 I think we can get started here. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the second event in our criminal justice speaker series here at Shulik School of Law, Dalhousie. Dalhousie University is a city in Mi'kmaqe, which is the un-city and ancestral territory of the Mi'kmaqe people. You may have seen this past week, there have been a lot of events happening within the prison justice world, and that is the topic of our conversation today, issues as they pertain to incarceration. You may have seen, and if you haven't, I strongly encourage you to search for it. There is a wonderful, very well done investigation in the Globe and Mail that speaks to the racial bias that exists in the correctional systems against Indigenous people and Black individuals. That has been moved out of the paywall, so now you have access to it. I encourage you to read it, and we should bear in mind the fact that all of the issues that we are talking about today, regardless whether they are pertaining to prisons for women or prison for men, they all have a disproportionate impact on Indigenous and Black individuals as they are over-represented and over-criminalized in the country. Now, today we have three phenomenal women to whom a lot of us who are working in prison law are looking up to, so it is wonderful to have all three of them here. Kim is going to be a little late, but hopefully she's going to make it in half an hour or so. I think the other thing that makes me very excited about the event today is that it is an amazing display of criminal justice talent that's coming out of the Dalhousie Law School. Of course, I cannot brag about that. Emily Coyle, who is the ED of Canadian Association of Elizabeth Frye Societies, is also a Dalhousie Law School graduate from the Class of 2014. Senator Kim Pate, who's going to join us in a bit, is also a Dalhousie Law School graduate from the Class of 1984, and Sarah Tessier is going to be a Dalhousie Law School graduate in the next few years. So we have a great display of talent. Sarah will be talking about her impressive social justice advocacy work, both during and after serving a prison sentence. She will address the importance and practical value of this kind of work, and Emily and Kim will provide commentary based on their work with incarcerated women and engage in a conversation with Sarah. After Sarah, Emily and Kim would have talked, we will open it up for Q&A. You will see that the chat function is not enabled, but the Q&A function is. So I will ask that you please put your questions in the Q&A during the event, after the talks, whenever you have a question, just make sure to write it there, and I will field all the questions and put them to our panelists after they finish talking. The event is recorded. The audience is not going to appear on the recording because it is under a webinar format, but you will be able to access the recording on Schulich School of Law's YouTube channel, so it will be available to you. Okay, so I'm going to introduce Sarah and Emily, and then we'll move to the talks. Sarah Tessier is a social justice advocate with lived experience who has spent the last five years working with and on behalf of some of the most marginalized individuals. She currently works as a peer mentor with Coverdale Courtwork Society. She has worked on the Jack project with John Howard Society, Elizabeth Fryman-Lade, and Coverdale in supporting people exiting provincial jails during the COVID-19 pandemic. She's an advisor for the African Overskosian Affairs Mobilizing Partnership Program, a committee member for YWCA's Trafficking and Exploitation Services System, LGBTQ Plus Cultural Group, and sits on the CAEF's lived experience committee and is a board member of Ifrye Mainland. So that's Sarah, and Emily Coyle is the executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Frye Societies and brings over 15 years of leadership and management experience in the nonprofit sector to this role. Her experience in civil society has taken her from Canada's west to the east, and she now makes her home in Ottawa, Ontario, with her two children, Maya and Nico, and her partner, Adam. She has a BA in international study, a master of education and a JD in law from Dalhousie. I'm going to say that again. So I'm going to move to have to Sarah now, and we're going to turn the cameras off, and Sarah will talk for about 20 minutes. Thank you very much, Adelina. It's good to be here tonight. So I'm going to talk about the advocacy within the prison system as well as out in the community. So working in the prison system, there's so many people that are don't have don't have the the knowledge or the voice to stand up for themselves or to know what their rights are. So as a peer advocate working for for caves in the system, we learn about all the human rights and the commissioner directives and the policies that pertain to correctional service Canada. And so I would help I would assist people in the system to file grievances, complaints, even habeas corpus claims, everything that they would need from simple things like when they work inside, if they have suspensions that were unlawful to help them with those over incarceration, anything at all that violates their human rights or violates the commissioner directives as a whole. A lot of times, when you're dealing with people that have been incarcerated, they don't know how to even where to even turn or the resources that they need to to take care of these things for themselves. So what we did as peer advocates is we were trained by the cave staff to learn about all the rights and and that way there we can better serve the individuals. And there's also a lot of times with people that are being criminalized. There's a lot of there's a lot of people who sometimes can't even read or write. So helping with just understanding their paperwork and what they need to know for that is important as well. And fighting for for basic things as well, like when people are inside and they don't have access to simple things like certain hygiene product products. And this is an example of one thing that I had to work with is, you know, somebody who was of Afghan Nova Scotian descent who couldn't access their hygiene products that they needed, their hair care products. We ended up filing complaints and grievances over that to try and get the proper products that they need. And that just shows the the discrimination and racism that that is so prevalent within the system. There's so many things that go on those indigenous high population of indigenous people in the system as well, who don't have access to a lot of their cultural needs. And that goes for all different cultures, as well as spiritual or religious needs. So those are things that I would advocate for and put in grievances and try and fight for within the system. Another big thing too is just the protection of the people inside the system. A lot of times there's a lot of power and control abuse that goes on between the staff and the people who are incarcerated. And a prime example of that is with, you know, the sexual assaults that have been coming forward within the system and perpetrated by a guard. And it's not just in in certain institutions. It's in a lot of them. And a lot of times what happens is people come forward and I'll talk about my experience because it happened to me. And prior to it happening to me, I had gone forward to the warden to talk about another individual that I knew it was happening to. And while there, it was odd how the conversation was going with the warden. And then I was told, oh, well, I prefer not to investigate this, but rather just tell him that if someone chooses to blackmail him with this information, it could cost him his career. And hopefully that will stop the behavior. So that's the kind of dismissal that these cases would have inside. And without proper advocates inside, women don't know their rights and they have nobody to fight for them and be a voice for them. So when it happened to me, I documented dates, times, and I actually had hard evidence that could be brought forward. And I got a hold of Elizabeth Fry mainland and sender paid as well. And that's when actions was actually taken. And upon the investigation through that, we found out that there was staff that had been bringing forward reports about the same person, the same perpetrator, and they were told to cover up the reports to hide them and to ignore them. Sorry about my cat. So what happened was, when I came forward, and there was a proper investigation done from the police, which, you know, weren't even called until sender paid me the phone call, months later, because again, correctional service said that they had called the police on behalf of the women, which they never did. And so that again, just shows how they try and keep everything so hush hush and cover up things. And so with me being an advocate, it was a lot easier for me to be heard. But unfortunately, there were so many victims before me who had come forward and were being dismissed because mental health issues are a big reason for that. And a lot of discrimination goes on against people who suffer from mental health issues. And so that's another big thing too, is that a lot of the people are abused because of that they're not provided with the proper care that they need to deal with their their issues. Medications are another issue. They come in from the community where they've been on certain medications to help them with with specific mental health diagnosis. And when they go in there, they're immediately taken off of everything, which not only is harmful, but it's, you know, a violation of their their human rights and and it's wrong. And that's what they do all the time. So with the advocates being able to come forward and be a voice, it not only empowers the women and it's not about doing the work for the women or the people inside. It's about empowering the the other people to be able to speak up for themselves and learn the tools that they need to to have a voice. And so a lot of it's about teaching the people how to write the complaint forms and how to, you know, institutional charges is another thing. A lot of times when people get an institutional charge for a simple violation, like giving somebody a piece of bread from a different house, which is, you know, against the rules, they just go in and they don't know that they have rights with that. They don't know that if it's a serious charge, they have a right to a lawyer. A lot of people don't know that they have a right to their advocate to stand it stand up for them and to be present for any interviews. So that's a lot of the work that we do and simple things like reintegration plans into the community, parole officer meetings, if people don't understand what they're signing and what there's what they're they're planning, then how can they move forward? So now I'll talk about the part in the community. So learning to be an advocate on the inside really gave me a passion for what I wanted to do about getting my law degree and helping people who have been criminalized and marginalized and learning about prison law. And I was very fortunate while while inside to be invited to be present and be a part of Senator Kim Pate and Adelina's prison law course, which was phenomenal. So I really enjoyed that. And it you know, it really sparked my my desire to obtain my law degree and start fighting for people's rights on the outside. And rather than just waiting until I could go through the school, I started immediately when I came out. So I started working with organizations like Elizabeth Frye Society on the outside in the community, and with Coverdale Courtwork Society, where I I presently work now. And I mean, the work that we do with Coverdale is phenomenal, because we help people we help people give them back their dignity. We help people who don't have anyone to turn to people who have been let down their entire lives criminalized for simple things like and being held for simple reasons like they don't even have a place to go. And these are people that have been abused and traumatized and living with with all sorts of of mental health issues and what not their whole lives and to constantly be turned away throughout your entire life. And then finally, go to a place like Coverdale where you have people that truly care and promote your self worth and teach you how to how to you know, survive and, you know, give them their dignity and value. That's really important to people, especially when I was working with the Jack project. It was amazing to be able to to help the people that would have otherwise been sitting in a jail cell during a pandemic because they had nowhere to go. So advocacy isn't just about people who have been trained to help do paperwork and stuff like that either. It's also about communities coming together and helping with simple things like donations, clothing, food, gift cards, anything would help donate to local local organizations like E fry and Coverdale, who are out there helping people in need. It's all about coming together as a community and supporting people. And when you see somebody who may be struggling, or even if you don't know they're struggling, how hard is it to just be kind to them? Because you never know what somebody's going through. And I think it's important that everybody just just work together to try and try and enrich people's lives instead of bring them down. I don't know how much time I still have here. But yeah, so working with Coverdale, we provide court support services to women, girls, trans, non binary work with the two as LGBTQIA plus community. And it's very rewarding as a peer mentor, I get to be on a different level in my position, because I can go out and spend time with clients and, you know, give them a sense of belonging and friendship that they might not necessarily get. And also it builds a level of trust on a different level, because knowing that somebody has lived experience really allows people to open up a lot more. And they know that, you know, it's not somebody who's just read a text book, but it's somebody who's actually walked in their shoes. And there's more comfort there. And there's a more level of openness and trust. And I think it's such an important position. And I'm very proud to be a part of such an amazing organization with such such a wonderful possession. And, you know, I work with so many clients that normally wouldn't go to people who are deemed professionals and whatnot, because they feel like they're being judged and they feel like, you know, that they don't really, the people that are in those positions don't really care about them. It's just that it's their job. And with me, I always make it a point not to ever let, I don't give promises that I can't keep. I never make promises I can't keep. That's important when it comes to us. I'm really sorry about my cat. So what I do is I always ensure that I will be available when possible. If I'm busy, I'll still respond to let people know I'm busy. So they don't, because a lot of people have struggled with abandonment their whole lives. And, you know, there's nothing worse than somebody reaching out for help and being ignored. And it's important for people to know that somebody's still listening, even if they might be busy. Just a quick say, a quick little note saying or texting, you know, I got your message. I'm in a meeting right now, but I'll be with you as soon as I'm done. And we'll figure things out. That's so important. And I think that gets missed a lot in a professional setting. So that my role becomes an extremely important part of what we do as a whole at Coverdale. And, you know, we still advocate, I still advocate for for human rights. I still advocate for for social justice and and carceral law and prison abolition. Those are very important issues for me because I believe that people need to be supported within the community. Prisons aren't necessary if people can have the supports that they need in the community, the resources that they need. That's where the funding needs to be. Trauma and form therapy, community supports, people living in poverty, people that live in high crime areas, that can all be dealt with without criminalizing people. Working with youth is really good too, because I think that, you know, when you're able to address the issues with the youth before they become criminalized and before it becomes a pattern into adulthood, I think that's really important. That's where the change needs to come in. And that's where people need to focus a lot of their attention to as well. And I really do think that we can make a change and that we can do without prisons if we all just work together and come together to provide the necessary resources before people have to be thrown in a prison. Sorry, my kitten just likes attention. So yeah, I think advocacy is a big part of what people need to be supported. And it can come from anywhere. If you know that somebody's being wrong, speak up for them. If you know that somebody needs help and you know how to help them, then help them. That's important. So I think that's about it for me. Adelina. Thank you so much, Sarah. That was such a powerful talk. It's always such a treat to hear you talk. Thank you so much for that. I'm so sorry about the cat. Oh, that's a treat to see. We already have a whole bunch of questions for you, but I think what we will do, we will hold them until the end. So I encourage people to keep on asking the questions now. I do see them and I have them all scheduled for answering. I'm going to move now to Emily. And Emily will respond to Sarah's comments and will provide her own thoughts on the issue of advocacy. And yeah, thank you. Thank you. And thank you so much to Adelina for putting this on and Sarah for bravely, always bravely telling her story and always bravely standing up for others, no matter where you are, whether it's in prison or outside. And thank you for being a friend. So you've all been introduced to me. But before I begin my remarks, I'm actually going to start with a quote by Angela Davis that really articulates for us at CAFES, the tension that we feel around advocacy. And so this is a quote from Angela Davis. It is not my quote. A major challenge of the prison abolition movement is to do the work that will create more humane, habitable environments for people in prison without bolstering the permanence of the prison system. And that's really our biggest conundrum because we live in a world right now where prisons exist as a form of accountability, that this is how we've arranged our society. We are an organization, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Frye Societies, that works towards a world without prisons and advocates very strongly to invest in communities rather than in the carceral system. But at the same time, we have people who are in the prison system and we have to ensure that their human rights are being upheld and that they're not being abused while they're in the prison system. So the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Frye Societies, actually when I was at law school, when I was at Dalhousie, I took a prison law course with Senator Kim Pate, who was my professor at the time. And we were instrumental in creating the human rights and action handbooks that eventually went into the prisons and were the basis of the training package that we provided for folks inside who were interested in learning more about their human rights and the laws that govern the prisons. And also, they are also the guides that help the peer advocates that we train and support to do advocacy on the inside, which is what Sarah was doing for Caves. And we work at all of the six federal institutions that are designated for women. And we have regional advocacy teams on the outside that provide support for the peer advocates who are on the inside. And the regional advocates during non-COVID times go into the federal prisons designated for women and we monitor the conditions of confinement and we bring back any systemic issues that are brought to the surface to the senior management and the wardens. And we document all of those issues in letters that we also share with other people, like the Canadian Human Rights Commission, like the Office of the Correctional Investigator, like the Senate, and any others who have an interest in prison issues. And so just to give you a little taste from our annual report in the 2019-2020 year, some of the major advocacy issues that came up are similar to the ones that Sarah had identified. But the number one and number two, which were tied, are around the culture of Correctional Services Canada. And what Sarah had really clearly articulated was this culture of not believing people when they come forward with issues. And that's really problematic because when there is an issue that is grievous, like a sexual assault, you certainly want the first reaction to be, I believe you, and what are we going to do next about addressing this particular issue? And that's not what happened in Sarah's case. And you may have noticed, for some of you who are real eager beavers in the prison law world, that the Office of the Correctional Investigator put out their annual report today. And in it, there is a special investigation on sexual coercion and sexual violence in the prisons. And while it does not speak specifically as much as we would like it to on sexual violence and coercion that happens between CSC staff and prisoners, there is mention of that. And that's certainly a big issue for us. And one that we are going to be pursuing quite vehemently over the next few years in order to ensure that people are being kept safe while prisons exist. Another big issue that comes up frequently for us in our advocacy is health and dental care. And so I'm sure Sarah can comment on that. That was probably one of the biggest issues that she heard about as well. A third but close third is around the inadequacy of mental health care. And as Sarah mentioned in her remarks, we advocate often about having access to mental health care outside of the prison walls. It's really difficult for people to share what has happened to them in their lives and what's happening to them in the prison with folks who are being paid by Correctional Services Canada, because sometimes often that information is used against them within the prison system. And so we advocate very clearly and very strongly to have mental health supports from outside so that people can feel really confident that their information will be kept confidential. And you know, it's quite clear that most of the people and Sarah made brought this up in her remarks as well. Most of the people who are in prison have experienced a lot of trauma. And that trauma is a result of colonialism, almost half of the women who are in the prisons designated for women or indigenous women. So that is a really huge issue. Poverty is is certainly another thing that leads to criminalization and an addiction as well. And all of those are often related or interconnected with the trauma. And so really if we are if we really want people to leave the prison system and with an ability to reintegrate and rehabilitate in society, we have to give them the tools to do that. And we have to support them in ways that is are more robust than they're currently supported. And of course, we would be remiss not to mention the security units, which were formerly known as. Sorry, I actually want to back up a little bit. We do talk about the maximum security units quite frequently in our in our comments. And for those of you who have not been in a prison yet, most of the prisons designated for women, especially in the general population have little houses that people are are imprisoned in. And but then unfortunately, they also have max wings, which are pods where the same people will live for a certain amount of time. And there are preliminary studies that have shown that the same mental health issues that arise for people who are in segregation also arise for people who are in the secure units, because they don't have a lot of opportunity to interact with many people to go outside as often, etc. And so we hear a lot about the issues around the max units. But to go back a little bit today, a report was also released on the new SIUs. And the SIUs, pardon me, will also hear my kittens, which are my cat and my kids outside talking because school is over and they're having discussions. But yeah, so the SIUs, which are the structured intervention units, which were supposed to replace segregation, a report came out today, which is quite damning on the use of the structured intervention units and and and the inappropriate ways that that they have been used, which were supposed was supposed to be done away with by by the new legislation after Bill C 83. So I think I've talked now for my 10 minutes, but I just wanted to end by saying, it's extremely important that I underline the kind of language that we use when we're speaking about people who are in prisons. And I'm really deliberate about saying people, because there are people in prisons, they're not faceless inmates, faceless offenders, which is often the language that is used. And so just a reminder that we need to humanize and remember the humanity of the people who are inside as we advocate for them. And I'd like to make a pitch to all of you, if there are students out there who are interested in prison law, please don't lose that interest. Please don't lose that passion. We need lots of you. We need lots of people engaged in this topic, so that we can really make some positive change in the ways that we address accountability and harm in our society. So thank you for that. I'm done, Adelina. Okay, I was just trying to find my mouse. I have to monitor send it to my moving from one to the other. It's always a challenge for me. So thank you so much for that, Emily. I just received a message from the Assistant of Senator Page. She's wrapping up her talk in the Senate. So I think it's understandable we're a little lower on the priority than the talk in the Senate. So she will be joining us in a few minutes, but I think we're going to go on with the some of the questions that are already in the Q&A box. And then Kim will speak whenever she joins us. If that's okay with Sarah and Emily, is that okay? Yeah, that's fine. So for the oh, there is Kim that's just on time. That's perfect. Okay, you need to go there. Hi, Kim. Hi. Okay, now I've got to figure out how to start my video. Okay, my apologies. I just finished speaking a second reading to the mandatory minimum bill. So my apologies for the delay and didn't expect a whole bunch of folks to be talking about why we don't need to have virtual sittings as a delay. So my apologies. And I'm really sorry, especially that I missed your presentation, Sarah and yours, Emily. And why don't we just go to questions and if I can assist, I can. And you can I mean, it was actually right on time because Emily had just wrapped up her. So if you'd like to have your have your talk now, and then we we can save 10 to 15 minutes for questions. Sure. Okay. Do you want me to project the PowerPoint? That would be fantastic. Because you know, what a techno twit I am. So hey, well, we'll see. I don't know about that. It's in a weird format. So I'm not sure I'll do a great job with it, but I'll do my best. Okay. Well, you know what, just leave it there for people to access because you're if there's a recording of this, you can just leave it with that if you want. And oh, you've done it. Okay, there you go. Okay. So one of the things I wanted to underscore that I'm sure Sarah and Emily probably already covered is the extent to which so much of what happens in the prisons is hidden because that those who control the creation of the narrative and the creation of the record also control access to the prisons. And we've seen that really starkly during this pandemic when people are having difficulty getting getting into the prisons, visits have been canceled programs have been canceled, and people have been kept in virtual isolation. And so what I tried to do is put together some images. And if you want to just flip through them, we can go through them fairly quickly and people can read the narrative after I was trying to add in some issues. So particularly in my experience with women, the fact that it's one in 10 women in prison who have not experienced physical or sexual abuse means that the impact of strip searching alone often will create additional issues. And we know the number of people who have ended up in the prisons for women who have ended up with additional charges from the point of arrest, or from the point that they were entered in and or from the point they're entered into prison in part because of their response to that strip searching and which gets characterizes anything from assault of behavior to including assaulting staff to refusal to follow orders and the like as well as more serious criminal charges as well. And certainly that was the issue for Ashley. The next is a picture of you know what happens we know that the majority of the women by corrections own estimation, nine in 10 women. So again, it's one in 10 women who does not have some kind of mental health issues when they come into the prison. And we know that that the impact of that on your mental health alone, being in prison is huge, who wouldn't be depressed, for instance. So whether we're talking about clinical depression or right through to including self injurious behavior and suicide. And when you see these kinds of conditions and you see this is actually from Nova that picture and where they would place people so that they could observe them when they were in full restraints, you can get an idea of just how problematic it is and how likely it is that people start to engage not only in self injury, but to that people ended up dead. And these are various images that we've taken while we've been doing the prison study, including this one is the renews the bloody floor, but bloody footprints on the floor. This man was was trying to talk to us. We actually went to that unit because I knew there was a unit there. We were taken to another unit initially and wanted to go see this one because I wanted to some of the senators to see the old kind of segregation units and they with these kinds of observation doors that are put in when you hear the term mental health observation. That's what that means. It's a door like that instead of a solid steel door. And when you hear mental health observation, you should also hear segregation in that context. And this man was trying to speak with us. They moved him to another cell and six months later we met him in another prison. And he asked us why we had refused to meet with him. We had been advised that he didn't want to meet with us. And even after nearly 40 years of doing this work, I'm ashamed to say that in that context, I listened to the staff because it was some of the mental health staff, the psychologist and psychiatrists who were we were being told we were being asked not to intervene because we would heighten the distress of the the psychological distress of this man. Never again, every time I make a mistake, I say never again will I make that mistake. And that's certainly one. Six months later when we met him in a segregation unit in another institution, he advises that he had actually been wanting to speak with us. But we couldn't, we could hear him yelling, but we couldn't hear what he was saying. And we were advised that he didn't want to speak with us. So you can imagine what kind of frustration anguish that can create if you're the person locked in that cell and then being told that the four of us who were in that day as part of the prison study refused to meet with them, which of course was completely false and incorrect. This some of you will have heard of dry cells in the old days a dry cell was a bucket in in a cell that had no drain and everything that goes into a person and comes out of the person when they're in a dry cell is monitored. Now because of complaints about staff about having to go through the feces and urine, this is a basically a you can see the steps up. That's the toilet and everything that goes into that toilet gets washed and bagged and so they can examine it without having to literally get their hands dirty. But that when you hear about the dry cell, that's often what a dry cell looks like these days. You go down further. This is this is considered one a very a therapeutic unit. So look at the cell. It's a bit bigger than usual. It's also considered disabled access. But it also has a full panel was called a panel restraint a five point restraint system where people get strapped to the bed. It's a hospital bed. So if you heard that described if you were a lawyer and you heard that described in by corrections, you might think a very different environment than that kind of stark reality. Part of what we're trying to encourage lawyers to do as well because too often they're reluctant to challenge the status quo is to actually talk to some of us who are in there if not their clients, certainly their clients first. But sometimes we know part of our job as those of us who do have access is to have an iterative process of discussion with those who are in prison. Most people who get put in these restraints have no idea when it is lawful and when it is not not because they're not smart or informed people. Well, it's because they're not informed is because they don't necessarily know what the law is. And part of our obligation, I would suggest as advocates, as activists, as allies and certainly as lawyers is to ask enough questions that you get a better sense of what the what the actual conditions of confinement to which people are subjective are and then try and be able to characterize those and paint a picture, if you will, for the court. If you can't paint an actual picture, then well, even better than that often is to provide these kinds of photographs of what's happening. This is, of course, a cell, a toilet and sink apparatus. So if you keep going down, this is a poem by someone who I know a number of you have met, Tonya, that, you know, I just we thought would fit with this particular image. This this picture is actually taken in Collins Bay in one of the journals in Ontario that you will know well, Adelina, because he did when you did your research. You were meeting with guys there. And so if we continue on one of the one of the realities and the reports that were released today by the correctional investigator and by Tony Dube, the chair of the Minister of Advisory Committee on Bill City on the implementation of structured intervention units really reinforces this message. And one of the areas that we're encouraging lawyers and law students and academics to look at is the extent to which almost everything that the Senate predicted when it made the amendments to Bill 83, including the need for judicial oversight, the need for a systemic remedy when the law is breached and corrections doesn't fulfill its obligation to ensure that the lawful sentence is administered lawfully as well as expanding the current provisions that allow for off ramps out for decarceration of prisoners. All of those recommendation, all of those amendments, I would suggest can and should be presented to courts as evidence of the fact these these were put forward by individuals who are going into the prisons as evidence of why we need to have some of the measures like justice gifts and just needed out recently refusing to impose a mandatory minimum penalty for six indigenous women in Northern Ontario because it would be unjust. Some of you know that we actually tried to implement that make that same argument in Cape Breton. I can't remember how many years ago now. And instead of that, what the government decided to do was to transport women and count their time in count their time as part of their intermittent sentences rather than have it struck down constitutionally. Fortunately, it was struck down here. These are some provincial jails in Ontario. And some of you will recognize that was Renu Mandani, who's now Justice Mandani was the chair of the Human Rights Commission, showing again some of the models. This does not look dissimilar in my humble opinion to the Burnside Correctional Center and yet they're bigger except that they're bigger units. But when you look at what is provided in terms of access to the community, visitation, right to council, all of that should be questioned. And so again, some images to try and provide a bit of a window into that. During this COVID period, much has been raised about, you know, access to fresh air. These units were clearly cleaned up before we came for a visit. And you see that air vent and question how much fresh air you're getting. You see how possible is it to physically distance in these kinds of units when you've got 40 to 60 people in them at a time. And this one we went to because there was somebody I wanted to speak to on this unit. They didn't have the same chance to do all the cleanup. And you'll see some of the if you scroll down, you'll see, in fact, some of the impact in here. Here's a shower unit with a piece of plastic put over to cover the mold and the lack of privacy. You'll see the men who was wanting to speak with me was giving me a copy of this is a pre-COVID logbook of all the lockdowns that occurred in that prison. And if you scroll down some more, you'll see this was the situation of two guys who got into a fight over both being offered the same thing at the same time and then neither getting it. And of course, that creating the kind of situation that the Correctional Investigator has also talked about today. And when we know this and we know that the report that has just come out from the not just Correctional Investigator, but Tony do one of the things Tony do. And for those of you haven't had a chance to read it yet and it's a long report, so I appreciate you may not have one of the things that he underscores is the fact that only five percent. So 95 percent of the people put into structured intervention units have not had their legal obligations according to Bill CD3 upheld. So if you think of that, only five percent got access on paper to the time out of cell and the time access to people. And as Tony do said to me, and we have no assurances that that was actually anything beyond being in restraints in a yard. We have no idea who that meaningful contact was with. We have no idea what that actually means. It just means that in these situations, corrections thinks they met the obligation. Now, five percent is bad enough. But when you realize that they've created multiple other kinds of segregation units, a part of the reason I put all of these in here is to give you some idea of what these these places look like. For those of you don't know, some of you know, all too well. And I apologize for, you know, having to see all of these. But look at the different ways. Special handling units, dry cells, intensive psychiatric intervention, suicide watch, step down units, voluntary limited association ranges. We know structured intervention units. The only area where segregation occurs now in the federal system that is any way subject to that kind of legal monitoring according to the corrections and to the government are structured intervention units. The fact that all of these other measures exist without any legal. I would argue there is a legal framework charter and the Canadian Human Rights Act. But from the correct from corrections perspective and from the CCRA, there is no legal way to monitor those provisions. That has to be remedied. And so I think we need to be looking at approaches that like group habeas corpus applications like massive call for reductions, you know, in in terms of the pushes that are coming right now in terms of reducing the numbers of people in prison, actually structuring that they be released implementation of the type of modeling that case did back in when the second human rights, third human rights complaint was launched to say that if corrections would work with the Native Women's Association, the Human Rights Commission and Caves, they could get rid of segregation all together, including everything else, regardless of what name they provide or what they call it. The other thing to think about is when we're talking about young people, I've been shocked at how few lawyers are aware that not only is it not supposed to, you know, that there are there are limits that the UN says you shouldn't put kids in custody. Our law does not permit kids to be housed. Anybody under the age of 18 in a youth jail facility is there is no provision to allow the congressional authorities to put them in isolation. I don't know anywhere that that has been sufficiently challenged. And yet it's it's been the law for 15 years now. And so I've been shocked. I've started going back into youth jails in part to draw attention to that as part of a group that was looking at the links between child welfare and and criminalization. But we really have to be looking at all of these links. And many of you know, it's part of the reason why the overall push that, you know, I'm often working on, of course, I'll continue to do all the work on decarstrating, decriminalizing. But it's partly why I'm working on things like guaranteed livable income, paid leave, adequate wages, social supports, economic supports, as well as free health care and dental care and mental health care, child care and education. So those are some of the ways that I think we can address really trying to prevent these situations from happening. But in the meantime, you've already discussed, I'm sure, many of the ways you can alleviate the worst of this in the interim. So shut up now. There we go. Thank you so much, Kim, for that. I really appreciate that. I'm sure we all appreciate that you ran from the Senate meeting to be able to be with us as well tonight. So thank you so much for that. And thank you for the very powerful images and presentation. Um, we have a number of questions here, and I encourage people. I know we can we normally go about 10 minutes over just to make sure if that's OK for the panelists just to have the chance to actually get into the questions. So there are a whole bunch of questions for Sarah, and I encourage people to to type the questions if they have any anything else. Sarah, you there are a couple of questions here that are asking about your role as an advocate on the inside. One of them in particular is asking how was this viewed and responded to by staff and the administration? Did it cause you any challenges? Absolutely. So with staff and administration, of course, they never wanted someone like me to be an advocate in the first place. I'm articulate. I'm intelligent. And I am very passionate about what I do. So from the get go, they tried to prevent me from becoming an advocate. So when when case decided to start training the next round of advocates on the inside, I was part of that training. And so what they did was they put me up in Max, a maximum security. And the last day of training, they they told the staff that was supposed to escort me down for the training that I didn't want to go and they told me that there was no staff to take me. So I missed the last day. And then they said, well, now you can't be an advocate because you didn't get that training. So a way around that was Caves actually arranged to have a special training to make sure that I could become an advocate. So that's just one example of how they prevented me from from becoming an advocate. Once I was an advocate and they didn't have much choice in the matter. What happened was then they said, well, you can only be an advocate when the library is open, because that's where you would access the question or directives on the hard drive in the library. And I said, well, that's not feasible. I said, the libraries barely ever open. I said, so if somebody comes to me on a Friday morning and says that they have an issue, you're telling me that I have to wait until the library opens on a Tuesday to tell them that I can help them. I said, no, that's not going to work. So ultimately what I did to get around that is I make them give me tons of paper. And I went to the library, I printed off every single commissioner directive, Privacy Act, Human Rights, everything. And I put it into binders, made three copies of it. So the secure unit and the minimum unit can both have a copy as well. Took them all to my bedroom and stayed up every night studying them. So I knew those policies inside and out better than the staff there did. Staff would come to me asking me what the policies were. So I challenged every step of the way and this continued on. Then the other backlash I would get is staff, you know, writing extra reports on me that weren't even substantiated. And, you know, I had a huge target on my back. I was being watched under a microscope and they were looking for any little reason that they could to put me in violation of any of their rules so that they can institutionally charge me and get me out of the position. And so this went on and I did work as an advocate for about three years. I believe it was the last three years of my five year of sentence, maybe two and a half. So, I mean, the games they would play and then I'd have other backlash. Like when I came forward about the sexual assault and I started being the strength and the voice for the other victims that had come forward before me that were turned away and not believed and everything was hidden. Then I had staff that would be kicking my door in the middle of the night on their rounds and, you know, laughing about it and dropping their keys outside my door and laughing about it and just childish things like that. And, you know, but that's OK, because I knew that the more they tried to challenge my rights as an advocate, the more I was doing my job and the better I was doing my job. So it just we affirmed to me that I was doing the right thing and I continued to do so. And I figured the worst case scenario, they'd have to let me out on my statutory release. So what happened was my parole eligibility was back in July of 2017 and they kept me in for two and a half extra years. But let me go six months before my statutory release only because they wanted to be able to put me in a halfway for house for six months in the community. So that's fine. I'll spend the extra time in there. It gives me more time to practice my advocacy role and to help the women that needed me so desperately. Thank you, Sarah. You've already answered one of the questions that was question how long you've been you said you were working as an advocate for three years. So the next question is asking you what was your experience with assisting other filing for complaints or grievances? Did the reports go into the void or were they resolved or were you updated on the status of the complaints you were helping with? What seemed to work, if anything? Well, fortunately, with me assisting others in filing the complaints and grievances, I knew the policies surrounding the time limits that they had to respond to those within the policies. So I was able to enforce those timelines and I was able to get on their cases about, hey, you had 15 days to reply to this grievance and I have yet to hear anything on behalf of this person. So you better get on this right away. And if not, then we just automatically go up to the next level of grievance. So a lot of times, though, especially with things like the habeas corpus, a lot of times the timelines, I filed a habeas corpus for myself and it was 14 months after I was released from the maximum security unit that I got my denial on it. So they don't exactly follow the guidelines and you keep going up the levels. But really, if they don't act on it, what's your next step? You call the correctional investigator. Nothing gets done there either. So my my my go-to is to call Senator Pate and say, hey, I need your help. So she's always been a great support as well as Caves. And between all of us, I believe that we did we were we were effective in making some changes. And that's one of the things that I really love about the women on this panel. There are all such amazing examples, aside from all being connected to Dalhousie law, it's they're such amazing examples of efficient advocacy from sometimes from quite different perspectives, and it shows how working together can actually lead to very effective results sometimes, even though the road is never very easy as I'm sure that all of you have experience. There is a discussion. There is a question for for all of you. And it says, what is your stance on restorative justice and how, in your opinion, may this help to improve the issues that have been discussed? So whoever wants to take a stab at it first, Emily. I'm going to be brief. I just wanted to share this book that I'm in the middle of reading. It's called Beyond Survival and its strategies and stories from the transformative justice movement. And rather than speaking about restorative justice, a lot of people who are in the abolition movement speak about transformative justice, which is really not taking you to where you were when the harm happened, but transforming society and transforming the people involved in whatever happened so that we can evolve beyond where we are right now into a different environment than the one that we currently live in. And so I invite those of you who are interested in restorative justice to also look at ideas of transformative justice and to to pick up this book, which I'm only halfway through, but it's it's really interesting stories that illustrate how transformative justice works in practice. So if Kim or Sarah wants to answer the question like, don't have to just. Yeah, Kim. Sure. Um, well, I agree. I think the the idea is really that we need to be transforming and changing where we start with and that we need to not be characterizing behaviors as criminal that are really about attempts to try and negotiate poverty, past trauma, all of these realities and or in East the Tires yourself to those realities and that results in criminalization. One of the challenges is, you know, I'm old enough that and dinosaur enough that I was involved in what was called the restorative justice movement when I used to be characterized as the token secular influence, because most of it came from a philosophical often a Christian, often a or a First Nations spiritual perspective around, you know, bringing people to a better place. And as soon as the government got hold of it and started talking about doing restorative justice, whenever that happens, I would say, always put your immediately put your X-ray vision blinkers on because the minute that happens, it means it's really about taking and expanding the social, economic and certainly the legal controls on people's lives. And that's what we've seen. So it's not that there aren't good programs or good initiatives that have been developed, but every initiative, including things like special circumstance courts have actually resulted in the expanding of the prison and legal industrial complexes not restricting them. And it makes us feel better. Sometimes there are really good people who work in them, who champion and make things happen for a period of time. But almost inevitably, once those champions are gone, it just becomes another cog in the system. And so I think we have to really think about how do we, how do we, as Emily said, transform the world we're in. And some of it is, you know, much more about outside of the criminal legal system, and more about developing the economic, social, gender, racial, justice, as well as in terms of disability, addressing the forms of discrimination. In my humble opinion. Thank you, Kim and Emily. Okay, so we have three questions that are also for all three of you. And I would really like to hear your take on it. They are actually interrelated. So I'm just going to ask them all three in one. Two people that my guests are law students want to know who, what, what is it other than staying informed that law students could do to drive or to support reform and abolition, or advocating for the people inside. And a third question asks, what can people who aren't lawyers do to be involved and advocate for people inside? So law students and people that are not necessarily legal professionals? I wouldn't mind saying something about that. Please, Sarah. So, like me, I'm not a lawyer yet. I'm going to be a law student. But what I would say is, get in touch with organizations out there like caves like ifry, like legal aid, you know, they always could use people on placements, volunteers who are law students, you know, reach out their wellness within is another organization. John Howard, there's so many organizations out there that work with criminalized and marginalized people that you can be volunteering at any of these organizations. You can be working with people within the prisons. Once the COVID allows that, you know, you can be volunteering in the prisons to help people with their rights. Reach out to send their paid, see what she can do for helping with the laws, the legislation that surrounds it. What can you do to help out there? There's so many things. All you have to do is reach out and I'll tell you something. Nobody likes to turn away people who want to volunteer their time because we are all so busy fighting for these causes every single day that we can use all the help that we can get. And it's always much appreciated. I just want to say here, here, Sarah, I totally agree. Thank you for that. I think we always need a dedicated and passionate students. And I was one of them when Kim was my professor. And so, you know, she really ignited the passion in me for, you know, understanding and fighting for the rights of those who often don't have a voice on the outside. I would also say, you know, try to have conversations with the people you know, who don't actually think a lot about what happens in the prisons. Bring this this amazing PowerPoint that that Senator Payton prepared, you know, show it to your friends and family who don't know about what happens in the prisons and what prisons look like. And, you know, read articles, share those articles, maybe, you know, hopefully not to the point of becoming annoying. But, you know, really help to to bring awareness to what is an often unseen and unknown topic, you know, we we we in prison are social issues. We take all of the social issues that are problems and we put them into prisons and we think we can forget about them there. And we shouldn't we need to remember them and we need to keep talking. So that's just in addition to what Sarah said, I agree with all of that. And thank you. That's very, very kind and generous, both of you. None of us achieves anything alone. And the fact that I happen to be where I am means that in fact, you should be expecting that every everything I do is focused on providing those resources and sharing that information. So and please everybody call me Kim, known some of you too long to be standing on that. If ever I looked like I like that or the paycheck or anything too much, then you're part of the group I consider accountable to bring me down. So but I do I just actually was in Deborah Park's law class on the other side of the country a few hours ago and got asked a similar question. And I you know, I think one of the things that we forget about is students often have some really and non lawyers have amazingly creative ideas about what we can do. Lawyers often tell them, oh, that's not you know, that's not according to precedent. Oh, we can't do that. Oh, you know, the courts will slam us down. And my response is always if we never say it, it can never happen. If we never do it, it can never happen. So we need to be challenging. And I think one of the worst things we do is dampen that enthusiasm. Now, I'm not suggesting each of you go out. And as your brand new lawyers or law students, you expect to be able to champion that and take it on. But you sure as hell, excuse my language, sorry, you don't let the academics, the lawyers, the organizations, the senators, whoever say dampen your enthusiasm and say, I don't think we can do that. Ask how we can do what you're trying to do. And what what are the real impediments to what you're trying to envision? And you know, nowhere was that brought more home to me when I was at Dallas, a law student myself. And there was a young man who had been brutalized in what later was exposed as the Stanton inquiry. Those all of you are too young to remember what that was. But it was the exposure of sexual abuse and abuse of power in the youth jails in Nova Scotia. And this kid had been in one of those jails. And after, you know, what I was trying to do is with the support of the the clinic, because I was at the down legally clinic, trying to stop this kid from being sentenced to jail. It was the obvious place that they would send him, given what had happened and what he was charged with. But, you know, he had been brutalized there. It was clear he was just going to keep racking up charges as Ashley Smith did as I'm trying to use names that people wouldn't know. People, you know, who have been there, you know, there are many, many as Sarah and Emily and Adelina know. And all of you out there know there are many, many who we never know their names. But because of so much exposure of what happened to Ashley, people know her name. But in this situation, we fought everything we could think of. And I was lucky I had this. He wasn't my supervisor. My supervisor is still around the law school, but he implicitly acted as my supervisor because nobody else really wanted to work with women or kids. And so when I said I wanted to do this, you know, good luck with that. And off I went, toddled to court because I literally was a toddler in law in those days. And I got called in by the judge afterwards after this kid was not sentenced to jail. And I thought, wow, I can't believe we did that. That's great. The guy called me in and dressed me down for half an hour about how inappropriate it was that I had done something that was so pushing the boundaries of the law that I had challenged a psychiatrist who had been a psychiatrist for over 20 years, that I had dared as this, you know, pee on nothing law student to try and pretend that I was a real lawyer. And, you know, I'd be lying if I said it didn't impact me. But part of me, I thought to myself, I never said it is fuck you asshole, excuse my language. But I thought it. And I and then I, you know, spent a lot of time thinking, oh, did I do it to service? Like, does this mean every kid I represent from now on will be screwed because the judge is so mad at what we did or I'll be prevented. And it wasn't until actually the Stanton inquiry that I realized, no, that was the right thing to do. But the fact that at every level of the system, once I was dressed down, the push was on. Everybody wanted to pile on and say, geez, you know, you really overstepped there. Oh, you know, you shouldn't have done that. And it taught me some really important lessons about the need to stay focused when when you make those kind of decisions, you usually make a print, make them for some really good reasons. What it made me do from then on, was always ensure that I knew all of the law, all of the policy, I had all of the perspectives. And in some ways, I made me really frustrating to work with, I'm sure, because it means I want to have an unassailable case before I proceed. And that's, that doesn't mean an easy case. But it means that I have all of the I have, you know, not just me, but with academics, Adelina has been part of them with a think tank of other groups who are working with women have been imprisoned, men have been in prison, others, that we actually think through every possible negative potentiality, and then high, you know, figure out how to address it. And so I think those are really important roles that you play, especially if you're coming new to it, you know, whether it's new to law or new because you don't, you're not a lawyer or don't have legal training. And those are really important creative impulses that I think too often get overlooked or get dismissed. And that's really, really important. So thank you for that question. And thank you to all of you for, you know, I wish we could see everybody, but, you know, that's alright. So thank you to all of you for all the work you do, because none of this gets done by one personal law. I see that one of our attendees has the hand up. Steven, I don't know if you want to come up and ask your question. I can try. Let's see if I can. We don't normally do it like that, but we can definitely try. No, maybe not. Maybe yes. Hello. Hi, Steven. I'm sorry to interrupt. I didn't mean to have my hand up. Oh, that's okay. There's my contribution. You're welcome. Okay, thanks. Steve is a is a is a prison lawyer. So it wasn't that I just picked on some random member of the audience. Don't worry, you can attend this seminar. Don't think I'm going to do that for everyone. Okay, the last question that I have here is what would medical professionals if people that are in the medical profession, whether they are whether they are individuals that are social workers or nurses could do to help? Okay, so reading the question talks about the aim of working in a federal or provincial prison and what kind of disappeared on me. I was looking at that. Any tips for students interested in this field? My only tip would be working in the community where you're needed, whether where where you can make a real difference because once you become a part of that CSC fiasco, there's no hope for you because that's not where reform happens. That's not where change happens. That's not where helping people who need you happens. It happens in the community. That's where the funding is needed. That's where the people are needed. Prisons are not needed. I'm an abolitionist, so I'd always say don't work in them. Yeah, I mean, I agree with Sarah and I think I said in my remarks that when we looked at advocating around mental health supports in the prisons, one of the biggest things that we advocate for is for people to have access to mental health supports outside of the prisons because they don't have the faith that the confidentiality will be kept within the prison system and then often what they tell the people that are supposed to be caring for them is used again, their information is used against them. So the system itself is is is broken. And, you know, just to be quite clear, you know, we have an advocate who works for us now who used to work as a mental health support within the provincial system in one of the provinces. I won't name but she left because she recognized how impossible it was to make change from the inside and she thought she could and many people who go into that role think that they can and quite quickly they become disillusioned. And so, you know, I echo what Sarah is saying, but I also want to take it a little bit further and remind people in any field in any kind of helping field, you can become part of a system. We know that social workers become part of the system. We look at what happens in indigenous communities and in child welfare cases and those who are working in youth facilities. Those are people who think that they can make a difference but also become part of this whole system that leads people into becoming institutionalized at a very young age. So, just to think about whatever profession that you're in, how am I part of the system? How can I challenge that system? And yeah, so I'll just leave it at that. And I agree with both of those interventions and also would add that when I'm doing training with doctors or nurses or social workers, I often encourage them to look first to their professional standards. That when they go to work in an institution, they will be asked to do things that violate their professional standards and they can refuse to do that rather than violate their professional standards and most don't realize that, including the head of psychiatry at that provincial jail that you saw the pictures of, told me that if they insisted on seeing prisoners without restraints that they wouldn't see prisoners and I actually, I know that that's not true, that in fact they may try it for a while just like, you know, many people think E. Fry has always had access to all the prisons. No, we didn't, we haven't. We had to argue to get access. We had to fight to keep that access and routinely it'll be taken away and many people have heard me joke before like this position, one of the attractions was it was the first time they wouldn't be able to kick me out of jail anymore. And so, you know, the reality is that in that environment people are discouraged from in doing the right thing and two things I would say if you're a nurse or a doctor or a social worker or you know just as everybody said working in that system I won't judge you if you take that job because it helps pay the rent it helps put food on the table it helps you have health care and because they're good wage jobs but if you don't use that position to do whatever you can to expose what is happening and you know what I mean by that is many of you know during the Ashley Smith inquest how we how so much of that information got out was I was given that information by people in the system women inside for sure but also staff who knew that we would do something with it that we wouldn't just take it and do nothing that we would actually act on it and so we never had access to the the inquest brief because I didn't want to be bound by the confidentiality that that would require because I was pretty sure based on at that stage about 20 years of e-fried but about you know 30 years of prison stuff that in fact they would try and hide stuff and and so I was getting so much that we actually started doing affidavits alleging things that I knew about because people told me but we couldn't prove and the other thing we did was we appealed to the health professionals to actually live up to their standards not everybody did but the number did come forward and talk about the assaults that had happened in Ashley the forcible injections that had happened and while few took responsibility for what they did it exposed the way in which the mental health system was being co-opted if you will not if you will definitely and we're engaging in unlawful illegal activities and and so you know I say to doctors and nurses if someone comes to you and they're from a prison and they're in shackles and you don't insist to have the shackles taken off how do you know that it's a voluntary visit if I arrived and I had to be put in shackles when I had my flu shot I wouldn't presume that it was a voluntary system if someone had gas mask on and pepper spray at the ready as well I certainly wouldn't and that's the situation that too often happens and so as health professionals don't lose track of that it would be one of my you know I think it's one piece Fabulous thank you so very much we have reached the end of the event I am so grateful to Sarah, Emily and Kim for joining us tonight you are doing all three of you are doing such fantastic work and we are as I mentioned in the beginning we most of us working in prison are looking up to you and the work that you are doing so we're very grateful to have you here tonight we're very grateful for the work that you are doing and we will definitely be calling upon you again and again to share all your knowledge and expertise with us so thank you so much to the three of you and thank you to the audience members who have been here tonight if you are interested in our criminal justice event make sure to follow the surely criminal justice coalition on Twitter and Instagram we have two events coming up in November and yeah thank you very much and thank you for all your work and thank you to all of you take good care and again my apologies for being late thank you for coming bye everyone thank you for attending and thank you very much bye bye thank you bye bye