CAEFS has urged the Commissioner of Corrections to immediately offer compensatory settlements to Ms. Proctor and the other former prisoners who were subjected to the experiments. We also urged him to continue efforts to locate the additional 20+ women who were part of the experiments. Given the obvious sensitivity of these issues and the likelihood that women may not wish to have their families and circumstances jeopardized by unwanted publicity, we further urged him to encourage women to come forth by providing assurances of anonymity.

Similar to the chain of events revealed during the Arbour Commission, developments in Ms. Proctor’s case to date reveal a disturbingly similar pattern of behaviour on the part of CSC. In the face of rather obvious wrongdoing and correctional culpability, the response of CSC has been to deny, obfuscate and avoid any assumption of responsibility. It appears to be merely a matter of time before they will be once again called to account.

Messes Made by Mandatory Minimum Sentences

CAEFS has a long history of urging the Department of Justice to reform the defence of self-defence to reflect the realities experienced by battered women who defend themselves and others with lethal force. After the Supreme Court of Canada handed down the Lavallee decision in 1990, CAEFS and other equality-seeking women’s groups requested a review of the cases of women who had been jailed for killing their abusers.

These efforts resulted in the establishment of the Self-Defence Review. The purpose of the Review was essentially to examine the cases of women jailed as a result of their involvement in the deaths of their abusers and recommend how they might achieve some measure of justice for women who had been convicted in Canada of homicide in circumstances where self-defence should have been considered.