The problem faced by prisoners as targets of governmental action is that the CSC interprets and applies the CCRA from a perspective which allows it to control and restrict prisoners to the greatest extent possible. It does not adopt an interpretation focused on the legislative and constitutional entitlements of prisoners, and how to restrict them only to the extent that is actually necessary.

For the CSC, the entitlements of prisoners, whether legislative or constitutional, can be ignored or restricted when a security concern is implicated, no matter how important or fundamental the right and how tangential or speculative the security concern. From this perspective actions are not recognized as discriminatory or otherwise illegal where the purpose of the action is security.

Although there are many international instruments that Canada has adopted, ratified or otherwise agreed to be bound by, this submission will not address the nature of Canada’s international obligations per se. CAEFS does recommend that the Canadian Human Rights Commission review the two bodies of research conducted by a previous Chief Commissioner, Mr. Max Yalden, on behalf of the Correctional Service of Canada. Both reports chronicle the extent to which CSC, and therefore Canada, is in violation of its international obligations when it comes to the manner it administers institutional and community corrections.

C. Historical Context

Notwithstanding their relatively low risk to the community in comparison with men, federally sentenced women as a group are, and have historically been, subject to more disadvantaged treatment and more restrictive conditions of confinement than men.

The history of Canada’s treatment of women prisoners has been described as an amalgam of: stereotypical views of women; neglect; outright barbarism and well-meaning paternalism...From the beginning, the welfare of women prisoners was secondary to that of the larger male population.

Arbour. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at Prison for Women, 1996, p. 239.

Initially, women were imprisoned in a separate section of the Kingston Penitentiary. The deplorable prison conditions of women prisoners at Kingston Penitentiary and their abuse by male prison staff led to the recommendation for a separate facility for women prisoners. The primary reason for the construction of the Prison for Women was to protect the women prisoners.

Submission of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS) to the Canadian Human Rights Commission for the Special Report on the Discrimination on the Basis of Sex, Race and Disability Faced by Federally Sentenced Women