THE ARCHAMBAULT REPORT 2.0 was first referenced here on November 19 in a posting focused on anti-black racism in the prison industry.  To refresh, the Archambault Report 2.0 is a series of essays written by inmates incarcerated in the Archambault Institution on the north side of Montreal, assembled by the Inmate Committee there and widely distributed on October 24 by the Progressive Inmate Assembly.

There are at least three forms of language discrimination at play within our federal prison industry.  The first is how Anglophone and Allophone inmates are treated differently than Francophone inmates in Quebec institutions.  The second, again endemic in Quebec, is inmates who are refused verbal communications in English from staff where English is the inmate’s only or preferred language, and inmates who are refused written or printed documentation in English, leading to time-consuming third-party interventions.

The third form of language discrimination is prison system wide.  Misinformation and disinformation often contaminate inmate files.  The former may be unintentional due to miscommunication, but the latter is always deliberate and calculated, meant to discredit an inmate to meet a Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) generated narrative.

Rectifying errors and fabrications first involve using the tools available through CSC, the grievance/complaints process, along with applications for file changes.  It will easily take a year or more to exhaust these avenues, and almost universally will not succeed.  The next move is to seek remedy in federal court, not necessarily an easy route to a win.  And, if the court does decide in an inmate’s favour, there is still the matter of CSC’s compliance.  Redress if changes are not met or don’t fully satisfy the court’s decision means going after the government again.

For now, this will centre on the first two forms of language discrimination.  Excepts from just two inmate contributions to the Archambault Report 2.0 will example Quebec’s effort to eliminate the use of English in federal institutions.

Again as we did on November 19, we’ll reference the comprehensive contribution to the report made by Andrew Belcourt, and what he wrote under his heading, Systemic Discrimination Based on Language:-
I’ll give you an example here that is short, simple, direct, & telling.  When they announce the work movement here at Archie’s (Archambault), the announcement is different, based on language.  In French they say, “Début de movement de travail,” basically, “Beginning the work movement.”  In English they announce, “Inmates report to the shops NOW!!!”  One is an announcement; one is a command.  One prisoner told me it reminded him of South Africa during apartheid.  How even language was weaponed with hate.
Solution:  Uproot all racists, stem and all.  Send a clear message.  These ‘tolerance courses’ or ‘race relations training’ staff get, just teaches them how not to get caught being a racist, by learning key defensive words against accusers.  And they also like to fall back on their training they took as proof of their tolerance.  Like, “No I don’t hate those people, I sat through a 2-hour training course that taught me to ignore my deepest darkest opinions of them.”

Gary Young is also an inmate contributor to the Archambault Report 2.0.  He was president of the long-term offenders group (LTO) and was involuntarily transferred to a maximum security prison, in part because of his essay.  This is the chapter he headed Systemic Language Discrimination:-
I am an Anglophone Canadian, and I am very concerned about my language rights being taken away completely.  The government claims that no mater what French changes happen in Quebec, that healthcare will never be affected by the language dispute.  This is simply not true.  I have been here for years, and I almost never have proper medical service in English.
This is abhorrent.  How can anyone claim that in the future my Charter Rights will be protected when they are not being protected now?  I have health issues, so I tend to see healthcare a lot more frequently than most.  I can see and feel what is going on.  When I talk to the doctor, I have a distinct feeling that I’m not getting the help that I need.  When I interact with the nurses, most of them will speak only French to me, and I know some of them speak English (I have heard them talk to others in the past.)  These interactions make me feel that I am doing something wrong, but it’s not me, it’s them!  There are French Canadians serving time outside Quebec, in other provinces.  I am arguing for the same protection for both languages suffering discrimination anywhere in Canada.  But we all know the truth.  Language discrimination may exist everywhere in Canada, but only in Quebec is the discrimination legal.  They are passing new laws, outlawing my official language.  That’s not happening anywhere else in Canada.  Also look at the numbers, there are 25-30% Anglophones serving federal time in every Quebec prison.  Outside Quebec, the average Francophone prison population is less than 1%.  Despite the need for language protection across the country, the need in Quebec is real and vivid.  Today, we are being discriminated against because the Quebecois feel they have ‘perceived’ social permission from Quebec to hate us.  Soon, they will have ‘perceived’ legal permission to hate us.  And things will get ugly.

These are only a sampling from just one report that echoes the common experience of English-speaking inmates in Quebec’s federal prisons.  Correctional Service of Canada’s national headquarters in Ottawa, and our federal civil servants who are charged with CSC oversight are fully aware of this travesty of policy.

What are they doing?  Obfuscating the facts.  Standard operating practice.

RETURNING TO DO BATTLE ON JANUARY 7
“If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.”

Who needs OPCAT?
WE DO!  WE DO!  WE DO!
NOW!

On November 1^st, Ivan Zinger, Canada’s Correctional Investigator, and Charlotte-Anne Malischewski, Interim Chief Commissioner for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, jointly emailed a three-page letter to six federal cabinet members and four deputy ministers.

The subject?  Open letter calling for Canada’s ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT)

It was sent to ministers Mélanie Joly/Foreign Affairs, Pascale St-Onge/Canadian Heritage, Arif Virani/Justice, and Dominic LeBlanc/Public Safety, expressing their concern for the lack of progress to Canada’s ratification of OPCAT, and the implications that had for “individuals deprived of their liberty in this country.”  Copies went to ministers Marc Miller/Immigration, Kamal Kher/Diversity and deputy ministers David Morrison/Foreign Affairs, Isabelle Mondou/Canadian Heritage, Shalene Curtis-Micallef/Justice, and Shaw Tupper/Public Safety.

According to the letter, OPCAT has been available for ratification for over 20 years, and there were currently 92 State parties and an additional 13 signatories.  Canada had indicated an intention in May of 2016 to ratify OPCAT, but despite many calls to follow though, “the public record on Canada’s ratification of OPCAT remains unclear.”  That was far too polite, given the evidence of rights’ abuses.  At one point, 27 countries recommended that Canada ratify the protocol.  (Editor’s note:  The United States has also declined to accept OPCAT.)

It went on to clarify the needs for ratification, the country’s inadequate current oversight of human rights for vulnerable people, and the readily available process to achieve the government’s 2016 intention.  The bottom line?  “Accordingly, we call on Canada to sign the OPCAT without delay and ratify it in a timely manner in order to strengthen human rights protections for people deprived of their liberty across Canada.”

We sent a supporting letter to the same 10 politicians and public servants on November 13; it was a much shorter and blunt endorsement of the Zinger/Malischewski appeal.  We asked for an apology to our vulnerable populations for obstructing their rights.  We inferred that CSC Commissioner “Anne Kelly, her senior CSC staffers across the country, and the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers management teams would have conniption fits at the prospect of compliance with OPCAT.”

Correctional Service of Canada fears OPCAT! was published here on August 27, 2023.  It underscored how ratification has been stymied by opposing forces in the public service.
An excerpt:-
“’I want to reassure you that we take any allegations of misconduct involving our staff very seriously.  All allegations, regardless of source, are duly investigated and, when required, we always take appropriate measure toward our staff members.’
This is from a prison warden’s letter this past July in answering one of ours.  Over the years, we have collected many letters from Correctional Service of Canada personnel at the national, regional, and institutional levels, citing this paragraph verbatim…or close to it.  Where inmate interests are involved though, the correct reaction is…no, they don’t…no, they don’t…no, they don’t.”

Commissioner Kelly sends out frequent “messages for correctional employees,” and “messages for offenders and their families.”  Less often she issues “messages for correctional stakeholders,” and “messages for volunteers.”

Her November 14^th message to offenders and their families included a shout-out for Nurse Practitioner’s Week (November 12-18) which prompted a comment from us on behalf of an inmate in an Ontario federal prison.  The relevant portion of our letter reads:-
“Referring specifically to paragraph three where you congratulate nurse practitioners as valuable members of the Health Services team who play a crucial role in providing high-quality care in institutions, you ask that nurse practitioners be thanked for their ‘expertise, compassion, and commitment to improving health.’

You have your head in the sand was the inmate’s reaction.

His implication is that what CSC publishes for public consumption does not match the inmate experience in federal institutions.  Or it might be that you truthfully believe what you commit to paper, in which case you are not familiar with life in the trenches.

The quality of care provided by nurse practitioners may be a minor issue in CSC operations overall, but it does example the need for OPCAT’s ratification as argued by Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger and Interim Chief Commissioner Charlotte-Anne Malischewski of the Canadian human rights commission in their November 1^st letter to six cabinet members and four deputy ministers.

Canada talks the talk on human rights but does not walk the walk.  One wonders why.”

OPCAT promises to sort CSC facts from CSC narrative, and separate misinformation from disinformation.

Why wouldn’t we want that?