We are increasingly being urged to abandon the most difficult issues in favour of self-preservation. Resisting such efforts has and will continue to strengthen our collective voice as well as commitment to equality and justice for women and girls. Highlights of the issues and challenges faced by CAEFS as we strive to fulfil our mandate are highlighted in the following activity and issue summaries.

Federally Sentenced Women: Arbour and Beyond

CAEFS continues to play a key role in the forewarning, monitoring and exposure of procedural and policy problems related to the manner in which the Correctional Service of Canada chooses to address problems which emanate from or have been visited upon P4W and the regional women’s prisons. Issues which persist in the regional prisons for women in Canada point to the need for national leadership in the area of women's corrections.

This year saw the virtual vacation by the Correctional Service of Canada of the position of the Deputy Commissioner for Women. When the DCW was appointed to the position of Senior Deputy Commissioner, those responsibilities were added to her pre-existing ones, which thereby provided further practical limitations to the authority of the position.

On September 3, 1999, Solicitor General MacAulay announced that P4W and the segregated maximum security units in men’s prisons would close and the women therein would be accommodated in the regional women’s prisons by September of 2001. As such, although we continue to have significant concerns regarding the future for federally sentenced women in Canada, CAEFS still has hope that CSC will continue to be challenged to develop new options for women.

CAEFS has repeatedly called for the closure of the Prison for Women in Kingston as well as the segregated maximum security units for women in men’s prisons and the integration into the regional prisons and the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge of the women currently housed in those units. However, CAEFS is extremely concerned that the decision to close P4W and the segregated maximum security units in the men’s prisons will result in the construction of additional prison beds in the regional prisons. We do not support the building of additional cells inside the walls of the regional prisons. But for the manner in which the issues pertaining to federally sentenced women are being managed, we do not believe there is truly a need for additional beds. Rather, we consider the development of appropriate community integration resources as vital and consequently a more appropriate focus.