Ontario Actions

The Globe and Mail | Tom Cardoso, Crime and justice reporter | Janice DicksonPublished October 26, 2020 MPs from all parties on a House of Commons committee say they support studying systemic discrimination in federal prisons, including inmate risk assessments, days after a Globe and Mail investigation found these tools are biased against Indigenous and Black people. Jack Harris, the NDP’s public safety critic, said before a meeting of the public safety committee that a study is an “extremely high” priority after he introduced a motion that calls for “immediate measures to be taken to provide expeditious redress for systemic discrimination in federal prisons, including…

Campaign for the Abolition of Solitary Confinement June 1, 2020 Sent by email to: doug.downey@pc.ola.org Hon. Doug Downey Attorney General of Ontario Dear Mr. Attorney: Re: Solitary Confinement Now that Ontario is gradually returning to normal activities, we wish to raise with you our concerns, widely shared by the public, on the continued use of solitary confinement in corrections. Our aim is abolition, but we would hope to see major reforms achieved even short of that goal. We expect that the gross over-representation of Indigenous persons in solitary (already over-represented in the prison population) will not be curtailed short of legislation to abolish solitary. You are…

CBC News · Posted: May 09, 2019 4:00 AM ET An Ottawa MPP is introducing a private member’s bill designed to gradually eliminate the use of solitary confinement in Ontario’s correctional institutions. Ottawa-Vanier MPP Nathalie Des Rosiers wants to create a five-year plan to gradually phase out the practice. Before that happens, her bill, if passed, would also prohibit inmates from spending more than 60 days a year in solitary confinement, require medical staff to provide daily care to those inmates, and create an independent oversight body that would oversee the use of solitary confinement. At a news conference Wednesday at Queen’s Park, Des…

Hon. Sylvia Jones MPPMinister of Community Safety and Correctional ServicesFebruary 27, 2019 Dear Ms Jones We heartily endorse the call by Renu Mandhane, chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, to end solitary confinement in Ontario. Since its inception in 2016, our organization has endorsed abolition. We do not see that partial measures will eliminate the horrendous injustices that occur. The over-representation of Indigenous inmates (already over-represented in the prison population), and use of solitary with the mentally ill and young have been known about for decades. Solitary should not be treated as a politically partisan matter. These cases (Ashley Smith and Adam…

            This brief will be submitted at committee stage – the bill received first reading on March 20. We invite all who share our concern to co-sign the brief with us. Just send your Yes by email: info@abolishsolitary.ca             Signers to date are: Mary Boyce, BA (hons) LLB, lawyer hon Ed Broadbent, CC, PC, PhD Paul Copeland, CM, LLB (Canon) Phyllis Creighton, OOnt, MA, editor Hon John Godfrey, PC, Dphil, special advisor on climate change, Ontario government Lynn McDonald, CM, PhD, LLD (hon), professor emerita Bev Swerling, M Ed, retired guidance counsellor, Toronto District School District Very Rev Hon Lois M. Wilson, CC, retired senator and former moderator, United…

Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional ServicesOffice of the Minister25 Grosvenor 18th floor Toronto ON M7A Tel: 416-325-0408 MCSCS.Feedback@ontario.caMC-2018-391 Apr 09 2018                        By e-mail Dear Dr. McDonald and Colleagues: Thank you for your e-mail regarding recommendations for corrections reform. I appreciate the feedback provided and the collective insight which you and your colleagues have shared. Ontario is working hard to modernize the justice system to make it more accessible, efficient and responsive to the needs of people across the province. As part of this modernization, my ministry will continue to move forward with the changes that are necessary to transform Ontario’s correctional services to…

(as submitted to the Standing Committee on Justice of the Ontario Legislative Assembly, April 2018) See also Minister Lalonde’s April 9 letter to the Campaign for the Abolition of Solitary Confinement. The Campaign for the Abolition of Solitary Confinement commends the Government of Ontario for the many improvements evident in Bill 6: the “transformation” claim is appropriate. Our critical remarks are confined to Parts V and VI on solitary confinement, under whatever name, segregation or restrictive placements. These provisions, when enacted, will likely result in fewer suicides and attempts, less self-harm and mental deterioration, but it must be expected that all these will continue, for the…

Hon Marie-France Lalonde, MPPMinister of Community Safety and Correctional Services (Ontario)October 10, 2017 Dear Ms Lalonde Thank you for your response of September 13, 2017 to our letter advocating the full-scale abolition of solitary confinement in the prison system. We were pleased to see your bold, long-term, vision, both on solitary and imprisonment itself, but wish to concentrate on the immediate goal: the abolition of solitary confinement. We were puzzled by your statement about shifting health care services to the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care, apparently to be “explored.” Clearly it would be important to deal with this, if to be done,…

Marie-France Lalonde, MPPMinister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Dear Ms Lalonde We were pleased when the premier appointed Howard Sapers to conduct a long-needed inquiry into the use of solitary confinement in Ontario prisons. We consider that Mr Sapers’s 63 recommendations go far in addressing the worst aspects of solitary confinement as currently practised (notably the ban on its use for juveniles, pregnant women and the mentally ill). We concur that independent oversight would be better than the wide-open discretion prison authorities currently have in imposing, and continuing, solitary confinement. However, we believe the time has come to go further: to abolish…