Rob Ford’s tenure in Toronto’s mayor’s office did us all one big favour. He proved the argument we and others like us have been making for decades: electing someone to an office is not always the best option.
Finally…..a beam of light.
Late on the night of Wednesday, August 5th, an email from Montreal lawyer Stephen Fineberg began with…..
..THIS EVENING I HAVE THE MATERIAL IN MY HANDS….
He hadn’t started his review, but the packaging indicated there were 4 DVD discs recorded by a hand-held camera, and one DVD disc from a fixed camera.
As well, “we have also received a number of pages of written reports. Some material has been withheld on the authority of Privacy Act section 22(1)(c): disclosure would be injurious to the security of penal institutions; and section 26: requested material concerns another individual who has not given his consent, and certain conditions listed in section 8 are met. Section 8 allows for exclusion in multiple situations, including the public interest in disclosure does not clearly outweigh any invasion of privacy that could result from the disclosure.”
No conclusions should be assumed about the contents. Time will tell if/what information has been excluded, particularly the most incriminating of the DVDs.
Brennan wants copies of everything when that can be arranged although much, if not all, is in French.
This can’t be repeated often enough. We elect, appoint, and employ men and women to be our nation’s housekeepers. This isn’t easy work. But, it’s unfortunate that one of the first things these men and women servants do is build firewalls to protect themselves from………us.
How much do you want to spend on lawyers?
A few years ago, a federal prison inmate in British Columbia asked for permission to buy a $20 thesaurus. He was taking an educational program where this would help, and although the prison library had a thesaurus, this inmate wanted to have a copy handy for work in the off hours. The institution denied him.
He spoke with a fellow inmate, a certified paralegal, they took Correctional Service of Canada to court and in August of 2010, a judge in a federal court in B.C. found in favour of the inmate. The legal costs for this inmate and his paralegal representative were less than $100. The cost to you for government lawyers to defend CSC was $9028.45.
This is one of scores of similar cases where you are spending your tax dollars to protect a system in need of a ground-up overhaul. Almost all never get media attention.
The Globe and Mail’s July 18, 2015 edition published Sean Fine’s “Thousands of inmates could join lawsuit.” Mr. Fine is one of the papers justice writers, and his story is focused on a 34 year-old federal prisoner with emotional and mental health concerns who is at the centre of a $600-million class-action lawsuit claiming “Canada’s use of solitary confinement and lack of timely access to prescription drugs violate the rights of the mentally ill.” The inmate is in Edmonton Institution but the action was filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Friday, July 18. It could take several months for the court to decide to certify the lawsuit, authorizing it to go forward.
This article goes on to lay out the details for the basis of the claim, citing negligence and breach of the government’s duties toward mentally ill prisoners. It’s not a pretty picture. James Sayce, a Toronto lawyer connected to the action, points out that, “The extreme injuries that these individuals have suffered should be compensated. The fact that they’ve made mistakes in their lives, committed crimes, doesn’t give the government carte blanche to treat them as it sees fit.”
Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Just as you spent $9,000 to prevent an inmate from bettering himself, and will spend a great deal more to face the challenge outlined in this potential class action, these are but two of many, many legal entanglements Correctional Service of Canada is juggling. Even turnoverarocktoday is supporting a claim……see Justice for Brennan Guigue.
Just how much do you want to spend on lawyers before we insist CSC turn a corner toward a more enlightened approach to rebuilding lives?
Canada’s human-rights watch
“A sobering look at Canada’s human-rights record” Globe and Mail, op-ed, July 10, 2015
Alex Neve, Secretary-General, Amnesty International Canada
“Report slams Canada’s human rights record” The Toronto Star, July 24, 2015
Donovan Vincent, staff reporter
“UN report details failings in Canada’s human-rights record” Globe and Mail, July 24
Stephanie Levitz, Ottawa bureau
“Canada should heed UN’s human rights warning” The Toronto Star, op-ed, July 24
Renu J. Mandhame, University of Toronto, international human rights program
As a signatory to the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Canada is subject to periodic reviews of its human rights record. One recently concluded, the first in 10 years, was conducted by a committee drawn from countries around the world, including Britain’s Sir Nigel Rodley, a law professor and chair of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. “This is not the Canada I once knew,” was his comment after six hours of back-and-forth over two days between the UN committee and a sizeable Canadian contingent from various federal departments and the province of Quebec.
Canada is not among the worst violators in the world of course, and reviews include all countries who are a party to the covenant. Signatories are obliged to protect all rights, and there’s an expectation that a country with the resources like ours would set a high example for others to follow. That is not the picture that emerged.
The July 23rd final report raises concerns about discrimination under the federal Indian Act, makes many references to the Anti-Terrorism Act Bill C-5l, points to a failure to recognize and protect aboriginal land rights, and decry’s the direction Canada is taking with cuts to health care for refugees. Canada still appears dismissive of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and, our representatives were clear that we have no human-rights responsibilities for Canadian mining companies operating abroad.
The list goes on: ignoring requests from the UN to delay troubling cases of deportation pending thorough examinations, making no commitment for human-rights talks with governments across Canada for the first time since 1988 in order to ensure implementation of international obligations, an unwillingness to hold a public inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women, homelessness, torture, pay equity, prison conditions, police conduct, Canadian Revenue Agency investigations of political activity of charities, and more. It was difficult to find a serious social issue that had not come up. Some research pointed to high levels of fear and intimidation Canadian activists felt on the freedoms of assembly and association.
The government’s response through Foreign Affairs is to say, “We are proud of our human-rights record at home and abroad.”
Don’t laugh. They mean it.
A “carding” game. Wanna play?
A group of Toronto Star journalists, Jim Rankin included, has initiated a campaign to help people find out what information the Toronto Police Service may have collected and recorded during “carding” stops.
The paper’s front page on July 18 asks “Think you’ve been carded? Let’s find out.” Instructions detail how to file a freedom of information request, and offers help if money is a problem. The Star would like the results shared with the newspaper, stipulating that no sensitive pieces of information will be published.
It will take some time to compile what comes out of this. The TPS ATIP division may be overwhelmed with the response to the Star’s effort to inform the public of what is in the police database.
Want to participate? Have questions?
email: carding@thestar.ca
or, write:
Jim Rankin, Reporter,
The Toronto Star,
One Yonge Street,
Toronto, ON M5E 1E6
Let’s watch. Stand by.
How many times can you be conned?
Contrasting perspectives:
“Ottawa tightens prison visit rules in drug crackdown”, appeared on the Toronto Star’s Sunday July 5 front page. The federal prison system’s new rules for preventing contraband from getting into institutions loosened the justifications that permit guards to conduct searches of anyone coming into a prison.
Taken at face value, the revised policy seems a reasonable response to relieve a perceived problem, although the degree of subjectivity presents opportunities for legal challenges. What is implied though is the enhanced procedures introduced in stages over the last many years have not had the impact Correctional Service of Canada and the government intended. In other words, tighter and tighter enforcement has failed.
What this article further suggests is the Canadian government’s ongoing focus on punitive measures rather than restorative programming is expensive, ineffective, and counter-productive.
Then, a few pages into the front section of that same Star edition was another item, “Obama will free dozens of inmates.” The president’s clemency power primarily affects non-violent drug offenders. This action strikes a blow against mandatory minimum sentencing and the so-called tough-on-crime agenda prevalent in the States for so long. Obama will likely free more before his term of office finishes next year.
The President of the United States is not a renegade. The U.S. is moving in the opposite direction to the course this country set many years ago under the current federal government. He’s doing it with the support of many in his own party, as well as a solid Republican base, and most of the Western World is in sync. Why are we so out of step?
As the title asks, how many times can you be conned?
Toronto Police Service….what has it got to hide?
We often disagree with the Toronto Star’s Rosie DiManno, but her “Activist ombudsman trumped by police” in the paper’s June 24th edition fell on our side of the fence.
Ontario Ombudsman André Marin has lobbied for years to have oversight of the MUSH sector (municipalities, universities, school boards, and hospitals), and the provinces new Accountability and Transparency Act passed last December did just that……or so Mr. Marin thought. The Star’s Rob Ferguson reported a few days before Ms DiManno’s column appeared that the provincial government had quietly excluded police boards from the ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
A provision in the Act allows the government to claw back what’s already given, but in the case of police boards, Treasury Board president Deb Matthews claims there was no loss of oversight but rather police boards were just not added. Marin’s office was provided some time back with a list from the government, naming about a dozen agencies that would be excluded under the Act….like library administration…..but police boards were not on that list. It was the intervention of a number of police chiefs, including Toronto’s, that caused the province to enact the regulation exempting police boards from the Ombudsman Act.
This is a bad move. Our letter to Premier Wynne points that out.
July 1, 2015
Kathleen Wynne, Premier,
Legislative Building,
Queen’s Park,
Toronto, ON M7A 1A1
Re: Accountability and Transparency Act
Dear Premier Wynne:
Sorry, Premier, it’s not good enough!
That police services boards were excluded (or, “it’s that it wasn’t added”, as Deb Matthews said) from Ontario Ombudsman André Marin’s oversight just doesn’t cut it.
The Toronto Police Services Board, the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, the Special Investigations Unit, and the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, along with municipal and provincial politicians, seem to tuck neatly into our police chiefs’ back pockets.
Tell me Premier Wynne, if all these bodies provided what was needed, why then does an organization such as John Sewell’s Toronto Police Accountability Coalition exist? Why are we getting newspaper reports every week of judges criticizing police practices? Why? The TPSB, et al, are not working on behalf of the people, from whom all authority flows.
It’s time to stop fearing our men and women in uniform, and begin giving our police services the direction they deserve.
Yours truly,
Charles H. Klassen
Oh Canada…..really?
Another update…….
On Wednesday, July 1, as we were going around town, ending at the church for the noon Eucharist, “Happy Canada Day” was floating through the air, tripping off tongues as easily as ‘how-de-do’. We weren’t so ready to be patriotic, and disappointed ourselves by limply answering with “and to you, too”, rather than speaking out.
Why? Just that morning, another email from our Montreal lawyer told us that federal civil servants, our federal civil servants, employees of Correctional Service of Canada, are continuing to procrastinate on delivering potentially incriminating and damaging information which they are compelled by law to disclose. This is how CSC operates……obstruct, delay, challenge, obfuscate, stall. For instance, this lawyer has a client who has been waiting five years so far for CSC HQ in Ottawa to respond to a third-level grievance.
What to do, we asked in a response to Montreal? Take it up a notch. Go over their heads. Go to Ottawa and picket CSC headquarters on Laurier Avenue. Get some media attention. Tell their mothers. Options there are. But, the need for them is inexcusable.
We received another email on Monday, July 6, after Montreal made further efforts to shake fruit from the tree. Not to worry, he was told by the information and privacy division of CSC, but processing requests that include 5 videos takes longer than projects involving only the scanning of documents. That’s their story now, but they know we’re approaching the end of their line. The new estimate for completion of the work is one week, and Montreal asks us to wait for an outcome before looking at options.
Oh, Canada? …..not so much for us.
Ontario provincial jails don’t follow the rules either. Surprised?
Toronto Star reporter Amy Dempsey published “Jails flouting new rules on solitary” in the paper’s June 22 edition.
Christina Jahn spent more than 200 days in solitary during 2011 and 2012 at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, without help for cancer or mental illness. In a 2013 financial settlement with Jahn, Ontario’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services also committed to updating its prisoner handbook to include the rights of inmates in solitary, and to proactively distribute the handbook to them. Jahn had refused a cash settlement alone, and insisted that remedies had to be part of any agreement because she hoped it would improve conditions for other inmates.
The terms of the remedies are mandatory. Nevertheless, when the Toronto Star reviewed the updated 30 page document it found a glaring omission: it contained no information about the rights of prisoners in solitary which was central to the required update. As a result, the ministry agreed to a separate handout for inmates sent to segregation, and was to begin distribution in March of 2015 while the handbook was in another revision.
Despite direct orders from the ministry, some Ontario jails are failing to follow instructions.
And so, for the second time the ministry has been accused of breaching the terms of its agreement with Jahn. Her lawyers are taking legal action against the province and asking the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to declare that MCSCS has contravened the settlement by not taking the required actions, and is seeking $1,500 damages for each alleged violation.
In the meantime, Jahn’s cancer is now terminal, and she is not available for comment.
We’ve added an observation of our own:-
June 23, 2015
Steven Small, Assistant Deputy Minister,
Ministry of Community Safety & Correctional Services,
18th Floor,
George Drew Building, 25 Grosvenor Street,
Toronto, ON M7A 1Y6
Re: Jails flouting new rules on solitary, inmates say
Toronto Star, Amy Dempsey, June 22, 2015
Deputy Minister Small:
From your March 23 memo to Ontario jail superintendents, referring to the segregation handout:
“(It) is mandatory that all inmates being placed into segregation be provided with this handout effective immediately.”
Well, I can tell you that as of this week, inmates moved into segregation at the Toronto South Detention Centre are NOT getting this handout.
What’s more, inmates in provincial institutions are often angered by activists like me when speaking about policies that are not followed. What we don’t get, it’s been claimed, is that rules and regulations, policies and procedures….and even the law…..mean nothing to any number of MCSCS front-line staffers. They do as they please….with impunity.
They do as they please because management will not manage, and the Ministry’s priority is to keep the lid on whatever might disturb the peace.
Yours truly,
Charles Klassen
Carding. A final word …. for now.
The Toronto Police Services Board unanimously voted to reinstate a reformed and stricter carding policy at its Thursday, June 18th meeting. However, the Ontario government intends to weigh in with its own province wide regulations this fall. In the meantime, we sent off a comment to the MCSCS minister ahead of that Toronto Police board meeting:-
June 18, 2015
The Honourable Yasir Naqvi,
Minister of Community Safety & Correctional Services,
18th Floor,
George Drew Building, 25 Grosvenor Street,
Toronto, ON M7A 1Y6
Re: Carding
Dear Minister Naqvi:
The Toronto Police Service seems to have painted itself into a corner on the carding issue, but it is very adept at wriggling out of tight spots.
Of course, our police officers should be talking to people. Absolutely.
Nonetheless, no person is required under any circumstance, for any reason, or in any situation to speak to the police……ever. No piece of legislation you recommend will change that.
It could be argued that the best you can accomplish by regulating carding is to permit police intimidation of the citizenry under some controls.
You have a challenge ahead of you.
Yours truly,
Charles H. Klassen
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