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Results: 31 - 45 of 488
Karen Pictou
View Karen Pictou Profile
Karen Pictou
2021-06-22 12:45
Certainly I suppose you could call 911. I don't know that really that is the way it ever happens, though. I'm not aware of that.
I know that we do have a strong response within the police system in Nova Scotia, and we are very well connected with Corporal David Lane, who heads that group. They're certainly doing a lot to try to address this issue, but it's not working. It's not enough, and Constable David Lane would be the first to tell you that his back really is against the wall a lot of times. As soon as they start getting a track on someone, they move into a new province, and then there is this whole jurisdictional issue of trying to get the other province up to speed and so on.
To make a long story short, any woman who contacts the Nova Scotia Native Women's Association at any time of day, even if it's by pressing our Ring doorbell an the Jane Paul centre, can access someone at any time of day. Our new resiliency centre, once it is built, will have the same capability with a Ring doorbell. We'll bring them through to a safe space, even behind bulletproof glass, and hold them there until we can get them to safety. As the other lady said, if need be, we would bring them to our own homes. We have done that and we will continue to do that, but we shouldn't have to.
In Nova Scotia the only shelter available for women exiting human trafficking is church-based. I don't need to explain to you how problematic that is for indigenous women and girls here in Nova Scotia. There need to be alternatives, and that's why Pam Glode and I are ensuring that.... There's no money. We have no funding to do this. We're just doing it based on what we can gather up from donations to buy this building and to get it started. We believe that when we build it, the opportunity will come.
View Sylvie Bérubé Profile
BQ (QC)
In your introduction, you mentioned some programs, especially education programs. You said that a Pandora's box must be opened and that political changes must be made. What are your recommendations for making those political changes?
Janet Gobert
View Janet Gobert Profile
Janet Gobert
2021-06-22 12:48
I understand that all of the other witnesses are from larger centres, and this is quite a small community. What we have found is that there is such a roadblock when it comes to the RCMP and keeping these women safe.
I believe it was Karen who mentioned access, and I like what she said regarding this beacon and being able to press a button. That was something else that we had run into problems with. There was no funding, so the way we fixed that was that I now have a cellphone that is kept on 24 hours a day so that I can get out and help these women.
With regard to political change, I'm sorry, but I'm at an impasse. I do not know what I could recommend at this point. All I know is that something needs to change in order to keep our women safe.
View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you, Chair. I will go to Trisha.
You didn't get a chance to answer my question, and I will frame it specifically for you, based on your previous testimony.
You talked about the area where trafficked indigenous persons are and the fact that the aboriginal housing is right there. The services are a couple of blocks away, and they're staying in that area because they don't have an alternative.
When we talked about having the resources to support people who are trying to get out, you talked about the ability to leave and how beneficial resources are for you. Do you see a gap there in this particular case?
Trisha Baptie
View Trisha Baptie Profile
Trisha Baptie
2021-06-22 12:50
It's a huge gap. There's a bit of push and pull, right? Some women are scared of leaving the area; they've never really left the area before. What does it mean to be out of the area? Some do feel more comforted being in the area, but my girlfriend has three kids and lives in aboriginal housing, which is not even 500 metres away from where we used to work. Now she's taking her kids by that area, and it's triggering her every day. How do you stay sober when you're triggered every day, right?
I think you're from B.C., right? In Vancouver here we call it poverty pimping. We have these monolithic organizations that try to take over every project that comes up, and in doing that, they trap everyone in this part of the city in an area of —I'll be generous—ten square blocks and then turn and look at people and say that they have all the resources they need, but they don't. They don't have anything.
In Vancouver here, we have harm reduction. We don't have recovery; that's too expensive. We don't have detox beds; that costs money. Giving a condom and a needle is the cheapest way to deal with this issue.
We need to find the political will to put money into resources that say we value our women—not only our indigenous women, who are absolutely owed that, but women, period. We have a Prime Minister who wants to say we have a feminist government or a feminist country; I call bullshit on that. I still can't get a peace bond for a woman who's black and blue. I still can't get police to take trafficking seriously.
I hate the word “trafficking”; it's prostitution. Trafficking is just a fancy new label for something that's been going on for millennia, which is men's sexual abuse of women, right?
Sorry. I went on a tirade.
What I think would be beneficial is to create programs outside the demographic of where women are abused and slowly work them into communities outside of what they know. I succeeded because I'm not walking by a crack dealer to go and get milk. I'm not walking down a street where every third car is asking me if I'm for sale.
We need to change the living conditions of women, and by that I mean that we need to expand the parameters of where they can live, because we've limited them to these little spaces that entrap them in a cycle over and over and over again.
Okay, I'm done.
View John McKay Profile
Lib. (ON)
I call the meeting to order.
This is the 37th meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. It is a study on the current situation in federal prisons in relation to the Correctional Service of Canada.
I apologize for cutting the witnesses short last time, and it looks like we might cut the witnesses short this time. As you can see, we're waiting for votes, and I may ask for the indulgence of colleagues to gain as much time as possible out of this portion of the meeting.
With that, we're going to turn to Ms. Stubbs for six minutes.
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-06-21 15:44
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Yes, I hope we'll be able to hear more from all of the witnesses. The testimony at the last meeting was very compelling and in some cases extremely troubling and disturbing.
I note that Jeff Wilkins, the head of the union for correctional officers, didn't get any opportunity to answer questions last time. I'm going to focus on some questions for him in my time, and I hope that everybody else will also be able to speak during this meeting.
Mr. Wilkins, I'm wondering if you wanted to explain for us laymen and for Canadians who might be watching what the are differences between solitary confinement and administrative segregation, with a specific focus on prisoner and correctional officer safety, and if you want to expand on any comments on whether or not, in your experience, solitary confinement impacts or either improves or worsens an offender's chance for rehabilitation.
Jeff Wilkins
View Jeff Wilkins Profile
Jeff Wilkins
2021-06-21 15:45
I see solitary confinement and administrative segregation—or what was formerly administrative segregation—as two different things. Administrative segregation, for the majority of cases in the populations across the country, was at the behest or the request of the inmates.
We have what's called “protective custody”, and a lot of the arrangements under the administrative segregation were for protective custody. We have inmates who can't associate with the general population for various reasons; it could be that they owe debts to the general population and they're fearing for their own safety. They're put into a population where they can essentially be separated from the general population.
During what was formerly administrative segregation, they of course have time for recreation outside their cell; they have time to get outside of their cell to do that. They have meetings with health care every day. They have meetings with elders, for example. In some cases, they continue to take programming inside of the former administrative segregation.
Of course, it's a more restricted environment. For the most part, the reason is that we are dealing with people who are dangerous. Some of the movement protocols that we need to hold inside those segregation units are for the officers' safety. They're for staff safety and the inmates' safety. It's to protect them against other inmates, to protect them against themselves in some cases, and of course to protect the staff who are working in there.
Again, I see administrative segregation and solitary confinement as two things. When I think of solitary confinement, which we've never had in Canada—in my career, I should say—you're thrown into the hole, you turn the lights off and you get a tray thrown in at you for some food. That's not the way things work. They have access to telephones. They have access to their PlayStation. They have access to TVs. They have access to everything that everybody else does. It's just that they need to be separated for their own safety or for others'.
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-06-21 15:48
Thank you.
I know that a John Howard report has said that solitary confinement has been used as a means of population control in chronically overcrowded prisons. Have you or any of your members observed that?
Jeff Wilkins
View Jeff Wilkins Profile
Jeff Wilkins
2021-06-21 15:48
I'm a little unsure as to what is meant by “population control”, to be frank. Of course, it is a population management strategy when we're talking about segregation, for the reasons that I have indicated already—for the protection of the inmate and the protection of others—but I'm not really sure that I understand what you're meaning there, Mrs. Stubbs.
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-06-21 15:49
Mr. Wilkins, on the issue of the management of COVID-19 in correctional institutions—because this is part of the motion—I wonder if you want to let people know what the experience has been like for your members, for staff and for offenders in penitentiaries over the past year. Also, do you have any comments in terms of the vaccination pilot program and the ways in which that was done for correctional officers and support staff within institutions, as well as for offenders?
Jeff Wilkins
View Jeff Wilkins Profile
Jeff Wilkins
2021-06-21 15:49
I said in my opening comments in our previous meeting that the Correctional Service of Canada and the work my members do are often overlooked by society. People don't think about what happens once somebody goes into an institution and is outside of regular society.
COVID-19 has been detrimental to the way we have had to do business. As I said in my opening comments, the ironic thing is that what stops the spread of this virus is that we isolate from one another, we separate ourselves from our neighbours and we don't go into public spaces. That is exactly what happens when you're in the institution. It just goes to further isolate our inmate population, because the recreation they could be having in the evening shifts is not available. The gymnasium is not open and their visitors are not allowed to come. Of course there are restrictions that are—
View Darren Fisher Profile
Lib. (NS)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll stick with Mr. Wilkins as well. To the other folks who are here today to provide us their level of expertise, welcome.
Mr. Wilkins, CSC has taken an awful lot of measures during COVID. I know that unions were very much a part of a collaborative process to make decisions about sites and things like that. This led to significantly few deaths, disturbances and outbreaks, more so than in some other countries.
What would you say has worked well, and why has it worked so well?
Jeff Wilkins
View Jeff Wilkins Profile
Jeff Wilkins
2021-06-21 15:51
I think that Canada in general, and of course the CSC, was highly unprepared for COVID-19. When it first struck our institutions—the first institution was Port-Cartier in the Quebec region—it spread like wildfire. We know that because of the proximity of the inmates and the staff to one another in those confined environments, as soon as the disease gets into the institution, it thrives.
It became very evident that to solve these problems, the bargaining agents were going to need to be consulted. We were going to have to come to some agreements on how we were going to change the operations, because sometimes operations and routines that are ingrained in my membership are a hard dime to turn on. We've been doing them for years and years. Routine is very important.
Of course, all of our focus became about how we could keep the virus at bay. The very first thing we needed to do was close the borders to our institutions to outside visitors or staff who weren't essential to the workplace. I do believe that was the very first step in trying to mitigate some of the spread in our institutions, but once it gets hold, the spread happens so quickly. We have had some serious outbreaks across the country in every region, except for the Atlantic regions.
I'm not sure I answered the question.
View Darren Fisher Profile
Lib. (NS)
The Atlantic region is, of course, the region I'm from. Thank you for that.
More generally, can you speak to some of the operational realities or challenges that correctional officers face when dealing with offenders in an SIU?
Results: 31 - 45 of 488 | Page: 3 of 33

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