A letter went to Correctional Services Minister David Orazietti back in the second week of July, commenting on conditions in Ontario’s jails that have been ongoing since the last century ….maybe longer. This letter was sparked by Health Minister Eric Hoskins’ use of an executive order in his ministry to override bureaucratic objections to a program he felt benefited Ontario, and he put it into play under his own authority. Would Minister Orazietti consider such a move to avoid protracted delays and initiate progressive measures at CSCS?

July 12, 2016

The Honourable David Orazietti,
Minister of Community Safety & Correctional Services,
25 Grosvenor Street, 18th Floor,
Toronto, ON M7A 1Y6

Dear Minister Orazietti:

You are the latest in a long line of CSCS ministers during my almost thirty years of observing Ontario’s jails.

Liberal, Conservative, or New Democrat, all have overseen a system rife with continuing, and for the most part ignored, human rights violations and operational issues. Our courts have remedied specific complaints from time to time, like the recent award to two Maplehurst inmates, but a fundamental reboot of this ministry branch hasn’t materialized.

Yasir Naqvi, your predecessor, began a review of segregation policies, and addressed staffing concerns that lead to rampant lockdowns, the two current “flavours of the month.” Unfortunately, the policy process Mr. Naqvi initiated may meander through a bureaucratic maze for months with minimal or no progressive results. Dr. Eric Hoskins’ refreshing ‘executive order’ to begin distributing naxolone kits to at risk newly released inmates is an option you also have in your arsenal to effect changes with segregation and SHU policies.

Staff shortages continue to drive almost daily lockdowns in some institutions, but are not always related to too few guards, albeit that contributes to the problem. CSCS is now engaged in a recruitment/hiring blitz, assuming that will resolve a long-standing complaint from OPSEU. However, tucked away almost out of sight, is the matter of the number of uniformed staff who do not report for scheduled shifts, making lockdowns/partial lockdowns unavoidable.

An analysis of absenteeism might prove enlightening.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen
cc Yasir Naqvi, Attorney General

‘Courageous’ actions by politicians are rare. They are, after all, politically risky. We got what we expected from Mr. Orazietti.

And now, along has come the ‘lockdowns’ class-actions which will challenge the government to pay up, and put up, in that order. There is no short-cut or easy path to reform. After all, your governments have plenty of your tax dollars, and influence, to waylay the crusaders, “kettle” the troops in the rain ‘til the armour rusts, and all the while argue the kingdom is orderly and nothing is amiss, nothing is amiss, nothing is amiss, nothing………!

Remember too, experience tells us that just because a court supports a claim and orders restitution and action for fairness in policy doesn’t guarantee the expected and anticipated outcome. Only the vigilance of the people will have an impact.

To that end, we wanted to be heard again.

September 13, 2016

The Honourable David Orazietti,
Minister of Community Safety & Correctional Services,
25 Grosvenor Street, 18th Floor,
Toronto, ON M7A 1Y6

Re: Class-Actions

Dear Minister Orazietti:

Regrettably, you didn’t respond to my July 12th letter. Your silence could be construed as backing the status quo. My staff absenteeism in provincial jails comment, and research through information access requests indicates this is a contributing factor to the rampant lockdowns leading to the three class actions against Ontario’s government.

The suits are a start in support of reform, accountability, and transparency, although your senior bureaucrats no doubt will disagree. But then, I don’t expect otherwise when conditions in the provincial jails have been as they are for so long, and tolerated by public servants in a position to right what is so obviously wrong.

It isn’t only the tyranny of lockdowns that discredit CSCS. These institutions can be taken to task for a number of infringements of civilized and professional conduct that society at large wouldn’t accept. From the vagaries of health care, through failures to follow prescribed procedures and policies, to the malfeasance of authority to act on violations of operational practices, there is tinder enough to fuel more legal actions. To boot, inmates have no substantive recourse for redress outside the courts. Only the want of private will and resources saves the government from telling embarrassments.

You’re not responsible for this, but you are today’s CSCS point person. I am but one of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of aware Ontarians…….waiting, waiting, waiting.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

copied to:
Kathleen Wynne, Premier, Province of Ontario
Yasir Naqvi, Attorney General, Province of Ontario
Matthew Torigian, Deputy Minister, Community Safety & Correctional Services,
Margaret Welch, Assistant Deputy Minister, Community Safety & Correctional Services
Rohan Thompson, Chief of Oversight & Investigation, MCSCS
Christina Danylchenko, Assistant Deputy Minister, Institutional Services, MCSCS
Nancy Sanders, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operational Support, MCSCS
Paul Dubé, Ombudsman, Province of Ontario
Amy Dempsey, The Toronto Star
Patrick White, The Globe and Mail
turnoverarocktoday.com

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

“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.

“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

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

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

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?