Author: turnoverarocktoday

Hallelujah II!

turnoverarocktoday Justice & the Penal Systems

We wrote Anthony Laycock of the Criminal Lawyers Association back on April 28, challenging him, the association he heads, and its members to confront the Ontario government over its operation of the province’s jails. “Where are the angry lawyers?” was published on May 15, along with the letter and some supporting background. No response was expected, although some of you assumed one would follow, but Mr. Laycock has so far been silent.

We had an extensive exchange on the issue with a criminal lawyer who carries a large case load. It began amiably but dissolved into an unintentionally contentious debate when we appeared to question why peer relationships within the practice of law and government ministries might outweigh the best interests of clients. Quite simply, we were accused of being impertinent and insulting. So be it.

Now that class actions are in the works, we went back to Mr. Laycock. Don’t expect him to comment this time ‘round either.

September 2, 2016

Anthony Laycock, Executive Director,
Criminal Lawyers Association,
189 Queen Street East, Suite #1,
Toronto, ON M5A 1S2

Re: Provincial Jails – Encore

Dear Director Laycock:

My April 28th letter questioned the apparent reluctance by those in positions of advantage to champion reforms in Ontario’s provincial jails and initiate calls for change. I had looked forward to your comments.

A criminal lawyer with whom I discussed this admitted that conditions in the jails were troubling and difficult, but suggested I didn’t understand how the justice system functioned. On the contrary, my business career before I left to pursue other interests was dominated by the politics of business and the business of politics. I’m not a lawyer, but business relationships have similar characteristics across the full spectrum of human experience.

It’s heartening to have Superior Court Justice Douglas Gray take up the cause of two Maplehurst inmates in a May judgement against the province for excessive lockdowns. Even more impressive, the Koskie Minsky LLP filings of three class actions against Ontario are a victory for progress. The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services has had enough latitude to do its job, and should be penalized for its complacency and failures.

Your association can best serve justice by calling on its members to assist jailed clients in connecting with Koskie Minsky. This surely cannot be an onerous burden, and I encourage you to act.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

Class-actions…….Hallelujah!

turnoverarocktoday Justice & the Penal Systems

“As many as 200,000 current and former Ontario inmates could be headed for a massive payday if allegations contained in a new lawsuit against the provincial government hold up in court.”

This is how Patrick White began his “Inmates file lockdown class-action suit” in the Tuesday, August 16th Globe and Mail. He later referenced in his article the May award of $85,000 in damages to two Maplehurst inmates for excessive lockdowns, calculating this worked out to $21,250 for every year these two men spent in custody. (See “Do your job…..or pay”, published June 19) He went on to suggest, “Scale that up to thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of inmates and the total payout could be colossal.”

Toronto-based Koskie Minsky LLP, one of Canada’s premier class-action law firms, added in its own announcement the day before, “The action alleges that endemic lockdowns arising from the Province of Ontario’s failure to properly staff its correctional institution facilities have caused and continue to cause tremendous physical and psychological damage to inmates across the Province.”

The action is open to almost all inmates who have spent time in an Ontario jail since 2002. That’s when judges first began awarding compensations in their sentencing decisions for the province’s practice of locking down ranges because of short staffing levels.

According to Jonathan Ptak, one of the lawyers involved, “We’re talking about an extremely large claim.”

The class action announced on August 15 excludes prisoners of Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (solely with respect to their incarceration at the facility), as a separate action was filed earlier on their behalf. A judge certified this suit on August 24, allowing it to go forward.

Koskie Minsky had already announced on August 11 the commencement of a class-action against the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario alleging human rights violations relating to the treatment of immigrant detainees in Ontario’s prisons. It accuses Canada Border Services Agency and the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services of negligence, breach of fiduciary duties and violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by holding immigrant detainees in Ontario jails.

Current and former prisoners are encouraged to visit http://www.kmlaw.ca or call 1-866-777-6339.

Class-actions have a history of taking a long time to reach a resolution, but the wait can be rewarding for the complainants.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens!

turnoverarocktoday Justice & the Penal Systems

“Torture us no more. Now for the feds…..”, was published on June 5. Reprinted in it was a letter to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, encouraging the minister to move forward with long overdue federal prison reforms. It included yet another warning of Correctional Service of Canada’s reluctance to accept outside recommendations, let alone government directives. We didn’t expect an answer. We didn’t want a response. We wanted action.

Nonetheless, a letter arrived in early July over the minister’s signature. Unfortunately, it met the criteria for implausibility. Here’s what Mr. Goodale had to say:-

‘Thank you for your correspondence of June 1, 2016, in which your express you concerns regarding the use of administrative segregation in federal correctional institutions.

Our government is committed to implementing the recommendations from the inquest into the death of Ashley Smith on restricting the use of administrative segregation and the treatment of those with mental illness.

That said, the law provides for administrative segregation in limited circumstances to help ensure the safety of all inmates, staff and visitors. Specific legal requirements are set out in section 31 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and must be met in order to place an inmate in administrative segregation, including that there be no reasonable alternative and that the inmate be released from segregation at the earliest appropriate time.

We recognize that the challenges raised by these issues are complex and require careful consideration. Canadians expect us to do better – and we will.

Thank you again for writing.’

Should this just be put to file with a shrug? Is objecting to a public servant’s disappointing, cursory, scripted shuffle meat for further correspondence?

Don’t you just hate it when that happens!

As Minister Goodale’s letter sat pending a second look, the August 19 Globe and Mail ran Patrick White’s story, “Court ruling a rebuke of prison system’s use of solitary confinement.”

In this account, three inmates at the maximum-security Edmonton Institution were placed in solitary confinement in late June when a manager learned from a confidential informant that the three men were planning an assault on a group of guards. No criminal or institutional charges were laid. Of the three, one suffers from bipolar disorder, the other two are aboriginal.

CSC is legally obliged to provide inmates with detailed reasons for a segregation placement. This didn’t happen, and the men, without lawyers, filed an application of habeas corpus, and forced a judicial review of the decision to isolate them.

Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Joanne Veit freed the men from segregation because prison authorities ignored factors around procedural fairness, aboriginal identity and mental health history. “Given the basis on which the inmates were sent to solitary confinement, and the individual mental health and aboriginal circumstances of each inmate, the decisions to send each of them to solitary confinement is not reasonable,” the judge concluded. “In the totality of the evidence on this application, I am unable to conclude that the institution had available reliable and credible information that these applicants were planning a serious assault…….,” she added.

Further, and just as serious, the judge found that despite CSC’s commitment to the accommodation of aboriginal identity and mental-health issues, Edmonton Institution gave no considerations to this.

So here we have three prison inmates doing this hard work from segregation on their own, so that others in the same situation can use this decision, and because they were tired of having CSC staff and management take the law into their own hands.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens!

Minister Goodale needed another shot………

August 22, 2016

The Honourable Ralph Goodale,
Minister of Public Safety,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Re: Unreasonable delays

Dear Minister Goodale:

The July 4 response to my June 1 letter was unexpected. Your time is valuable, and a template letter is both patronizing and not worthy of your high office. Surely, you cannot believe section 31 of the CCRA holds sway with Correctional Service of Canada’s operation when it doesn’t suit their interest.

The 104 recommendations that came out of the Ashley Smith inquest are now more than two and half years old. I don’t doubt you and your government’s commitment to implementation. I do strongly doubt CSC’s cooperation under its current management. The agency has had more than enough time to initiate substantive progressive reforms without prodding.

And yet, as the Globe and Mail reported on August 19, “Court ruling a rebuke of prison system’s use of solitary confinement”, Justice Joanne Veit of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench found grounds to underscore CSC’s continuing and ongoing failures.

One wonders just how long before action replaces “careful consideration.”

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen
cc Don Head, Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada

A start……….

turnoverarocktoday Justice & the Penal Systems

It wasn’t until August 1 that the Globe and Mail reported that Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Rabould had organized a meeting that took place on May 19 and 20 with sitting judges, criminal lawyers, and former Prime Minister Kim Campbell to discuss what should be next on her agenda after the assisted-death bill had passed.

The group concluded her first priority should be to reduce the numbers of men and women in this country’s jails and prisons.  “There wasn’t one person who felt that what’s happened in the last 10 years in criminal justice is healthy,” according to a participant. While that was the consensus around the table, a confidentiality clause prevents disclosure of specific accounts. Justin Trudeau mandated this review of the previous government’s punitive agenda, and the May meeting summary stressed a core need to help individuals avoid conflict with the law. “The criminal justice system is rarely the answer and should function as a last resort.”

Sean Fine’s “Private meeting convened by justice minister decides focus should be on prison reform” ran on the Globe’s front page that first day of August. It’s an interesting read. Four judges were a part of the panel, two currently serving, along with four criminal lawyers, the country’s chief statistician, and a strong aboriginal contingent, among others. There was only one police representative, no one to speak for victims, and one prosecutor, retired at that, and with a background in aboriginal justice to boot.

We noticed one particular weakness in the group…….the omission of anyone actually involved with the running of our federal prisons, or the monitoring of their operation.

August 8, 2016

The Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould,
Minister of Justice,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Re: Private meeting convened by justice minister decides focus should be on prison reform. (Globe and Mail, Monday, August 1, 2016)

Dear Minister Wilson-Raybould:

Wonderful!

Your mandate to review criminal justice and reduce the numbers in Canadian jails is to be applauded. I suggest though this is somewhat like the sound of one shoe dropping.

Public Safety’s Ralph Goodale must be integral to progressive, sustainable reforms. The Corrections and Conditional Release Act is past due for rewrite, as is the need to reboot Correctional Service of Canada.
Howard Sapers, Canada’s formidable Correctional Investigator, is a terrific resource to your end. He’s ready with a wealth of researched material on all aspects of our prison operation, from the use of solitary confinement, health care concerns, programming limitations, the self-serving withholding of information, the very necessary review of inmate pay scales, and much more.

As well, a study of prisons in any number of European countries would positively enhance the outcome of the project you’ve undertaken.

Be encouraged, Be creative. Be firm.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

cc Mssrs Trudeau, Goodale, Sapers

….the answer is blowin’ in the wind…

turnoverarocktoday Comment

Justin Trudeau has set a very different social agenda for the government he heads from the previous administration’s regressive backslide to the caves. Now that the troglodytes have been banished to the political hinterland, fresh breezes are breathing relief into many federal ministries.

No doubt though our staid civil service bureaucracy has entrenched elements committed to components of medieval feudalism, a characterizing resistance to change predating Confederation, and favouring traditional conservative perspectives. Too often, the most protectionist of the senior mandarins are in the best position to exert a negative influence on the best the service has to offer.

Mr. Trudeau, his ministers, and the members of his caucus are likely to experience a baffling frustration in executing the progressive measures they’ve promised. The more liberal the policy proposals, the tougher the going may be, and might easily resemble a nightmarish prospect akin to herding cats in the rain.

It is up to us in the community who support the initiatives this government is undertaking to be encouraging, a buttress against the darker self-serving forces of yesterday, and a prod to the turtles who people so much of the Canadian landscape.

The window of opportunity to move this country forward before the inevitable cynicism and lethargy eventually engulfs even today’s best-intentioned reformers may be short lived.

Cheer the dragon slayers now!

It’s a simple matter of a few key strokes to send your support to government members through their sites, and avoid what’s become the onerous task of actually putting pen to paper, and the attendant coping with envelope, stamp, and a walk to the mailbox. It should be noted however that our best information indicates that politicians pay the most attention to hand-written letters, believing the sender feels strongly enough about a position to go to those lengths to air their opinions.

Cover up…….what, more?

turnoverarocktoday Justice for Brennan Guigue

Toronto’s two largest dailies, the Star and Globe & Mail, gave front page coverage last week to an investigation into the reporting of inmate deaths in Canada’s federal prisons. The August 2nd “In the Dark: An Investigation of Death in Custody Information Sharing and Disclosure Practices in Federal Corrections” was issued by Howard Sapers, our Correctional Investigator, headquartered in Ottawa.

This year-long 41 page study was in response to a number of complaints from the families of prisoners who died while in custody, but were not receiving complete, timely and uncensored information about the death of a family member. In some cases, and Ashley Smith’s death is one example, Correctional Service of Canada took days to even locate a body, or CSC cremated remains before family had an opportunity to make arrangements. Some families had to submit Access to Information Requests even years after a death to get reports which were often heavily redacted. Appropriately, CSC’s insensitivity was a component of Mr. Sapers’ findings.

But beyond the concerns raised by families, Howard Sapers launched this investigation after years of failing to get our federal prison system to act on progressive recommendations from his office. Ominously, and just as important, the OCI office’s examination of relevant material also suggested that CSC redactions implicated failures on the part of the agency to follow policy. “There were some redactions that I think Correctional Service of Canada is going to have to explain”, Sapers said in an interview. While the present government’s commitment to openness and accountability encouraged Mr. Sapers to initiate this work, have no doubt Correctional Service of Canada will do whatever it can to remain condescending, aloof and defiant.

How does this impact on Brennan Guigue and the work that is underway to hold CSC responsible for the circumstances in which he was involved in July of 2014?

Our own information request asking CSC to confirm that the six guards and the officer overseeing them on the day of the incident are still employed by the agency is complete. All seven still work in the system, but we hesitate to publish names at this time without advice. For now, that isn’t of particular import. What is of note though, based on the correctional investigator’s conclusion in his report on deaths in custody, is the effort CSC will make to withhold as much information as it can, even pushing the ‘legal envelope’ in the process. Our experience to date justifies the cynicism.

Remember, these are your public servants.

Logic & the politics of public service

turnoverarocktoday Justice & the Penal Systems

A Toronto Star workplace safety piece in its July 28 edition was headed, “PTSD rates high among male correctional officers.” According to the Department of Public Safety, 36 per cent of men working as guards in federal prisons report the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, reflecting what the guards say is “the dangerous and emotionally corrosive atmosphere” inside prisons. No information was released for female prison workers.

The article went on to compare the levels of the disorder among some occupations subject to disruptive stressors, and the population in general. The point of the report though was the continuing difficulties these men can have getting the help they feel is needed because not enough attention is paid to their predicament.

This isn’t the first time the complaint has come to the notice of the media. But nowhere has there been a mention that prison conditions subjecting employees to excessive stress always includes components under which inmates are affected by the same stressors. But, inmates are more often than not expected to ‘suck it up.’

Care not for the welfare of criminals if you will, but given the circumstances, why would anyone be surprised the problem for uniformed staff is so persistent?

August 2, 2016

The Honourable Ralph Goodale,
Minister of Public Safety,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Re: PTSD & prison guards

Dear Minister Goodale:

The media is again referencing the high rate of post-traumatic stress disorder among federal prison guards, and the difficulties they encounter qualifying for treatment and compensation.

One factor always overlooked which exacerbates the challenges for guards is the incidents of PTSD among federal prison inmates. The environmental conditions stressing CSC staff members also affect the men and women on the other side of the bars in the same way and to the same degree. Some inmates may already display symptoms of the disorder when they first enter the prison system, a result of their life’s experience.

The difference for inmates is that assets which guards access in the community, or to which they can petition for redress, are not available in prison health-care units, or are withheld arbitrarily, or have a limited efficacy. The result is an overall highly charged negative atmosphere. Given those circumstances, it is no wonder a large percentage of guards in our federal prisons are asking for help.

Solutions must include remedies for everyone behind the walls.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

Reality…..politics…..’angry lawyers’.

turnoverarocktoday Justice & the Penal Systems

The April 28th letter to Anthony Laycock, Executive Director of the Criminal Lawyers Association, questioned the lack of response from the legal profession to conditions in Ontario’s jails. Not only are inmates awaiting trial and the lawyers who represent them placed at a disadvantage, but administrative, procedural, legal, and human rights irregularities and violations affect the entire provincial penal system population, and bring the justice system we are to respect into disrepute. This letter was published as part of the May 15 “Where are the angry lawyers?” There’s been no response, and one is not expected.

The same question went to a busy, highly qualified, and well thought-of associate in a Toronto criminal law firm. Edited for privacy/confidentiality, the email answer began, “….I don’t want you to think that we do not care about the issues at CSC”….(meaning the provincial Ministry of Community Safety & Correctional Services, or CSCS). It goes on, “They are very real and live concerns, but unfortunately, fall outside my mandate. I am a defence lawyer. I represent….on criminal related matters………your frustration with the system is shared, but in order to attack it, there needs to be someone with that as their primary function. Unfortunately, the world has too many problems for one person to tackle on their own.”

Understandable.

Also understandable, this part of our question was not addressed, “If criminal lawyers and their firms are too busy to confront problems within CSCS which exacerbate the challenges of providing the best service possible to their in-custody clients, why then are assets not put in place to exercise the beneficial options available?”

Improved client/lawyer communication and case preparation, and a potential profit centre are reasons enough to act. Alone or collectively, criminal law firms simply enlist civil/human rights litigators to take our provincial government to task for redress of complaints, and petition for financial compensation. If our public institutions won’t respond to the scrutiny and criticisms of the media and citizens’ groups, the professionals who are a daily witness earn the right to benefit.

Why hasn’t this materialized? Why has the work been left to the grassroots, to the little guys? One hypothesis suggests those in the best position to do the most good are reluctant to risk being scratched off the government’s Christmas card list.

So then, where does this leave our allegiance?

………..still dancing!

turnoverarocktoday Justice for Brennan Guigue

“And the music goes on and on……” from February 28 of this year examples but one exercise in why our governments’ expenses appear so out of control. Why do our civil servants spend so much time and money to achieve so little? Why hasn’t our collective wisdom found a solution to expediently meet our needs from the bodies we set up to govern? A debate for the ages, that.

We’ve been patiently waiting for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to make a determination on our requests for information Correctional Service of Canada has withheld pertaining to July 22, 2014. Stephen Fineberg in Montreal, who is acting on Brennan Guigue’s behalf, has seen incremental steps toward that end, but his long experience in this area has nonetheless left him frustrated by the delays.

Here is the bulk of a July 11 update email:

…………. I was hoping it would be possible to supply you with news of a concrete development that I am waiting on. I can see now it is unrealistic to wait further, so I am writing with my news, such as it is.

As you already know, being dissatisfied with the results of our access and privacy requests to CSC’s access and privacy coordinator, I wrote on September 3, 2015 to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to initiate a complaint with the object of obtaining at least some of the material then withheld. On September 11, the OPC wrote to acknowledge receipt of our correspondence.

The OPC subsequently responded that, despite the existing correspondence confirming CSC recognizes me as Brennan’s representative, a new authorization signed by Brennan would be needed before I would enjoy that status with the OPC. Such authorization was provided by Brennan to the OPC, and on November 13, 2015 I wrote again to the OPC to initiate our complaint. I highlighted the fact that it made little sense for CSC to claim there were no entries in the medical file since Brennan’s previous privacy request (which predates the incident of July 22, 2014), and that we have been given CSC reports admitting rules were not followed, but have been prevented from reading the descriptions of those violations.

Eventually Brennan was able to view the shared video material and informed us that the hand-held camera footage is cut off early, so that material of great interest has not been made available In February I wrote to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to communicate Brennan’s position on the hand-held camera sharing.

On March 11, 2016 the OPC called. I imagine it was at this point that an investigator had made sufficient sense of the file to discuss it for the first time. The OPC asked me if Brennan was still insisting on what they term “a standard investigation,” meaning that the OPC would demand the entire record from CSC and examine it to determine if the existing sharing was in compliance with the law. I answered in the affirmative. The call proved a useful opportunity to help them understand what we needed, especially in terms of visual material.

On April 5, 2016, I called the OPC and spoke with Chantal Latour, Senior Privacy Investigator. Despite her evident wish to assist, it was impossible to get an idea of when there might be results in our file.

On May 2, 2016, I received an undated letter from Mme. Latour confirming the nature of Brennan’s allegations to her office. It reads in part, “Based on the information you provided, a complaint file has been opened and it has been assigned to me. I have notified CSC of the details of your complaint and asked for a copy of the information held in the processing files that is relevant to your complaint. (….) I will make every effort to complete the investigation as soon as possible. Should you have any additional information or wish an update on my investigation, please do not hesitate…”

This is where things stand. I was hoping there would be something concrete to report from the OPC investigation, but I don’t know if that will take another month or another year. At some point Brennan will need to file in court if he wishes to hold CSC responsible in a civil suit, and that point must be before the third anniversary of the July 22, 2014 incident. You will remember that my mandate was to obtain material evidencing the illegal conduct of CSC so that Brennan (and you) could decide if it is worth pursing before the courts. What we have obtained to date is undoubtedly of some help, but Brennan claims the most damning visual evidence is that which has been withheld, and as of today we cannot know if the OPC will succeed in locating and sharing more, and, if so, when.

The civil litigation rules regarding discovery may succeed in turning up more than the access and privacy route has produced to date. Your dilemma, as I see it, is that you were hoping to have the material illustrating Brennan’s allegations before deciding if you should underwrite civil litigation. It may prove necessary eventually to decide on the basis of what you have. Still, you are not at the deadline for that decision yet…………

Our thanks for this status update were emailed to Stephen Fineberg along with two questions, one pertaining to the availability of the civil litigator he had recommended back in 2014, and the other on a point of clarification arising from the last part of his report. Was it correct to assume that CSC may not provide as much information to the OPC as they may be required to make available under a court order?

Imagine how many of your tax dollars have been spent to this point, and we have yet to go face to face with Correctional Service of Canada.

Cheers to Eric Hoskins

turnoverarocktoday Justice & the Penal Systems

Naloxone is an opioid antidote. Ontario’s Ministry of Health restricts the distribution of this first-aid treatment to clinics that hand out clean needles to addicts. Public health doctors have asked the government for the last three years for take-home kits to just-released provincial inmates, who can be in particular danger of overdosing on opioids after they leave jail.

In spite of requests from a Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services’ senior medical consultant to regional medical officers of health for these kits, Health refused to act. Dr. Eric Hoskins, Ontario’s health minister stepped in and ordered his ministry’s staff to begin distributing naloxone ‘immediately’ to newly released inmates at high risk of overdosing.

Regardless of the benefit expanding the program may have, what is most notable here is that a politician stuck out his neck in support of what he sees as a good cause, and contrary to his bureaucrats’ policy. In spite of the support some CSCS officials have for the project though, a monitoring oversight is needed to ensure orders are followed.

Instructions from ‘head office’ can become corrupted ‘in the trenches’, and the case of Christina Jahn examples how orders go unheeded. Ms Jahn was held in solitary confinement for a total of seven months in 2011 and 2012 at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre without the support and medical attention she needed. She filed a human rights complaint, and the two sides agreed to a settlement on the first day the hearing was to begin in 2013.

Ms Jahn was awarded a sum of money, and Correctional Services was required to commit to 10 “public interest remedies” so no one would be in the same position again. But, her lawyers took action against the government in 2015 for violating the terms of the settlement, alleging some Ontario jails were failing to live up to their obligations. New explicit mandates and directives were subsequently issued by CSCS officials to all institutions. The matter is considered as resolved but there is no process to ensure compliance, and third party surveillance would still uncover some failures.

Nevertheless, Minister Hoskins deserves a laurel for the action he took.

July 11, 2016

The Honourable Dr. Eric Hoskins,
Minister of Health & Long-Term Care,
Hepburn Block, 10th Floor,
80 Grosvenor Street,
Toronto, ON M7A 2C4

Re: Congratulations! Naloxone program.

Dear Minister Hoskins:

The 1980s Britcoms “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister”, knowledgeably written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, offered an advanced study of how civil service bureaucrats stymie the best intentions of Ministers of the Crown.

It’s refreshing for a government member in your position to overrule staff and order the immediate distribution of naloxone to some newly released provincial inmates. (How refreshing too for ‘immediate’ to appear in government lexicon.) This writer wonders if anyone described the decision as courageous for a politician. Regardless, we need more of this from all areas of administration.

After almost thirty years of observing CSCS, I offer a note of caution. An instruction in place is not the same as an instruction followed. I give you but one sample of good work undone.

After seven months in solitary confinement at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre in 2011 and 2012, Christina Jahn filed a human rights complaint, and settled in 2013 for a sum of money and a commitment by MCSCS to 10 “public interest remedies”. Her lawyers took action against Ontario in 2015 for violating terms of the settlement, alleging some Ontario jails didn’t follow instructions despite direct orders from CSCS officials. Even today, compliance can be an issue.

Consider employing at-arms-length program inspectors.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen
cc David Orazietti, MCSCS