the degree that they would meet the Mental Health Act criteria for transfer to hospital should be so. I’m not sure that the “disabling mental health issues” adequately captures that definition; it is probably too wide and too vague for the intent of this policy. The policy is clear and wise. The wording, I think, requires careful thought.
Some people with disabling mental health conditions will not want a transfer to hospital. They have the capacity to make that decision. They would be admitted compulsorily when health legislation might allow that. That needs to be looked at in a little more depth, I think, so that the purpose of this policy could be achieved.
Finally, proposed section 15.1(2.01) refers to a person requiring a mental health assessment within 30 days after reception. A lot of our work here and the services we provide and developed have been around defining when people should be screened, triaged and assessed by mental health services. Everyone should be screened at reception. Everyone should receive triage assessment by someone with mental health qualifications following that, because screening will overscreen positive. There will be many people there who don’t have mental health concerns of a severe nature but will, nonetheless, be positive. They need triage to sort out what the nature of their need is. Everyone should receive psychiatric review.
However, 30 days is probably double the period of time we would recommend. We would recommend screening, triage and assessment occur within two weeks of reception. That time frame could be tighter than suggested in this provision.
The model that I have already mentioned that we have developed and implemented here in the correctional settings that I work in within Ontario and which has been influential internationally is called the STAIR model: screening, triage, assessment, intervention and reintegration. Defining service standards across all of those definitional areas is one that we have developed and would be happy to share. It could be used to hold CSC to standard as to what should be provided in terms of the assessment and intervention strategies available within custody and reintegration. I know general reintegration is a strong focus of this bill, which we support, but it should have specific reference to evidence-based reintegration from a mental health perspective to ensure appropriate mental health follow-up in the community.
With those comments, I would be happy to take any questions. I pass the floor to Professor Bradford.
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Simpson. Dr. Bradford, please proceed.
Dr. John Bradford, Doctor and Professor of Psychiatry, Forensic Psychiatry, Universities of Ottawa, McMaster and Saskatchewan, as an individual: Good morning. Thank you very much for inviting me. It’s a privilege to be here.
I am strongly in support of the bill. I think it is, in some ways, a little bit too long in coming.
I just want to emphasize something that Dr. Simpson said in terms of the triage and some of the interactions with the Mental Health Act, which may not be as seamless as put forward in the bill; it may need to be looked at some more.
I also think it’s important to bring to your attention — although I’m sure you’re aware of it — some of the cases I have been involved with. The first was Ashley Smith who was a teenager in New Brunswick whose offence was throwing apples at a mail carrier. She ended up in a federal institution at 18 years of age and died at 19 years of age. She was moved 17 times. Her mental health deteriorated significantly. She was in segregation most of the time, and the key element is that segregation was used to manage the self-harming behaviour rather than treatment. She died by suicide. The inquest ruled it a homicide.
The legal impact is that it triggered about 104 recommendations, but there was one thing that came out in the inquest: institutional indifference. I’ll come back to that again because I think it’s an important issue.
The other case study I was involved with was Adam Capay. He was mentally ill when he was admitted to the detention centre. While he was mentally ill, he attacked and killed another inmate. He was charged with first-degree murder.
He was then placed in segregation, where he spent 1,647 days in a Plexiglas-covered cell in Thunder Bay. There was artificial lighting 24 hours a day. He had a history of severe psychiatric trauma. He was traumatized by the experience. What happened there was that none of this would have ever come to all of our attention except that the Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission was doing a visit to the prison. A correctional officer called her over and said to her that she should ask about Mr. Capay. She did, and then we found out, in fact, what had happened.
Again, when I had the opportunity, I was involved as an expert in his trial. I also treated him subsequently. It was quite clear that what happened with Mr. Capay was that the more he spent in seclusion, the worse he got, which meant he stayed in seclusion even longer.
The internal oversight of segregation was functionally ineffective, meaning, again, there were concerns about there being institutional blindness or that the institutional system oversight failed.
More recently, there has been a case in Ontario where a person in the mental health system has been in seclusion for 7,300 days for what amounts to a treatment impasse. Again, this raises the issue about how that could happen. It was somebody who was found not criminally responsible, somebody under the Ontario Review Board and who has been under that board for 20 years.
I bring all of this up because I think that segregation in terms of this particular bill and Correctional Service Canada is critical, but I also bring it to your attention that there are countries that have completely banned segregation — Finland is in the process but not completely at this point. But I think that’s something we should probably aim for.
I have also written a chapter in a recent book published by Anita Szigeti where I go into a lot more detail about these issues.
I don’t think there is any doubt that segregation and the isolation that goes with it are a problem and cause more problems, particularly in people — I would suggest it’s with some of our First Nations people — with intergenerational trauma. This causes increased vulnerability for that particular group.
I would echo some of the comments said earlier by Ms. Craig, Ms. Yanful and Ms. Perrie about some of those concerns. I can tell you that there is a study we have just done. It’s not published yet. It shows that in mental health facilities, about a quarter of people have some form of control mechanism, which includes seclusion.
I believe we need to do more work on the mental health part of it, and I’m very pleased to see that this is moving forward in terms of this particular bill.
The one thing I would add briefly is I was instrumental in the establishment of the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre. St. Lawrence Valley is first and foremost a correctional facility that provides treatment for seriously mentally ill males in the province of Ontario. You can only get in if you have a serious mental illness. It does have segregation, but it also has seclusion. The study in press at the moment looks at the differences.
One of the things I did do was when we first got St. Lawrence Valley going, it was made very clear that if somebody was in seclusion — which would be signed by one of the psychiatrists, where there would be 24-hour nursing, staying with them and interacting with them — this was different from segregation. Also, at the same time, it could be reviewed by the Consent and Capacity Board because we would certify somebody to go into seclusion.
All this to say that I think there is a degree of institutional blindness and oversight, both in health care and in psychiatric and forensic psychiatric facilities — which is important — as well as in correctional facilities. I would be quite happy to answer any questions. Thanks for listening to me.
The Chair: Thank you for your opening remarks. We have six senators with questions, and we have limited time. I will ask everyone to be concise.
Senator Batters: Thank you to both of you for being here. Thank you for the work you both do every day to help people with mental illnesses in Canada. It is such an important topic.
First of all, Dr. Simpson, under Bill S-205 — and you reference this in your opening remarks — a transfer to hospital could be triggered where an inmate refuses to interact, self‑harms, shows symptoms of a drug overdose or displays signs of emotional distress. You referenced in your opening remarks that this sort of definition is “probably too wide and too vague” and needs to be looked at more carefully.
Based on clinical practice, just to get into this in more depth, does that definition align with real-world thresholds for hospital admission? Also, if you think that the definition is too broad to serve as a legal threshold for mandatory transfer, if you had to narrow it down to perhaps one or two essential clinical criteria, what would you say they would be?
Dr. Simpson: Thank you for your question. The list of things that you mentioned is too broad. Something like a drug overdose, for instance, would need transfer to a general health facility to deal with the medical risks secondary to the drug overdose, not firstly to a mental health facility.
If we’re talking about transfer to a mental health facility, really the thresholds for that are those set by mental health legislation within each province. They would define the degree of severity of mental disorder, both the nature and type of that, and the risks this poses, whether to self or others or the incapacity to care for self, or whether the person lacked the capacity to make decisions.
Those severity criteria combined with the mental illness criteria are in each legislation across the country, and, of course, it is a little different province by province. I think this might do better to reference transfers to hospitals for mental health treatment being linked to meeting the Mental Health Act civil commitment criteria for compulsory treatment in the province’s legislation where the inmate is currently placed.
Senator Batters: Dr. Simpson, we have also heard that psychiatric and forensic hospitals are already operating — many of us know this, unfortunately — at limited capacity. And if Bill S-205 did make transfers more frequent and mandatory, do you believe that the mental health care system in hospitals has the real capacity to absorb those patients without displacing other patients and also without effectively shifting Correctional Service Canada’s challenges to the hospital network?
Dr. Simpson: Correct in terms of our issues with capacity. And no, we couldn’t absorb this. Indeed, certainly in our work in Ontario, there has never been — other than St. Lawrence Valley, as Professor Bradford mentioned earlier — organized provision for acute mental health treatment of provincial inmates or federal inmates. If you become unwell there and need to be formed under the Mental Health Act, in most parts of the province, you go to the emergency department and to a general psychiatric ward, which means the person is in shackles with two correctional officers with them who are there in the civil mental health facility. It is not humane treatment because of the person shackled continuously for security reasons, so it needs to be at least a medium-secure forensic hospital, and that capacity has not been designed for.
Clearly, corrections has hospital facilities within the federal correctional envelope, which would deal with some of that need and where people can be treated compulsorily. There are a number of those across the country. They would be, I imagine, where most of those things would go. A step for that to move to provincial mental health facilities nationally would require a major service and capital investment to make that feasible.
Senator Batters: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: My question is for Mr. Simpson.
In your opening remarks, you said your research shows that, when an inmate goes into segregation, the initial consequence is that they become calmer. Perhaps I misunderstood that. I’d like you to tell us more about what your research shows regarding the initial time spent in segregation. Also, does your research show that inmates should not be in segregation longer than 48 hours, or does it take a few days in order for that calmer state to last?
[English]
Dr. Simpson: Thank you for your question. I think my response is somewhat complex and nuanced. I work in a provincial setting. I saw two people in segregation this morning. The reasons for people to go to segregation units are complex. Some people go there for behavioural violations, for violent incidents or for not following instructions, or they are there for custodial management purposes because of the risk they pose to others or their failure to follow correctional directions.
Another chunk are there because they choose to be there. I know that sounds perverse, but just think for a moment about the choice they are making. They find it safer to be in a single cell on their own, segregated with periods of time out with a reasonable amount of contact, because that feels safer for them for the few weeks they are going to be on remand until their court date comes, and then they will get released to the community. In other words, the mainstream remand units are sufficiently interpersonally toxic, so people choose an environment where at least they can control what is going on and they know how they will manage that. A third proportion of people are there for suicidal threats or fears or acute mental health problems. Those people are going there in distress, getting more health attention, maybe reviewing medications and also seeing psychiatrists, mental health nurses, psychologists and others more regularly to help stabilize their distress. Things get better over the first days in segregation as a response. Things improve, they may calm down, and whatever precipitated the deterioration of their mental state or the rise in suicidality or distress tends to fall, and then they settle and return to their wing or wherever they came from.
It is important not to think of segregation and the reasons to be there as simple. They are complex and, in part, reflect the nature of the interpersonal environment the person is otherwise in, which is often a very stressful and very difficult one. If there are three people to a room because the unit is overcrowded and if you are out in the main area with 30 people, some of whom you are fearful of — or you are fearful of being around large groups of people anyway — you make choices that externally look perverse but internally make sense.
The data we have got was using a tool called the Clinical Global Impressions, or CGI, Scale which has a score of 1 for normal and a score of 7 for the sickest person I have ever seen. Clinicians can do that quickly, hearing how the person has been functioning and interviewing them. B.C. provincial corrections implemented that, where every time the mental health nurses reviewed somebody in seclusion, they completed the CGI. They gave us that data of everybody segregated in British Columbia to see what the patterns were.
We saw people going in and out much unchanged. We certainly saw — for the last group I was talking about earlier — those who go in there in distress and then calm down over the initial days or a week or two. You see that decline. Then we see a rise in distress the longer they are in segregation. We see that rise not to initial levels again, but by 30 days, clearly some people are having increasing problems.
What we call segregation, SIUs or solitary confinement, of course, has differed over time. How much meaningful contact people get, how much activity, books and access to watching television and the things that they get while in segregation are very different from place to place, so we need to be careful about making broad statements about that.
Our overall impression of the people who are admitted to segregation because they are in distress is they do recover and do get better over the initial period, but it is important to move people on by two weeks, at least in terms of our data, which resonates with the 15 days from the UN, before the opportunity for things to deteriorate might emerge. Thank you.
Senator Prosper: Thank you to our witnesses here. I have two questions, but I think that is a bit too much, so I will just focus on a question for you, Dr. Bradford.
You use terminology like “institutional indifference” and “institutional blindness.” You also note “intergenerational trauma,” at least within the context of Indigenous inmates. Are you able to draw a linkage between intergenerational trauma and those concepts of institutional indifference and blindness?
Dr. Bradford: I don’t think I can do that specifically, but we all know that Indigenous People and people of colour basically end up in seclusion or segregation more frequently. Of course, with intergenerational trauma, the vulnerability to develop trauma-related symptomatology is part of that spectrum and, therefore, they’re more vulnerable to the negative effects of segregation or seclusion.
The institutional indifference, I think, is that I don’t believe there is a fundamental acceptance of the negative aspects of seclusion or segregation. I don’t think they are accepted, as I see it and, I think, as other people see it. There is just not that acceptance. I understand that in institutions, there are concerns around violence to staff. As Dr. Simpson says, people ending up in segregation can be complex, but the longer the duration, the more problematic and more damaging it becomes. I think that’s well established in science.
Senator Prosper: Thank you.
Senator Pate: Thank you to both our witnesses for the work you do: Dr. Simpson predominantly in the provincial system and Dr. Bradford in both the provincial and federal systems.
Dr. Bradford, I wanted to ask you to expand upon something. You mentioned some of the experiences you have had. I think you were also very involved in the case of Patrick Warren whom Justice Pomerance ordered should be transferred to a hospital by Correctional Service Canada and, as you know, was not. Also, there is your work reviewing the regional psychiatric centres for Correctional Service Canada and your findings there.
Also, in the time when there was supposed to be a contract being negotiated between federal corrections and St. Lawrence Valley to have a specific unit — it was not just two beds, which is what they contracted for a short period of time, but to actually have a unit.
Could you please expand on those three areas for us?
Dr. Bradford: Sure.
Regarding the case of Mr. Warren, basically, previously when he was in CSC, he was detained in segregation the whole time. Now he is part of a dangerous offender application. What would happen would be that he would then be in segregation for the duration of an indefinite sentence.
He is vulnerable in terms of intellectual disabilities. So the question came up: Would he be better served in a hospital? I think he would be, but as Dr. Simpson brought up, to get somebody from a CSC environment into a forensic hospital is not that easy. It is feasible but not that easy.
In terms of the 2017 review of the regional psychiatric centres that I did, I had to sign a non-disclosure clause, so I will just talk in generalities. One of the things about St. Lawrence Valley and the motivation to get it going was that there was a time in the 1990s where we would take seriously mentally ill people from provincial prisons and detention centres, treat them and send them back. The forensic system has been under pressure since that time. That wasn’t feasible. I then lobbied strongly for St. Lawrence Valley, and St. Lawrence Valley has been a significant success.
When I reviewed the regional treatment centres, there are very significant differences between them and St. Lawrence Valley. For example, the staffing of St. Lawrence Valley is exactly the same as the forensic treatment unit next door. It has the same number of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. All the nurses in St. Lawrence Valley are nurses who are under the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group. I can say without any reservation that the level of psychiatric care between these two institutions does not differ.
This is generalizing, but if you look at the regional psychiatric centres as a whole and compare the staffing complement, say, to St. Lawrence Valley, I note that St. Lawrence Valley is roughly 85% to 90% health care staff and 10% to 15% correctional staff. If you look at the regional treatment centres, it is the opposite: about 85% correctional staff and 15% treatment staff. There have been changes. I believe as a result of that review, there will be changes moving more directly, hopefully, toward a St. Lawrence Valley model.
The other problem, of course, is that St. Lawrence Valley only deals with men at the moment, although there will be another facility, arising out of the Jahn case, for women.
I’ve forgotten the third question, Senator Pate. I beg your pardon.
Senator Pate: One of the issues that has come up here and around Bill C-83 when it was implemented and SIUs is that corrections received quite a bit of money to contract outside mental health beds. They have contracted none. It is unclear where the money went. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has shown it would be cheaper to contract beds in psychiatric facilities than to keep people in seg or SIUs, yet those beds have not been contracted.
If I recall, it was in the mid-2000s or maybe later when that contracting process was in place or negotiations were happening between the Royal Ottawa, St. Lawrence Valley and Correctional Service Canada, and then it fell apart — you can tell us, if you recall.
Dr. Bradford: Right. Correctional Service Canada is able to transfer people to psychiatric facilities. What we did was — and it was something that seemed to be positive at face value — contract with Correctional Service Canada for a certain number of beds. It was a small number, either two or a maximum of three. And we would provide services to people identified by CSC as being seriously problematic.
Senator Pate: Dr. Bradford, I’m sorry to interrupt, but my time is up. I was talking about the larger unit that was supposed to be 20 beds, and then they settled on the pilot. If you could provide any information, that would be great. Thank you.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much to our esteemed witnesses. I have a great deal of sympathy with Senator Pate’s bill, but I share Senator Batters’ concern that the mandatory 48‑hour transfer could have a very difficult knock-on effect on provincial psychiatric facilities. At the same time, it seems to me that we have created a completely bizarre system. I think about my home city of Edmonton, where the large mental health hospital is quite close to both the provincial prison and the federal maximum-security men’s prison.
The Helen Hunley Forensic Pavilion within Alberta Hospital Edmonton is for forensic patients deemed not criminally responsible, or NCR. The rest of that campus has empty hospital buildings that have been basically put out of service at the same time that we don’t have psychiatric care beds.
It would seem to me that it should not be impossible, even in a federated system where health care is a provincial responsibility, to build more secure forensic capacity for people who have not been deemed NCR. I don’t really understand why the NCR patients are a provincial responsibility and not a federal one.
Am I being naive about the potential for the federal and provincial governments to work together to create a more secure forensic space that is appropriate for patients who may not be well suited to taking up beds in a conventional provincial hospital?
Dr. Bradford: Is that a question for me?
Senator Simons: Have you ever heard of any discussion about an attempt to build more capacity that is appropriate for prisoners who need mental health care but who may be a risk to other patients in a standard psychiatric ward or, as you say, an emergency room or a general ward?
Dr. Bradford: It is interesting. I worked as a consultant for the Government of the Netherlands. They have a facility in Utrecht, which combines persons found not criminally responsible and persons who have a serious mental illness serving a sentence in the equivalent of the federal system in the Netherlands. It is done there. They have a very good facility. It works well, and the results seem to be good from what I saw.
It is difficult because of the jurisdictional issues. Obviously, health is a provincial jurisdiction. I still think that the solution is most likely to upgrade the regional psychiatric centres so that they’re all able to provide psychiatric care at the level of, say, St. Lawrence Valley. That is what I recommended, and I still think that’s the solution.
Dr. Simpson: I agree with Professor Bradford. The question you asked, Senator Simons, is a very reasonable one. Certainly, where I trained in New Zealand and in the U.K., health services are responsible for the mental health care of prison inmates, not corrections. You don’t have corrections running health services. You have health in-reach services, and hospitalization is the responsibility of the health sector. In medium-secure units in the U.K., special hospitals provide that service. It’s a little different from place to place. One of the difficulties here is that we have health being provided by a corrections provider, and that occurs in some provinces. Other provinces have taken different models. B.C., Alberta and Nova Scotia provide provincial-level mental health services by health providers, not by corrections. There was a proposal for that to happen here in Ontario, but it was stopped with the change of government in 2018.
First, the model of health providers being responsible for health services is vital. That’s one of the difficulties. Clearly, consistency across the federal system makes that complicated, but I think that is a fundamental principle that would be important to see how that could be asserted with greater degrees of accountability within corrections.
I’m sure Professor Bradford is right that the only feasible short-term way of doing that is to ensure proper health service oversight of the regional psychiatric units that exist within Correctional Service Canada currently. The cost of building stand-alone forensic services is very high but could be done over time. The quickest and most effective way of doing that would be ensuring proper contracts and service provision in regional treatment centres.
Senator Simons: Surely, there is a way for the federal government to do this. As I say, I’m thinking about Alberta Hospital Edmonton. I don’t know if either of you has had occasion to visit. It is a huge campus, originally built for returning veterans in World War I. It is outside the major areas where people live. It could be the perfect place to develop more forensic capacity, and it has a stand-alone forensic hospital on site. It just baffles me.
Senator Pate: They used to take prisoners.
Senator Simons: They don’t. The Alberta government no longer allows prisoner transfers there.
Dr. Simpson: What you are suggesting is feasible, but it needs cooperation —
Senator Simons: Yes, and the politics may be less feasible than the practicalities.
Dr. Bradford: In St. Lawrence Valley, there was a similar situation where there was an old provincial psychiatric hospital that had shut down, and parts of it were turned into St. Lawrence Valley.
Senator Simons: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: Thank you for being with us today, Mr. Bradford and Mr. Simpson. My question follows up on the discussion you had with my colleague Senator Prosper.
It’s a question I asked a previous panel. It pertains to the criteria for the disabling mental health issues referred to in new section 29.02. That provision refers to criteria already set out in the legislation. They include when the health of an inmate in an SIU is suffering because they are refusing to interact with others, engaging in self-injurious behaviour, showing symptoms of a drug overdose or showing signs of emotional distress requiring urgent care. However, these are medical or behavioural criteria that aren’t quite tailored to the cultural, historical and social realities specific to Indigenous peoples. I wanted to hear your view on that.
Do they adequately reflect the specific ways in which distress may manifest in those circumstances, given the intergenerational trauma or mental health disorders affecting Indigenous peoples? We know all those things have been recognized in the case law and countless reports. Should the legislation be adapted to take that into account, or can that aspect be addressed through culturally sensitive indicators based on historical trauma? Dr. Bradford can go first.
[English]
Dr. Bradford: Yes, I do think so. There needs to be sensitivity to those issues, particularly intergenerational trauma. One of the things we did do at St. Lawrence Valley was to arrange for a person with an Indigenous background who could provide special services, Sweat Lodges, et cetera. The issue of dealing with trauma in an Indigenous population does require special expertise, and it is not always available. I think it needs to be dealt with appropriately and has to be properly funded to make sure that this occurs.
There is not enough recognition of the Gladue principles from the Gladue reports, and that is also, I think, part of institutional blindness, in my opinion.
The Chair: Would Dr. Simpson like to make a contribution to that question?
Dr. Simpson: The question was huge in terms of its reach, and very important issues are contained within it. Of course, we heard from the panel before us, where Ms. Perrie from the Indigenous Bar Association was talking about the structural dislocation that comes from being incarcerated far away from your family of origin.
Admission to a mental health facility can’t address that kind of structural problem. The way in which you’re being incarcerated and taken a long way away from your place of origin increases those things and obviously resonates with the damage of colonialism and the intergenerational trauma that’s affecting people, so much of that needs to be addressed at the correctional system level.
What we, as mental health providers, can do is address that amongst the people who carry those issues when they come to us for mental health needs. But the issue is much larger than what psychiatry or mental health can address.
Senator K. Wells: Thank you both for the very informative conversation today. Have either of you had experience with trans or gender-diverse persons in SIUs who may not be there necessarily for mental health concerns but for safety or institutional concerns? From your perspective or experience, are there unique concerns that need to be considered from interactions you may have had?
Dr. Bradford: Some of the times where I’ve had to deal with transgender individuals, they have requested to go into segregation for their own protection, so much so that they then became distressed and developed emotional dysregulation. So it is an issue. I’m just not sure how big an issue it is at the moment.
Dr. Simpson: I don’t work federally, so I have not seen it in that context, but I have certainly seen it provincially, as Dr. Bradford describes. Transgender individuals do make different decisions around how they manage their incarceration, if you like. On some of my earlier comments about why people go into segregation, this falls into that camp. They feel safer and more secure in a segregated setting than they do integrated into a mainstream one. The reasons for that are obvious. I think it goes to the interpersonal risks and toxicity that can exist within prison wings.
Senator K. Wells: Thank you. I have a couple more questions. This may be just you sending us some information. Dr. Bradford, I was wondering about the book chapter that you mentioned as well. Could you send that to us or send a link to us for background information or any other research papers that you may have that you feel are germane to this particular bill that we’re studying? You’ve done extensive work in this area, and I think we could benefit from that.
Dr. Simpson, I know we are short on time, but I was wondering if you have brief comments or if you could send us information on the STAIR model that you talked about. In particular, has research been done on the outcomes of that model and its effectiveness?
Dr. Simpson: Thank you. I am happy to share that. There has been a little bit of data looking at the effectiveness, and we used it for service redesign in a number of settings. I am happy to share that.
The Chair: Thank you. Please send that information to the clerk, and it will be distributed to senators.
Colleagues, I sincerely thank both our witnesses, Dr. Bradford and Dr. Simpson, for attending here today and for their important contributions. They have added much to our discussion and knowledge concerning Bill S-205.
I also want to express the appreciation of the committee for the witnesses’ flexibility and patience throughout the rescheduling process. We really do appreciate that. I find the credibility of your comments so high that it is really important that we heard from you. Thank you very much for your attendance here today.
Dr. Bradford: Thank you.
Dr. Simpson: Thank you.
The Chair: Colleagues, our hearing of witnesses on this bill is now complete. Clause-by-clause consideration of Bill S-205 will take place at our next meeting on Wednesday, March 11. Your steering committee encourages you to prepare in advance and reach out to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel and to the clerk of this committee, if possible, with any proposed amendments that you might have. In addition, any proposed observations would be greatly appreciated to be received as soon as possible. Thank you, senators.
(The committee adjourned.)