Appendix II - Letter to Minister Scott

October 19, 1998

The Honourable Andy Scott
Solicitor General of Canada
340 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0P8

Dear Minister Scott:

Re: November 27, 1998 Meeting with Equality-Seeking Women on Women's Issues

First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for convening another meeting of equality-seeking women to discuss issues pertaining to your Ministry. By committing to the continuation of this annual consultation, you continue to signal the value and demonstrate the importance of such processes to assist you in furthering your mandate.

While we would have preferred to have another day together in order to maximize our preparation for meeting with you, we accept your request that we limit the pre-meeting to 1 1/2 days, as a fiscal constraint. We also appreciate that translation services will be available this meeting. Since our preparatory meeting will be limited to the day and a half preceding our meeting with you on November 27, 1998, however, we are requesting receipt of information by early November, in order to ensure that our meeting participants may maximize our time together in order to ensure that we may provide the best advice possible to you.

The information we are requesting, is data that we believe you should also have in order to adequately appreciate and fulfill your responsibilities as head of the agencies within your Ministerial portfolio. Accordingly, we are requesting that you obtain and forward to us precise and substantive responses, including supporting and/or background material regarding the questions and issue areas listed below. The material received will in turn inform and enhance the ability of the participant women to provide you with high quality suggestions and advice.

You will note that thus far, I envision that our discussions will focus around three major themes: namely, police accountability, women's corrections and male sex offenders. As you are undoubtedly aware, there may also be additional issue areas that arise prior to or during our pre-meeting. While I believe that I have identified the depth and breadth of issues that are likely to be raised, based upon preliminary discussions with prospective participants, I do not presume to have necessarily comprehensively captured every facet of the issues which may be key to the women who will be participating in the consultation. Accordingly, as I have indicated to your assistant, Ann Milovic, I will contact her in the event that any major new issue(s) arises prior to our meeting with you on the 27th of November. In addition, if there are other questions or concerns with which the women may assist you in fulfilling your mandate, I anticipate that you will advise us of these in order that we may do our best to provide you with our best counsel.

Police Accountability

First of all, on behalf of the women with whom you met in January, I want to thank you for encouraging the RCMP in British Columbia to meet with representatives of women=s equality-seeking rape crisis and shelter workers. The women found the initial meeting useful in identifying the perspectives of the police in regard to their policies and priorities with respect to violence against women. Indeed, they plan to meet again. Unfortunately, the death of Bonnie Agnew in August of this year resulted in an inevitable postponement of the second meeting. Thank you for interest and follow-up on this matter.

Police accountability is a very significant issue for equality-seeking women everywhere. As you will recall from our meeting in January, women working on the front lines of violence against women issues see the police as out of control. Indeed, as was pointed out to you, women have serious problems with many policies and procedures that you, in your Ministerial capacity, can address. As you heard then, and as the May-Iles Inquest and the Jane Doe case have since reinforced, police policies and practices are effectively amounting to the decriminalizing of violence against women, at the same time as women are increasingly also being criminalized. Accordingly, the issues that women are still raising with respect to police accountability are summarized below. Again, we feel these are issues/questions regarding which you, as the Solicitor General, also need to have information.

• You have heard many examples of the concerns raised by women about police not responding to calls. What steps have you and your Department taken to rectify this situation? What kinds of internal and departmental monitoring of this issue have been undertaken? When will you or your department be developing policy changes/directives/incentives and action plans pertaining to the implementation of the recommendations of the May-Iles Inquest and the Jane Doe decision?
  
  
• Women also spoke about their concerns regarding racist violence and the decriminalizing of violence against the disabled, particularly violence done by police. What is being done to address such violence perpetrated by police? Has the department developed and when will it release its responses to the Ontario Commission on Systemic Racism in the Criminal Justice System, other provincial reports on systemic and individual discrimination against Aboriginal peoples, as well as the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples? How have you and your department articulated opposition to the recent trend of the police to attempt to excuse their killing of mentally disabled persons by claiming that they (the police) were "victims" of police assisted suicide? You were encouraged to denounce this practice. Have you so denounced it? If not, what is the rationale for not doing so? Also, how many people have the police across Canada killed in this fashion? Who is keeping track of the number of these deaths?
  
  
• What position have you and your department taken with respect to decriminalizing prostitution and `John Schools`? How do you justify continued aggressive charging and criminalization of sex trade workers, while allowing the police the offer diversion of men as a way to avoid legal sanction?
  
  
• What steps have been taken to stop the RCMP and other policing authorities from charging women complainants and their advocates, who have dared to complain about violence against women, refusing to release private, confidential records of complainants, and who have resisted efforts to further diminish the supports available to and for women?
  
  
• Women have expressed significant concern about the use of alternate dispute resolution to address misogynist, racist and other forms of violence. What steps have been taken to ensure that the police and corrections will apply the law, not divert, such cases? Women would like to suggest progressive sentencing in all cases, but not at the expense of women complaining about violence against women. What steps have been taken to decriminalize drug offences, petty theft, communication for the purpose of prostitution, and to stop hassling women over the adaptations to poverty?
  
  
• Conversely, as the women indicated last January, rather than deflect attention away from their lack of accountability domestically, by focussing energies and resources disproportionately in the international arena, we would prefer that the police redirect resources to address crimes of repression, such as economic exploitation, racial repression, violence against women. How do we envision ensuring that our policing bodies are respectful of and adhere to the rule of law? Recognizing the limitations of police complaint commissions, particularly since, as we are seeing in a very explicit way with the APEC hearings, complainants are not represented by independent advocates, how do you envision ensuring that police are held accountable when they fail to uphold the law? In short, what mechanisms are envisioned in order to ensure that women are not left on their own against their rapists? abusive husbands? unfair employers? abusive police and/or jailers?
  
  
• The women's groups are also extremely concerned about the increasing abuse of state funds by the police to interfere in elections, lobby politicians and the public to implement regressive, anti-equality, anti-Charter law and order agenda. What is being done to call to account police violations of human and Charter rights, police crime, defiance of civil authority, as well as the expenditure of state resources on such activities? In short, who is policing the police? Police actions should be judged by such key criteria, as whether it does or does not move us toward equality of all people? As the state head of the police, women need to know what steps you and the department are taking to quickly get the police under control?

As you know, no national women's group has called for longer sentences or harsher penalties. Indeed, when the government meet with "victims rights" groups in order to discuss women's interests, women's groups are offended to be misread as right wing, punitively-minded or in any way interested in the destruction of the rule of law. For example, although your ministry has been encouraging such initiatives as a DNA data bank, police based victim services and victim participation in parole hearings, women's groups do not consider such moves as progressive for women.

Women are interested in whether or not the state can make the judgment and will make the judgment that a man is or is not a threat to one or more that one woman, and latterly, whether he has sufficient support and is safe enough to be in the community. Women are not interested in seeing the police, correctional or paroling authorities essentially off-loading their responsibilities onto victims. Such moves are viewed as unprincipled and irresponsible and reveal that women are not taken seriously, nor recognized as oppressed. What mechanisms are being implemented to ensure that victim involvement does not end up being little more than an invitation to women to lay out their bruises, followed by determinations as to what the appropriate level of regressive response should be by the police? CSC? RCMP and other policing bodies?

Women already face questions regarding the number and nature of injuries. The responsiveness and/or decision-making of the system should not depend upon the number of bruises and broken bones that women have experienced. Yet, as the Jane Doe decision exemplifies, it is routinely the approach taken when police try to decide whether or not to take a complaint of rape or assault. Police officers who abuse their wives are most often not prosecuted and their wives too frequently end up finding themselves up against their husband's police force brotherhood. You heard many other examples of police being the attackers on women.

Women will also want to know what steps have been taken to protect women, encourage complainants to come forward and ensure that police are held accountable for their violations of the rule of law. What steps are being taken to ensure swift, thorough and effective responses to 9-1-1 calls from women who report cases of male physical and sexual violence. Women will want to know what work is being done to address police nonenforcement of the law, especially in rural and northern, particularly Aboriginal and Inuit communities, as well as in isolated and marginalized urban communities.

Women will also want to know what strategies are being examined to ensure that women, as exemplified in the Jane Doe case, are not viewed as non-credible witnesses by virtue of our gender. Aboriginal women, women of colour, poor women, women with disabilities, women who are prostituting and wives are viewed at least credible. The police behaviour in the Olson and Bernardo cases were provided as two key exemplars of this problem and the devastating results of the police failure/refusal to take women's reports of male violence seriously. If the first women they attacked had been believed, responded to and had their cases been investigated thoroughly it is highly likely that the deaths they ultimately perpetrated might have been prevented.

Sex Offenders

At the same time as women in rape crisis centres and shelters are reporting that women who come to their services are increasingly reluctant to resort to or are otherwise not being assisted by the criminal justice system, especially the police and courts, we are seeing an increasing number of men entering our prisons who are categorized as "sex offenders". Since there is no such criminal code offence, and given the obvious anomalies occasioned by these realities, a number of issues and questions arise that require clear, precise information, in order to permit an examination of the area. They include:

• What are the actual Criminal Code charges that are included in the general category of "sex offender"? (ie. What are the men actually convicted of in order to be given this label?)
  
  
• Who are the victims and the perpetrators in each charge/conviction category? (ie. What are the demographics, particularly with respect to gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and age of the perpetrators and "victims"? How many involve sex crimes committed between men? How many are latterly prosecuted fathers and/or institutional paternal figures (custodial/residential care staff)?) How many of the men have assaulted women? men? children (boys? girls?)? What are the specific charges and sentences for the different demographic groups of "victims" and perpetrators? How many of those who are in jail for sex offences are mentally disordered or handicapped? What specific approaches are in place to address their needs and interests?
  
  
• How are the various charges dealt with once the men are in custody? What criminogenic needs are identified for each category? How are their correctional treatment plans developed to address specific charges, criminogenic and community safety factors? What institutional services/programs have been developed to deal with different charges, demographics, et cetera (describe the objectives, assessment/intake process, content details, length of program, nature and length of follow-up, manner of assessing/evaluating the success of the services/programs, availability (frequency and geographic location -- ie. identify which services/programs are available in which prisons, communities, et cetera))?
  
  
• In terms of specific treatment approaches used, I am frequently asked about the nature of same, specifically whether the following sorts of methods are being used: aversion therapy, penile erection monitoring of reactions to pornography, erotica, and/or other stimuli; medication; chemical castration, et cetera. Accordingly, we would like to know whether these approaches are currently in use, or when their use was terminated and for what reasons, as well as the rationale for current interventions. We would also like to know whether the use of medication to control behaviour is promoted, what the prevalence and nature of medicating these prisoners is, et cetera. We would also like to know how pornography is defined by CSC, as well as what policies are regarding availability, distribution, removal, et cetera.
  
  
• Women see violence against women and children as primarily as consequence of systemic as well as individual abuses of power and privilege, as apposed to individualized and unconnected responses to situations, or the particular race, class, age, ability or sexual orientation of victims/women, obscenity, et cetera. In the context of the hierarchical, patriarchal and para-military structure of CSC, are such perspectives identified and/or addressed? If so, how? If not, what is the rationale for not addressing these areas? Are there specific and/or distinct programs/services for different groups of perpetrators/offenders (ie. based upon the nature of the offence, characteristics of the complainant or the accused)? If so, please specify the nature and rationale for same. Who does CSC use as experts in this area? In particular, who does CSC use as experts/advisors when examining issues of abuse, power, and equality?

Although the equality seeking women's groups represent the majority of women and children who are victimized in Canada, they do not support the increasing calls for "victim's" rights. Rather, we expect Charter and human rights to be upheld for everyone - including every prisoner. On whose authority do the police and CSC believe that they have the agreement of the women's movement to mistreat men in jail no matter what crime they have committed? Whether we are talking about Olsen or any other man in jail for any kind of crime, from a husband to a serial killer or the monster that is made by the system itself, equality-seeking women's groups expect human and Charter rights to be applied. Many women consider that we are in a worse situation that we were ten years ago and want to know what you and your department are doing to reverse the current regression.

Women in Prison

As you heard from the women with whom you met in January, the current state of women's imprisonment in Canada is of great concern. A number of issues and questions, particularly those outlined below, require responses in advance of our meetings. Not surprisingly, one of the most pressing issues on the agenda is the desire to see the closure of the segregated maximum security units for women in men's prisons and the accommodation of all federally sentenced women in the regional prisons and the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge.

Women will also want to hear how the entire area of women's corrections will develop an autonomous approach for women. In that context, they will also want to hear about the progress on Madam Justice Arbour's recommendations, implementation of the gender and race specific provisions of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA), and the recommendations of the Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women, as articulated in its report, entitled, "Creating Choices".

Women have historically been treated as a 2-3% add-on to the federal prison population. After reviewing CSC's policies and procedures related to federally sentenced women, Madam Justice Arbour recommended the appointment of a Deputy Commissioner for Women who would have direct authority over institutions and community resources for women. She further envisioned that women's corrections could be the flagship for CSC. The Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women and the drafters of s. 77 of the CCRA similarly envisioned women's groups having a position of primacy in the area of women's corrections, in order to ensure that programs and services for federally sentenced women would be developed with, by and for women.

The Arbour Commission report, "Creating Choices" and s. 80 of the CCRA envisioned a similar model for Aboriginal prisoners. Indeed, the establishment of the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge under the leadership of the Aboriginal Women who participated in the planning circle was a testament to the validity of the involvement of independent, externally-based Aboriginal women's groups.

Women will look forward to your answers to the following series of issues and questions in order to assist them in providing the most meaningful input and advice to you.

• The Deputy Commissioner for Women (DCW) has not been provided with the requisite resources and formal authority to ensure that women's corrections have an independent and primary voice in the federal corrections arena. Ongoing deficits in the area of women's corrections require a reconsideration of the Commissioner's decision to not provide the DCW with increased autonomy. When will this decision next be reviewed? What factors contribute to the decision to limit or expand the role of the DCW?
  
  
• For many years, a policy review body has been envisioned for the federally sentenced women sector. Unfortunately, life has yet to be breathed into such recommendations. How will accountability mechanisms for federally sentenced women be developed? Will a national advisory body be developed/established? If not, why? If so, when will the announcement be made? Who will be invited to sit on the body? What will the criteria for participation/involvement be? Will federally sentenced women and women's advocates be included as key leadership? Who else might be involved?
  
  
• The classification system applied to the assessment of federally sentenced women is a system that was developed by and for men. The system has resulted in the over classification of federally sentenced women as security risks. It has consequently served to keep women out of the regional facilities for women and the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge. Many women's groups have called for the closure of the segregated maximum security units in men's prisons. What are your plans in this regard?
  
  
• If women are not returned to the regional prisons or the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge, where will they be sent? If they are moved to the regional prisons or the Lodge, how will they be accommodated into the institutions? Since dynamic security approaches are the preferred means of addressing any security challenges posed by women, what sort of assessment and placement approaches are planned by CSC? How will CSC develop humane, supportive and dynamic staffing approaches, as opposed to more of the static traditional security approaches for addressing any security challenges?
  
  
• With respect to the classification issue, what plans are underway to develop a new classification system for women? Is the plan to replace the current criteria for classification of federally sentenced women into minimum, medium and maximum prisoners? What criteria will be utilized to assess women? How will the new criteria cease the current practice of using social and economic disadvantages of federally sentenced women and other irrelevant criteria to identify women as a posing public safety concerns? How will the current racist and mental health biases be addressed in particular? What is your position with respect to the abandonment of the three tier security rating system articulated by s. 30 of the CCRA.
  
  
• The Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge was designed to accommodate all Aboriginal women, regardless of their security levels. 50% of the women currently classified as maximum security prisoners are Aboriginal women. What plans are in development to allow all First Nations/Aboriginal women to have access to the Lodge? What incentives are being provided to Aboriginal communities to encourage them to develop s. 81 and s. 84 services under contract with the CSC? How will the Lodge and other Aboriginal services maintain their responsibilities to elders and Aboriginal communities in general?
  
  
• In the Pacific region, all federally sentenced women are housed in the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women by virtue of an Exchange of Services Agreement (ESA) between the Federal and Provincial governments. This ESA is up for renewal in March of 2000. Does the CSC plan to renew the ESA? Why or why not? If the ESA is renewed, how and by whom will it be monitored? Also, how will CSC ensure that the federally sentenced women are receiving federal entitlements to procedural safeguards, programs and services, including access to internal complaint and grievance mechanisms, as well as The office of the Correctional Investigator? Also, how will CSC ensure that monies designated for federally sentenced women are not ending up again underwriting the services and programs available for provincially sentenced women?
  
  
• What specific plans are in place to address the lack of minimum security facilities now available for women? What plans are in place to ensure that women's mental health concerns are addressed in institutional and community settings? Fundamental to the development of viable community release plans are the provision of meaningful community release options? Despite s. 77 and the proven track record of local Elizabeth Fry Societies to provide day parole accommodation and other community release supports, CSC is contracting with novice and non-women services for halfway house beds. What is the rationale and justification for this?
  
  
• With respect to mental health issues, relatively few federally sentenced women present serious mental health concerns. Paradoxically, however, women with mental health concerns are disproportionately classified as maximum security prisoners. Women who use to be housed in psychiatric hospitals outside of CSC, are now generally segregated by and in the prison system. Thus, these women are being severely punished for their disadvantage by being put into segregation. In addition, there have been abuses of power and procedure by medical and corrections staff, such as the suspension of women's Charter and human rights as a means of controlling those women. What procedural safeguards are being developed to ensure that their rights are not further infringed? What therapeutic services are being developed within institutional and community settings?
  
  
• In terms of accountability in general, how do you and the department plan to ensure that CSC is accountable to prisoners? you? women's groups? the public? the Office of the Correctional Investigator? Given the repeated failures of CSC to ensure that the law is adhered to in its segregation units, what is the rationale for not implementing a model of independent adjudication? Similarly, as a result of the abundant evidence reviewed by Madam Justice Arbour and her resulting scathing indictment of CSC's disregard for the law, she made a number of far-reaching recommendations for reform and improvement of CSC policies and operations. Will Arbour's recommendations regarding external accountability? the need to implement limits on the annual use of segregation? the development of sanctions for correctional staff who interfere with the integrity of sentences? the ability of prisoners to seek judicial review of their sentences in circumstances where individual and systemic bias amount to an interference with the integrity of the prisoner's sentence?

Closing Comments

I have laid the foregoing out in a fair bit of detail in order to encourage you and your departmental staff to ensure that we all start off with as much information as possible. Receiving this information well in advance of the meeting, will maximize the usefulness of our time together, as well as our ability to provide you with as much meaningful advice as possible.

We look forward to continuing the interchange that was initiated last January and continue to hope that the synergy of the meeting will assist all of us in our work. Indeed, I know that the women look forward to hearing how you were able to utilize the information and suggestions made during our last meeting. Thank you once again for your leadership and foresight in convening the consultation. We look forward to another productive meeting. Thank you once again and please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions or desire any additional information from us.

Sincerely,
Kim Pate