CAEFS remains of the view that we do not wish to support or see the construction of additional prison beds. In fact, CAEFS supports the closure of prisons. However, the paucity of minimum security beds for federally sentenced women and the lack of a plan on the part of the Correctional Service of Canada to remove fences in order to ensure that the 50% of federally sentenced women who are minimum security prisoners are actually accommodated in lower security settings, means that we are loathe to see closed the only 13 beds currently available across the country. CAEFS also remains focussed upon the importance of ensuring that the principles and recommendations of the Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women are met before any alternative be considered as a replacement.

e) Regressive Practices and Policies at the Provincial Level

Nowhere more than in Ontario, do we see the importance of challenging what is happening at the provincial level. The entire CAEFS' membership needs to think seriously about how we may best challenge the proliferation of misinformation and the development of ever more regressive practices and policies with respect women and girls who are criminalized in Ontario.

Other provinces are observing the manner in which Ontario is developing it's criminal justice system and will undoubtably soon follow suit. Indeed, several have already started their own regressive forms of reform and we had seen considerable loss of ground in such provinces as Alberta, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. CAEFS must seriously examine the manner in which they may best support the local societies in each region to challenge provincial practices, policies and legislation.

Perhaps the best, and certainly the most tragic, exemplification of the intersection of federal and regional, economic, social, financial, health, and education issues, occurred in the death of Kim Rogers, a 40 year old woman with whom the Elizabeth Fry Society of Sudbury worked. Kim was under house arrest for 'welfare fraud'. In the interests of interfering in other similar situations -- before others die -- CAEFS urges all of the membership to examine the broader issues regarding the context in which Kim was set up to fail in the first place.

Kim was criminalized in the first place because of "welfare fraud". This label and resulting punishment were applied because Kim attempted to get an education while still on welfare. As part of the process, she also sought and received student loans. Although everyone knows that it is impossible to live on welfare without some supplemental income/support, to be caught doing so means an almost certainty of criminal prosecution.

Because Kim received student loans while she was receiving social assistance (misnomer of course), the same province that created the criminally irresponsible welfare rates, chose to prosecute her for receiving $13,300 in welfare payments. She entered a guilty plea, and was consequently convicted of welfare fraud. She was then sentenced to a 6 month conditional sentence [which is supposed to have been an alternative to imprisonment -- and we should all continue to question why a jail sentence should be attached to this "offence" in the first place] and a restitution order to repay the provincial government the full $13,300 in welfare that she had received.