[Treasurer's Report] [Executive Director's Report] [Index to the 1997 annual report]

This year was another one of many challenges and some successes for CAEFS. We are very pleased with the results of our regionalization process. With regional representatives and advocates, we hope to see a regionalized continuation of the excellent advocacy that federally sentenced women at the Prison for Women have enjoyed with and from CAEFS.

The regional advocates have picked up the monthly visits with women and wardens of the regional prisons. Their regular reports to the Executive Director of CAEFS and their regional Elizabeth Fry colleagues help to ensure that the CAEFS' office and membership are kept up to date on emerging issues for federally sentenced women throughout the country. In addition, our Executive Director visited each of the regional prisons, the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge and the Prison for Women several times during the year.

I also visit the prisons as time permits and I am currently filling CAEFS' position on the Kekuwemkunawuk, the Keepers of the Vision Circle at Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge. CAEFS continues to promote the successes and lessons being learned by and via the elders, women, staff and Nekaneet community members who support the Lodge. We also continue to encourage the Correctional Service of Canada to learn from and follow the leadership, staff training and humane intervention approaches modelled and exemplified by the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge.

This year also saw us continuing to push for the full implementation of Madam Justice Arbour's recommendations following the release on April 1, 1996 of her report of the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston. Aside from the resignation of the Commissioner of Corrections following the release of the report, the Correctional Service of Canada has not seen fit to acknowledge responsibility, much less be held accountable, for its actions and inaction at the Prison for Women.

In fact, we have seen a replication at the Edmonton Institution for Women, and to a lesser degree, at the Nova Institution for Women, of the multitude of problems that were chronicled by Madam Justice Arbour in relation to the 1994 events at the Prison for Women. Regrettably, we close this year still awaiting the government's response and implementation plan with respect to the Arbour Commission recommendations. And, now, with an election in the offing, we fear that it will be some time yet before we will see in any progress on this front.

As this fiscal year draws to a close, we also await the government's response to Judge Ratushny's recommendations for relief for six women whose cases she reviewed pursuant to her mandate to conduct a review of the cases of women jailed for defending themselves from attacks by their batterers. The six women were selected from fifty-five applicants who were in prison when they applied to have Judge Ratushny review their cases.

Ninety-eight women applied to the Self Defence Review. Judge Ratushny first reviewed and made recommendations in relation to the cases of women who were still in prison when they applied. She is currently reviewing the cases of the forty-three women who were in the community on conditional release when they applied to the review. We look forward to the results of that portion of the review, as well as her final report in which she will make recommendations for law reform. Again, we fear that the impending federal election will result in a delay to this process.

These are but a few of the issues we have worked on this year. Our Executive Director has provided additional details of the year's activities in her report, so I will not repeat them here. Instead, I will close by commending the CAEFS staff and network for another year of tremendous work and diligent commitment to our work.

The women with and for whom we work enjoy the support of a rich and varied network of women working to provide services and programs with and for them in community and institutional settings -- all with the aim of integrating women into the community as quickly and safely as possible. It is a pleasure to serve as the President of such an association of dedicated staff and volunteers.

[Home Page and Mission Statement] [1997 Annual Report index]
[Main English index][français]
[E-Mail: CAEFS@web.ca]