TO BEGIN WITH A REFERENCE TO OUR ARCHIVES, back in 2010, inmate Ken McKay in Mission, a medium-security institution in British Columbia, asked permission to buy a thesaurus.  He was taking a course….in the day when that was not such a challenge….and wanted a copy in his cell.  The thesaurus cost $9.

Request denied.  There was a thesaurus in the prison library, and he could go through the process of having it delivered to his cell for a specific period.  Not exactly a suitable alternative, and what was the big deal about using his own money to buy a reference book?  Ken went through the entire grievance/complaint exercise.  Denied.  Denied.  Denied.  This over a book!

Ken sued.  He was represented by David Jolivet, another Mission inmate who was a paralegal and a well-practiced litigator against the federal prison industry.  They won.  The judge did not hold back in disparaging the arguments of the two government lawyers.  David pointed out too that Ken was awarded $200 for costs, and Correctional Service of Canada incurred about $3,000 in expenses to process the inmate’s grievances.

We submitted an Access to Information & Privacy request to Ottawa’s Ministry of Justice.  How much did Canada spend to defend CSC in this action?  The response was speedy.  Taxpayers spent $9,028.45.  Details of the costs were redacted for ‘privacy concerns.’

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An interjection here to note CSC’s operating allowances reported in Canada’s Public Accounts as of fiscal year-ending March 31, 2024.  The Ministry of Public Safety allotted $2,838,062,005 for CSC operations during the fiscal year 2023-2024.  CSC spent $2,797,399,845, leaving a $40,662,160 surplus available for the future.

CSC is bombarded with criticisms from inmates, advocates, agencies, the Office of the Correctional Investigator, for ignoring its obligations to provide offenders with sufficient food, proper and timely health care, universal rehab programs with meaningful job training that includes a grounding in the latest technologies.  It’s no surprise that CSC prefers to look for economies in exercising its unofficial we-don’t-care motto.  Do potential bonuses encourage penny-pinching?

CSC’s governance invites lawsuits. 

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Lawsuits.  Given how quickly Justice came back with the costs for defending CSC against Ken McKay’s action, we submitted another ATIP request, this time asking for the total amount paid to settle suits against CSC for the fiscal year prior to the request.  CSC does not answer a complaint in open court, not if the government of Canada can prevent it.  We have records for one in 1998 with a decision in 2000, and there must be others.  Nonetheless, CSC won’t risk having staff testify under oath and the Ministry of Justice does what it must to avoid calamity, settling with complainants and always attaching non-disclosure conditions.

This time the question was apparently an intrusion into privacy issues, and the information would not be made available.  There’s the option in these circumstances to appeal to the Information Commissioner of Canada, but that office is seriously backed up despite the promise of every new federal government to unclog the system.  We decided not to pursue.

On January 24, 2022, we went back to Justice again, sending another request:
“For the latest fiscal year for which you have information, what documents do you have that total the number of dollars the Department has spent/allocated to defend Correctional Service of Canada in legal actions brought by inmates, members of the public or organizations and institutions?”

In May, a response came that did not provide the information requested, but instead the ministry sent 16 double-sided pages of file numbers with brief details, identifying actions against CSC.  The information was “updated as of May 23/22” and some of the 879 files referenced the same case, but overall, these pages represented hundreds of active lawsuits against our prison industry.

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During this same period, of the many class actions against CSC, actions that were not noted in the documents above, one for the negative impacts of administrative segregation was wending its way through the years-long negotiation process to a resolution.  When the settlement was approved and the administrator began distributing the money in 2023, each of the 467 members of the class received $5,469.85.  The court ordered CSC to help members who were current inmates with the claim’s process, and it did.  In addition, there were two paths available to claim additional damages for members who had suffered egregious abuses in segregation.  This is an on-going process.

Those same Public Accounts referenced earlier show that in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, Public Safety allocated $69,438,159 to CSC in cover class action claims, but did not specify which class actions, although the segregation suit settlement is likely the major beneficiary.  The record noted that CSC had used $39,251,236 of those funds during the year, leaving $30,186,923 for future payments.

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Not to be deterred from digging for more information, we sent another request on July 7 of this year to the Ministry of Justice:
“For the latest fiscal year for which data is available, what information do you have for the total amount of dollars paid to settle lawsuits against Correctional Service of Canada?  This request does not ask for any breakout of information pertaining to any single action.”

A July 22 Justice letter confirmed it was “undertaking the necessary search of our records” and it would “inform you of the status of your request within 30 days of its receipt.”  A further Justice letter dated July 29 told us that, “Correctional Service of Canada has a greater interest in the records sought,” and it was turning the request over to CSC as authorized by a subsection of the Access to Information Act.  An undated letter from CSC arrived in September and told us that, “We have conducted a search and located records relevant to your request.  You will note that certain records have been withheld under section 26 of the Act.  A copy of this section is enclosed for your reference.  Please note in the attached release package there are links to publicly available information pertaining to your request.”

Basically, section s.26 of the Access to Information Act says that if information requested will be published within ninety days by the government, then that is where the information must be sourced.  In other words, back to Canada’s Public Accounts noted earlier.  The release package that came with the September CSC letter consisted of 41 blank numbered pages, each printed with “withheld pursuant to section s.26 of the Access to Information Act,” in both official languages.  Nothing!

Those Public Accounts are broken down by Ministry, and CSC is under the wing of the Ministry of Public Safety.  But aside from the funds to meet CSC’s class action burden, and the operational allotments cited earlier, there is no other information in Public Safety’s lengthy list that specifically assigns legal liabilities to CSC.  It’s lumped in with categories like “claims against the crown.”

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Two points.
As difficult as it is to get a clear picture of what is paid out to cover CSC lawsuit settlements, the amount is in the millions over time.  But why aren’t the figures easily available?  And is this the same for other government departments?
Also, just why are there so many legal issues with CSC?  The one obvious answer is CSC is naughty.

Do you have a sore butt?

THIS IS THE TAG CORRECTIONAL SERVICE OF CANADA HAS EARNED FROM THIS ADVOCATE/AGITATOR AFTER DECADES OF OBSERVATION; WITH THAT COMES CSC’s UNOFFICIAL MOTTO, “WE DON’T CARE.”

CSC is Canada’s federal prison industry and operates under the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness which assigns to it core responsibilities:-
Care and Custody that “provides for the safety, security and humane care of inmates, including day-to-day needs of inmates such as food, clothing, accommodation, mental health services, and physical health care.”
Correctional Interventions where it “conducts assessment activities and program interventions to support federal offenders’ rehabilitation and facilitate their reintegration into the community as law-abiding citizens.”
Community Supervision that “supervises offenders in the community and provides structure and services to support their safe and successful reintegration into the community.”

And then on its website, CSC’s Mandate “is to contribute to public safety by actively encouraging and assisting offenders to become law-abiding citizens, while exercising reasonable, safe, secure, and humane control.”

The Ministry of Public Safety and CSC cannot but say other than what it does.  Our federal prisons must work within the law, and its policies must comply with the socially accepted standards we expect of the public service in Canada.

The difference between what is law and what is policy and how the Service interprets both in its practices is often pronounced.  Even so, criticisms at any level, institutional, regional or national, are met with pushback references to policy and the law, as if violations are not tolerated and don’t happen.  And CSC doubles down to persistent naysayers, tenacious in its resolve to deny wrongdoing.

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The Senate of Canada’s Standing Committee on Human Rights published two comprehensive reports assessing CSC performance, one numbering over 300 pages, and encapsulated its concern  at the beginning of its interim report of February, 2019, with a judgement often reprinted in this space:
“The security features inherent to the 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.”

CSC, as it puts it, “also engages Canadian citizens as partners in its correctional mandate.”  These are often volunteers providing various approved services inside institutions as well as in the community.
One volunteer who worked inside prisons for 15 years had this to say about the experience:-
“The volunteer training is illuminating:  all volunteers are warned that they will be manipulated.  CSC tries to pit inmates against volunteers throughout the training.  It so bothers all the volunteers it actually works against CSC – and before volunteers even start they don’t care for CSC staff nor respect them.  Not for a minute have I thought about my safety nor has any other volunteer.”

Today’s edition could be read as an adjunct to “No criminals, no prisons” and “No criminals, no prisons – more” from May 20 and June 5 of this year respectively.  May 20 postulates that while we need a means of separating some people from society, there are over 18,000 civil servants employed by CSC for whom prison inmates are their bread and butter.  The Mandate is but one component to lowering crime rates but is relevant only when executed.  June 5 says the Mandate can work when every inmate is given the opportunity to fully engage to counter each and every impediment that led to their imprisonment.
Good luck with that!

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We’ll cite one typical random example of multiple forces uniting to oppose a CSC decision, knowing all the same that any victory will be countered by retaliatory measures, including punishing inmates who take actions against it.  The fight never ends.

Inmates Frank Dorsey and Ghassan Salah each applied in 2022 under the Habeas Corpus Act for a writ of habeas corpus to challenge CSC denials of their applications for transfers to lower security prisons.  They didn’t apply under the Charter but alleged the denial of their requests engaged four sections of the Charter.  The two inmates consented to have their applications joined for the purpose of determining a common threshold legal issue.

In June of 2022, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed their applications.  The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed their appeals in December of 2023.  In August of 2024, the Supreme Court of Canada granted a leave to appeal the decisions of the lower courts.  Aside from the appellants Frank Dorsey and Ghassan Salah and the respondent Attorney General of Canada, by 2025 several parties intervened to support the inmates.

Those intervenors include the John Howard Society of Canada, Canadian Council for Refugees, Alberta Prison Justice Society, Aboriginal Legal Services, West Coast Prison Justice Society, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Black Legal Action Centre, Pivot Legal Society, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Canadian Prison Law Association, and Margaret Lee Cole, a long-serving inmate with the same issues presented in this action.
The Court’s final decision is pending.

So here we have a case few if any are likely to know, championed by a number of groups unknown to most, but it’s only one of many actions involving inmates and other organizations trying to bring CSC to heel.

And yet with all that action, we label CSC as morally corrupt and ethically bankrupt.

Why?

Don’t ask your MP.  They will run for cover.

(Ed note:  A one-person operation can come up against circumstances that demand full attention. This long publishing gap is not the first; probably not the last.)