(8 minute read)
Brennan Guigue would readily agree that people have good reason for their low opinion of him.  He deserves to be in prison, as do almost all men and women who walk the ranges of our federal institutions.  Under the law though, prisoners also deserve the benefits of the obligations Correctional Service of Canada has under its governing legislation and policies to rehabilitate and safely return offenders to the community, and to uphold that as its principal aim.

Policy is one thing; practice is another.  Inmates too often are overwhelmed by a system that doesn’t listen to itself, won’t regulate its own infractions, and where truth is what it says it is.  Most offenders simply ‘cave.’  How can you stand up to a system that has so many ways to kick your legs out from under you?

Brennan Guigue is intelligent and articulate and speaks truth to power.  He picks his battles and when he takes a stand, it’s not just about him.  It’s for the people who can’t/won’t speak for themselves.  It confronts the uniforms who do what they want with impunity.  It’s for what’s right.

Readers of Brennan’s letter to a correctional investigator we’re publishing here are right to think they’ve begun reading a book from the middle.  Background will come in a later posting but the crux of the issue is the help he was giving other inmates to deal with prison health care was seen as an insurrection.  Creative CSC writers went to work to demonize Brennan without supporting documentation and then suppressed his access to files that would support him.

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Correctional Investigator Schwartz.                               June 29, 2023
Office of the Correctional Investigator.
P.O. Box 3421, Station “D”,
Ottawa, ON  K1P 6L4

From:   Brennan Guigue, FPS#104902C
Donnacona Institution

Written from May 23 to June 01, 2023

Thank you for responding to my contacts with the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) regarding the decisions at Port-Cartier Institution to remove me from my range, house me in the restrictive movement unit (ADR), and then transfer me to the structured intervention unit (S.I.U.) at Donnacona.

When I met with you last week, you told me basically that nothing can be done about the allegations against me because they’re opinions, more or less.  Opinions!  Are you telling me that my life has suffered major disruptions because of someone’s opinions?  How can that be?  Do I have no rights?  Can Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) say whatever it wants, and inmates have no recourse?  Am I not to be believed simply because I’m an inmate?  This reeks of discrimination.

I cannot understand your conclusion that my transfer was justified when you only considered the institution’s position.  Nobody from your office asked for my version of events, and as far as I know, no one from the OCI has investigated the veracity of Port-Cartier’s allegations.  How can you tell me I have no basis to challenge CSC’s claims because no one will believe me?  What about CSC’s own file information that does not support what is alleged?  Doesn’t that carry any weight?  How can false assertions have more relevance that facts?

It’s insane.  Actually, it’s depressing, and frustrating.  Worst of all, it’s par for the course with CSC.  The system can work, but if federal courts can’t compel the Agency to eliminate the difference between policy and practice, what hope do I have to win this fight?  Where is the political/institutional will to stand up for what is right?

I will be the first to admit that I am no angel.  Far from it.  However, this shouldn’t be just about me, or the countless offenders adversely impacted by the arbitrary agendas of CSC staffers like Port-Cartier Warden Jerome Vigneault, who act with impunity under Correctional Service of Canada’s shielding.  It should be about holding CSC to the higher standards of integrity and honesty it claims to champion.

Would it interest you to know that the ‘fight’ with inmate Chris Melanson at Port-Cartier was the first in the previous 18 months.  CSC’s position that I “participated in a reign of terror by attacking the most vulnerable inmates” is not supported by any evidence.  In fact, I truly believe that this is the reason why relevant documents are being withheld from me, and that I was ‘emergency transferred’ before I had an opportunity to obtain the information that would contradict their allegations.  Warden Vigneault’s reasons for wanting me out of his institution has very little, if anything, to do with the reasons given in the SIU file information.  It can’t be any other way.

Would it be unreasonable to argue that helping other inmates in their efforts to exercise their right to file lawful grievances should not be listed as an “incident” to justify the illegal transfer of an inmate from an institution for “security reasons”?  How about questioning a completely fabricated statement in a legally significant document, like an Authorization for Transfer writ?

When one reads a statement such as, “Mr. Guigue incites disorder by being the main instigator in a major movement against the Health Care Centre (HCC),” doesn’t that make anyone wonder what I could have done to prompt such a statement?  Is the writer suggesting I organized a group of inmates to participate in a “picket line” outside the HCC?  Or perhaps I led a peaceful/violent stand-off of some sort?

No, what I was doing was attempting to avoid stand-offs of any kind, and to save my fellow inmates a great deal of anguish when they learned that CSC does not resolve health care complaints.  CSC does not have any authority to compel HCC’s to do, or not do, anything.  I was helping the guys to file complaints against perceived mistreatments, or lack of treatment, with the appropriate provincial medical regulatory bodies.

I have had my own frustrations dealing with HCC’s at Port-Cartier as well as other institutions, and have a better understanding of the ins-and-outs of the process.  Unfortunately, other than that initial statement no further explanation has ever been offered.  Neither have officials at Port-Cartier cared to even elaborate on the allegation.  When I ask for one, I’ve been met with an almost impenetrable wall of resistance.

Do you know that since arriving at Donnacona Institution I have yet to meet anyone from my “case management team”?  All my requests to receive and review documents necessary to my defence had all gone unanswered.  Except for one.  The assigned Parole Office (P.O.), Marie-Pierre Gagnon, responded to a request by telling me that I must write to the Access to Information Office of Canada, pay a $5 fee, and then wait however many months it would take for the material to arrive.  It seemed to me that my P.O. was trying to impede my efforts to form an adequate defence to the allegations against me.  As strange as that sounds, I could not come up with any other reasonable explanation.

I have learned that those very same documents were requested by Independent External Decision Maker (I.E.D.M.) Sabine Michaud who is reviewing my status and they were to be given to me by CSC in preparation for my upcoming S.I.U. Review Committee hearing which was scheduled for April 25, 2023.  Even though it was my right to have them, and CSC’s obligation to provide me with that specified list of relevant documents, they failed to do so.  That included security file documents with logged observation and offence reports.  How can I confidently mount a challenge if the very proof I require is being withheld by CSC officials, parole officers, assistant wardens, guards, and so on?

I believe most people know b.s. when they hear it, and this situation is clearly that.  Yet nobody seems to want to acknowledge it because that would force them to actually do something.  God forbid they should ever go against any of their fellow colleagues in whatever conflicts that may arise with inmates.

I think I’ve made my point clear enough.  You informed me during our conversation that I shouldn’t expect that you will be able to do much on my behalf, as many of the allegations being put forth in the Authorization for Placement in the S.I.U. are that of someone’s opinion.  However, I will point out to you that, no, the allegations cited in the document are presented as fact, and therefore should be supported by factual documentation.  And that especially if they are intended to justify major disruptions in an inmate’s life, and even more so if those same claims are later used to determine a level of risk that inmate may present to the community in matters of parole eligibility.  They better damn well be true!

Actually Mr. Schwartz, I put it to you that the reason I shouldn’t expect much from you in this matter is more likely due to your identifying as ex-law enforcement.  There are some who view the world through “rose coloured glasses,” and I would suggest that you cannot help but view inmates as guards look at inmates, through “blue coloured glasses.”  Sure you can take the man out of the uniform, but you can’t take the uniform out of the man.

I honestly don’t believe you have any business at all being a Correctional Investigator.

Sincerely,

Brennan Guigue, FPS #104902C

cc:      Jerome Vigneault, Port-Cartier Institution
Sonia Tetreault, Port-Cartier Institution
Sabine Michaud, Senior IEDM, Eastern Region
Anne Kelly, Commissioner, CSC
Ivan Zinger, Correctional Investigator
Sena Hussain, Communications, Cell Count
turnoverarocktoday.com

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Brennan is challenging “practice.”  More to come……