AFTER ALMOST FIVE YEARS, CORRECTIONAL SERVICE OF CANADA FINALLY PROMULGATED ITS REVISED COMMISSIONER’S DIRECTIVE 022, regulating communications between CSC corporate, its staff, and the offenders under its control with the media.  The updated version came into effect on September 16, 2024.

In the view of the Correctional Investigator’s office, the focus for change was the impediments the previous directive put in the way of inmate media contacts.
Remember this from previous postings:-
“In unreasonably denying or delaying an inmate’s access to the media, the Service may be in violation of recognized democratic principles and constitutionally guaranteed rights.  An incarcerated person does not forfeit the right to freedom of expression, and the wider public has a right to be informed of what goes on behind prison walls.”
(ed: emphasis ours)

This excerpt from Correctional Investigator Dr. Ivan Zinger in his office’s 2019-2020 Annual Report underscores the community’s right to an inmate’s perspective of life inside Canada’s federal prisons, as much as Correctional Service of Canada would like that to be otherwise. It has and does find ways to punish inmates who speak out.

Note again.  It (CSC) has and does find ways to punish inmates who speak out.

That entry in Dr. Zinger’s Annual Report spurred a project by the Service to rewrite the media relations instructions.  It took Commissioner Anne Kelly and Correctional Service of Canada nearly five years to complete.  Five years!  Consider this was not a process to move a mountain, but rather an exercise to smooth out the rough spots on a hill.

Why the delay?  Recently, at a social event, this writer met a retired lawyer who spent her career with various ministries in the federal government where she wrote (and rewrote) legislation.  It was work she enjoyed.  No doubt she was given goals with intended outcomes, and her reward came from meeting the requested impact.  The rewrite to CD 022 went through numerous inspections and consultations, and certainly some tweaks, thanks to the services of many lawyers.

Does it meet Dr. Zinger’s objective?  That’s still to be tested.

January 27, 2025

Dr. Ivan Zinger, Correctional Investigator,
Ottawa, ON  K1P 6L4

Re:      Commissioner’s Directive CD 022 Media Relations

Dear Dr. Zinger:

I took a break last year from chasing CSC for the new directive and now see that it came into effect on September 16 last fall.

It was about time, after nearly five years, but I’m always wary of CSC policy revisions, particularly when they aren’t Service initiated.  It seems that when it is persuaded or ordered to make updates, CSC’s preference is to start at point ‘A’, take a wide meandering lengthy path and end up back at point ‘A’, but with an elaborate rewording from where it began.

I am not a lawyer and am unable to decipher the policy language niceties of the new directive.  While I’m hopeful there have been substantive revisions that meet with your approval, I suppose this rewriting will need to be tested in practice.

For now, all of us with an interest are grateful for your bringing this to the fore.

Yours truly

Remember this?
“The security features inherent to federal correctional facilities are designed to keep people in as much as they are to keep people out.  As a result, the management of the federally-sentenced population is largely conducted away from public scrutiny.  Invisible to the general population, federally-sentenced persons are often forgotten.”
Senate of Canada Standing Committee on Human Rights,
Interim Report – Study on the Human Rights of Federally-Sentenced Persons
February 2019

Correctional Service of Canada touts its commitment to accountability and transparency.  Inmate perspectives are integral to that process.

Why the reluctance?  Why keep people out?  Why the fear of OPCAT?

More on OPCAT next time…..