 Good afternoon, and welcome to today's health law speaker event. I'm Constance McIntosh, I'm the director of the Health Law Institute, and I'm very pleased to welcome you all here today. Today's event is co-sponsored by LEAF, and we are very pleased about that fact. The brochures are on the table, so if you'd like some more information about them, we have a somewhat unusual format for today's event. The name of the whole thing is Punishing Women's Under Really Bodies, Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mother-Baby Separation under Conditions of Imprisonment. First up will be our own Sheila Wildman, who as you know is the associate director of the Health Law Institute and a professor here at the Law School. Her work has focused extensively on vulnerable populations and mental health issues. She's currently working extensively on administrative law remedies, and how those and human rights principles should inform, and if necessary, the challenge decisions made by prison authorities. After Sheila, we have a special guest in town, Julie Pilata. Julie is a daughter, she's a sister. She's the mother to Gianni Garlow, and the partner to Dakota Garlow, and she is an absolutely inspirational prisoner's rights advocate. Julie will be followed by Emma Halpern, who's also probably familiar to many of you, who's the equity and access officer for the Nova Scotia Barista Society, and the regional advocate for the Canadian Association of the Elizabeth Prize Societies, which, as you may know, works to monitor conditions of confinement and provide support, advice, and parole accompaniment to women in prison in the Atlantic region. I'm going to hand it over to you. Right here, give me one second. I'm the only nerd who is using a PowerPoint, so. There we go, that looks right. Let's see, up there. Now you can hear me a little better. So at the heart of this panel, and the reason that you're here, that I'm here, is Julie Pilata, who has so generously traveled to Nova Scotia from Ontario to share her experiences and her insights with us, and so to extend her prison advocacy work by inciting new conversations and making new allies here on the East Coast. So I want to thank Julie myself for coming, and I also want to thank Martha Painter from Leaf Halifax Branch for making Julie's visit possible. Finally, I want to thank my other co-panelist, Emma Halpern. Many of you know Emma for her tireless work for justice and equality in Nova Scotia, and today she's bringing her experience working with women in Nova Scotia prisons to bear on our discussion. So today's Health On Policy Seminar asks you to enter a small, confined space, the space of women's imprisonment, and to turn your mind to a profound injustice that's occurring there as women's bodies, women's fundamental health needs, and potentially also the health and life chances of their children are translated by what sociologists and criminologists have called the logic of penal governance, turned what translated into instruments of discipline and control into opportunities for demonstrating not responsive health and social care, but rather the will to absolute dominance of a security state. Our panel closes in on one story. It's the story of Julie Bellotta and her son Gianni. And more pointedly, it closes in on the institutionalized cruelty to which they were subject by prison officials in Ontario at the time of Gianni's birth. Our broader objective, though, is to convey how this story fits with a wider set of patterns of systemic injustice in women's corrections, centering on violence done women in predictable, routineized, systematic ways as what I'm going to call the correctional ethos of discipline and control butts up against the legal duty to be responsive to the health needs of women in state custody and the deeper duty to promote the human rights of those who have been systematically subject to discrimination and violence. So the focus of our panel is a relatively narrow field of institutional violence applied to women's reproductive health, in particular in connection with pregnancy, birth, and mother-child relationships as these are constrained and distorted by the state under conditions of imprisonment. Although it's not our primary focus today, a concern for reproductive health in prisons must also necessarily raise questions about access to abortion and birth control. So my job, here I'll see if I can... That didn't really work, changing my slide. There we go, that's what I wanted. My job is to place in the background to Julie's story certain systemic patterns of injustice characterizing women's imprisonment. Along with some features, and I may get to this, I may not, because you know what, I know you're really wanting to hear Julie. So I'd like to tell you about some features of the legal framework that assist us in naming some of these injustices or locating them as legal wrongs. And some of that I might come back to and we might come back to in our discussion. After me, you'll hear from Julie, whose experiences and insights are, as I say, at the core of this panel and represent the strength and resiliency of women fighting back. Then Emma will share some observations on how women are faring in federal and provincial correctional facilities in the Atlantic region. And then I'll come back to me to open up discussion with you and with all of us with reference to potentially illegal strategies and other strategies for challenging this carceral logic of punishing women's unruly bodies and breaking their families. So let me start with some facts about women's imprisonment. I'm going to quote Kim Pate, who many of you know and love, Executive Director of the Elizabeth Frye Societies. I'm going to quote her from, or roughly quote her from her health law seminar two years ago. She said, women and girls are Canada's fastest growing prison population. The number of women in federal prisons, so sentenced to terms of two years or more, has increased by about 70% over the past decade. Many more women are in overcrowded provincial jails, so sentenced to less than two years, or remand centres. Indeed, an extraordinary proportion of the total prison population in Canada, both women and men, are on remand awaiting trial, so not having been convicted of a crime. So what are some general patterns marking the population of women subject to imprisonment? The most common offenses resulting in a prison term among women are property offenses, commonly shoplifting, and drug offenses. Very few women have committed serious violent offenses such as major assault or homicide. Many are imprisoned because of administration of justice offenses, such as breach of probation or breach of a condition of parole, often failure to comply with alcohol or drug use restrictions. And as others have pointed out, these restrictions, viewed in the wider context of the hardships and the die-hard habits of many of these women, are akin to ordering someone who is sick to just stop being sick. Women in prison are disproportionately racialized, with a particularly marked overrepresentation of Aboriginal women. By 2013, more than one in three women in federal prison was of Aboriginal heritage, despite being about 3% of the population of Canada. In many provincial and territorial jails, the rates of overrepresentation are even more egregious. In 2008-09, Aboriginal women comprised more than 85% of admissions of women to adult provincial sentence custody in Saskatchewan, yet represented only 11% of the provincial population. Aboriginal women are more overrepresented in segregation, in use of force interventions, and maximum security units. The majority of women in Canada's federal and provincial prisons are living in poverty. Most have limited formal education and employment. Very high numbers of women in prison have experienced sexual abuse or trauma. A 1989 survey, and I know that's going back a while, but it's a good survey, showing that 80% of federally sentenced women at that time had experienced physical or sexual trauma or abuse, and a similar proportion had significant histories of alcohol or substance abuse. These, along with high rates of mental health problems, they speak to the extremities of marginalization and often victimization to which women in prison have been subjected. But I want to be clear, women in prison are a diverse and often surpassingly resilient lot, as you're going to see in a second, and not every woman fits these patterns. I want to be very clear to say that we should resist easy labeling like the label of mental illness, for instance, and the claim that the problems faced by imprisoned women would go away if only they were subjected to a new kind of regime, a new kind of drug, psychiatric incarceration. Indeed, it's probably the one sure thing that you can say about any woman who's come through Canada's prison system is that she's a survivor. But let me just continue with a few last statistical patterns. How much time do I have? How much time do I have? About, you're my timekeeper. You're supposed to be doing that. Pardon? Okay. So now I want to get a little closer to the central theme of our panel. So many women in federal prisons and provincial jails, there's something up on there. Oh, no. What looks like it's something in the way of the picture is an excerpt from a letter written by a woman who was giving up her son in a U.S. prison, actually. So many women in federal prisons and provincial jails are renown centers or mothers, or as you'll hear, mothers to be, or to be denied mothering. In the federal system, three and four incarcerated women are mothers to children under the age of 18, and at the time of their arrest, almost two-thirds were sole caregivers. During these women's incarceration, their children must be placed with others, or face child welfare apprehension, and possibly foster care. A 2003 study estimated that approximately 20,000 Canadian children were separated from their mothers by reason of incarceration each year, and these numbers would now be higher because the population in prison is higher. Commentators refer to these children as the hidden victims of imprisonment, facing a range of heightened forms of destabilization once their mother is taken from them, and potentially facing the risks and frailties and dangers of the foster care system. The fact that there are few women's facilities means women are often imprisoned far from home, making visits with children if a relationship might otherwise be maintained a significant challenge. Losing touch with, or worse, losing one's child is for many women in Canada's prisons the deepest cut of a system and a sentence that tends to relegate children's interests to another department. For Aboriginal women and their children, disproportionately affected by this destruction of family ties, this represents a perpetuation and a deeply... sorry, perpetuation of deeply rooted colonial state practices of destroying kin and cultural ties. So all these facts about patterns marking the women in Canada's prisons, racialization, poverty, low educational and employment attainment, subjection to violence, and soul mothering, they all speak to the social determinants of women's imprisonment, and at the same time, the social determinants of health. This is a health law and policy seminar, so I'm taking back the health, the health and life chances of both women and where they are mothers, and children. In light of these facts, I put to you another observation made by Kim Pate when she gave a health law seminar a couple years ago, namely that prisons are the brutalizing ground floor that awaits those who fall through Canada's deeply compromised social safety net. Prisons respond to women's socioeconomic marginalization and attendant and emergent health care needs with counterproductive punitive measures. So counterproductive from the point of view of promoting the health and social welfare of women and their children. Last couple of things I wanted to say. There are a number of ways that prisons fail to meet women's health needs, including needs that under conditions of imprisonment manifest as health crises. In the federal context, this is despite two decades of ideological and infrastructural innovations starting with a broadly consultative task force on federal women's corrections that eventuated a 1990 report entitled Creating Choices and a vision of transforming prisons into supportive therapeutic communities empowering women to choose a different path. So laudable as this was in its conception, this vision of therapeutic prisons as it turned out and as it's been rolled out has been roundly critiqued for its succumbing to the intensive security and risk logic of corrections. So the habits of individualizing and responsibleizing and punishing women. For instance, easily shifting from the rhetoric of promoting healthy relationships to practices of scrutinizing the risk predictive implications of women's problems building healthy relationships. Access to and quality and confidentiality of health care are all deeply compromised by the risk and surveillance imperatives of prison culture. You're a counselor. You want someone to unpack, right? They're inner secrets. You have to report institutional risks. It's not so easy to develop the relationship. In women's prisons in particular health needs including health crisis are liable to attractive defensive and punitive rather than therapeutic response. So it may seem to you absolutely absurd and probably an aberration and exception that pregnancy and childbirth and with these the mother-child relationship would be treated as threats to institutional security and order. But think again and then think again after you've heard from Julie and from Emma. The correctional investigator Howard Sapers has described the conflict between security and therapy goals expressed in correctional responses to chronic self-injury or self-harming behavior of women including head banging, slashing self-mutilation use of ligatures you'll remember from Ashley Smith. This sort of behavior has more than doubled among the federally sentenced women population in the past few years. Sapers observes that institutional responses often include use of force, segregation and the laying of institutional charges. Responses that to quote him limit access to the very services and supports that may ameliorate rather than exacerbate make worse the behaviors. And I must almost down I really want to turn it over now. So last couple words. Two years ago in her seminar Kim Pate described the stories of Ashley Smith and Canoe James each of whom was subject to intensive security measures in federal correctional facilities for women over prolonged periods. Put it back to this one. And each of whom was subjected to progressively more intensive and unyielding forms of force and control and each of whom suffered and died as correctional authorities refused or failed to intervene in medical emergencies. Today Kim and others who are with us here today are calling for a public inquiry into the recent deaths of Camille Strickland Murphy and Veronica Park at the Nova Institution for Women in Truro. So the reason I put these stories in the background to Julie's, and I am going to stop after this. I'm not going to talk about the law because we're just not going there yet. The reason I put these stories in the background to Julie's is to suggest that these expressions of what I'm going to call correctional logic are not the exceptions to the rule but rather expressions of a pattern of institutional conflict between responding to the health and social needs of women in prison and responding to them in a way that prioritizes institutional order and security and causes or exacerbates health crisis or even death. So over to Julie. Thanks. I hope we get on the internet to get a photo of Gianni. Yeah, you want it? Do I get this thing off? Oh my God. Should I just put it right here? Or more on the black thing? Yeah, I am, yeah. I can stand. That looks good. Maybe be careful in case it folds in on itself. Yeah, that's great. Just kind of ignore me. Oh, you can? I'll wait for you guys. Yeah, because I'm a midget. Well, I'm probably... How old are you? Oh, then I'm five too. Don't worry about this. You just do your talk. You do your talk. I'll just wait a second. Hi everybody. So I'm going to give you a little bit of background information about me before I get into my speech. So you can understand how all of this came to be. So in 2010 I found myself in an unhealthy relationship and I started abusing painkillers, OxyCon, to be specific. And I made... making really crazy decisions to support this habit. So I ended up in a vehicle with 50 pounds of marijuana where I was the driver. I was stopped and arrested. I was charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking and possession for the purpose of exportation. The exportation was later dropped because they didn't have enough evidence to go on with it. So I was out on a surety and on some pretty crazy conditions. I had to live with my surety, which was my mother at the time. I had to stay away from anyone known to use cell-possessed narcotics. And you can see why those conditions would be hard for me because they knew I had a drug problem. So we'll bring it up two years. My surety can no longer live by these conditions and I made months pregnant at this time. And my surety gets revoked. So I'll start my speech. We'll start it there. So it's the 24th of September, the day before my birthday. I was having some pains in my stomach. We decided that I should go to the hospital to make sure everything was okay. Gianni still was not due until October 29, 2012. On our way to the hospital an undercover police officer saw me and decided to stop the vehicle. I was then informed that my surety had officially revoked herself from her pregnancy. Again, I found myself begging and pleading with them not to do this, but because of my conditions there was no other options. Once I got to the police station I told him that I was having abdominal pain and that I wanted to be taken to a hospital immediately. Within a short period of time I was at the hospital and being examined by my doctor. He told the police officer that if I continue to have pain that I should be brought back immediately. At the police station I was starting to feel worse and again I asked to be taken back to the hospital. So here I am back at the hospital when the doctor says that I need to be monitored overnight and he's keeping me for observation. The next morning I was told by a police officer that I could either stay in the hospital or I could go to a bail hearing. I figured I should go to the bail hearing and try to get released to avoid having my son in custody. After going back and forth with the crown who was not consenting my release and my lawyer arguing the fact that an 8 month pregnant woman did not belong in a jail, especially not the Ottawa Carleton Detention Center. He even presented them with a letter from my doctor saying I should be on strict bed rest and that I was a high risk pregnancy. I then had my opportunity to plead my case to the judge and believe me when I say this I begged and I pleaded with her not to send me back to jail and most importantly I did not want my son being born while I was in custody. Now it was time for the judge to make her decision and I remember just being so full of anxiety listening to what she was saying to me. She then told me she was not going to be granting my bail. My heart literally dropped but what she said to me next are words I will never forget. She looked at me and she said no matter where you go you'll get the healthcare you need and that that's almost funny to me because not that it's funny but it couldn't have been any further from what would really happen. Before I was taking out of the courtroom I looked at my mom and Dakota who is Gianni's father and at this point we were all crying. We all knew Gianni would not be born while I was incarcerated and that was my biggest fear during my whole pregnancy and that was going from being a nightmare to a scary reality. All I could do was cry and a million emotions went through my mind and it was honestly one of the worst feelings in the world knowing that my son would not be born in custody. I'm not knowing if children's aid would come and take him away because I was incarcerated knowing that his father would not be there to see his son born. It was literally one of the worst feelings ever and I had absolutely no say in the matter from here on out. Now the court officers come to get me and the holding cells at the courthouse to transport me to OCDC so when I say OCDC I'm talking about the Ottawa jail and when they get there when we get to the jail they tell them yes that I was in the hospital but nothing was wrong with me. Neither one of these people were even at the hospital when I was there and I am the one that had checked myself out so I could go for bail. I possibly could have still been held at the hospital but they were just being ignorant talking over me, ignoring me and telling the staff the jail again that I was fine. After being processed they bring me to my cell where there are two, oh sorry after being processed they bring me to my cell where there are two other women around my age. I was pretty depressed at this point and I wasn't feeling the best so I really never left my bed. I was really sick throughout my whole pregnancy where I really couldn't hold on much. I literally gained 13 pounds throughout my whole pregnancy because I was so sick. Apparently my son was fussy like me but I would try to eat as much fruit and whatever I could keep down to make sure the baby was eating. So a couple days later the night of the 28th going into the 29th of September I had really bad heartburn and I kept throwing up and I was starting to feel very weak. Around 5 o'clock in the morning I threw up in my bed and I had asked the guard on duty to get me new sheets I really didn't sleep much but I knew Gianni's father was coming to visit me the next day and I was looking forward to that. We are now the 29th of September. After being sick all night not sleeping much I woke up for breakfast but I really couldn't eat and I remember one guard telling me that it was obviously a bad mother because I was refusing tea when in reality I was so sick I couldn't eat. She also told me she was going to be making a call to the children's aid. I had no energy to argue with these people at this point and I was just so used to hearing ignorant comments from them not just towards me but just to other people that were there. Around 11 o'clock in the morning they called me out of myself for my visit. I was still pretty weak so I took my time to walk downstairs to the visiting area. As soon as Dakota saw me he said Julie you look really sick and I felt so weak by this point that I was having a hard time even sitting up. I remember laying my head against the concrete and talking to him through the phone because all visits are behind glass there is no contact. After about 30 minutes or something about that time the visit was up and I remember literally laying on the ground waiting for the guards to unlock the door and bring me back to myself. I remember telling one of them I felt really weak and he dismissed it by saying well that's the pregnancy does to you. Apparently he's a doctor also. Keep in mind this is my first and only child so I really had no idea what was normal and what was not. I decided I would just go back to my cell and lay down. So lunchtime rolls around and I'm starting to feel worse and I really couldn't eat so one of the guards tells me she's bringing me downstairs to see a nurse. After lunch she comes to get me and we go downstairs. The nurse has me lay down, checks my blood pressure, and then she comes. No internal examination was done at this point and she did not check to see the baby's position either. Now at this point not only am I weak but I'm starting to get very sharp pains in my stomach every couple of minutes and I'm just being told to lay down or told that they were letting her snow. I remember a couple of times the other cellmate even knocked at the door and said she's pretty sick I think she might need help. The pain which I would later realize were contractions and that I was actually in labor were coming closer and closer. I thought I was bleeding at one point I was also told it's nothing which would actually have been my mucus plug. But again this is my first pregnancy so what did I really know? Now the pains are starting to come closer and closer and they're getting very painful and this one guard was starting to get very frustrated with me. She told me to lay down and if I could handle it I would never ever get pregnant. After supper she was so sick of hearing me complain that she told me I was going to the hole or a segregation cell by myself. I begged her not to move me I was getting really scared at this point I didn't want to be alone. Not only did she tell me to shut up because I was making too much noise but she made me carry two mattresses and the rest of my stuff to another cell. I was in so much pain at this point I was completely bleeding with them. Here I am, eight months pregnant exactly a month away from my due date and something was very wrong. Another nurse came to see me demanded that I get out of bed and stand at the door to speak with her. She asked me what was wrong and she told me she would contact the doctor. I later found out she never called the doctor. Here I am begging for help and it was like nobody was listening or they just didn't care. Around six I felt a gush of water and it was my water breaking. I banged the door again to tell them what was going on. I was then told that I had wet myself. I honestly couldn't get over how ridiculous this was getting. Keep in mind the pain is getting more and more intense and it's back to back at this point. Again, I'm told to stop whining to lie down as if I was a dog and trust me when I say this animals would treat it better than I was. The pain was so unbearable and I'm begging at the door and I'm screaming for help and at this point other inmates were getting upset that nobody was doing anything about it. After all, I wouldn't be the first I wouldn't be the first woman to go into labor early. Now it's about an hour later and I insert my fingers inside myself and I feel something hard. I knew right away it was my son's foot. I remember feeling his toes. Now I'm besides myself at this point and I'm screaming and the guard comes to the door and she has the nerve to look at me and ask me if I have a package so if I had contraband and told me I was being silly that it was not my son's foot and it was probably a mucus plug. Well I knew enough to know that your mucus plug is not hard. I'm literally panicking now because no matter what I said no matter how loud I scream nobody was taking this seriously and I knew at this point it was extremely dangerous for the both of us and had I been in a hospital I would have had a C-section. Now it's probably 8 p.m. and I looked down and my son's foot is outside of my body. I'm in full panic mode at this time and now I'm banging and I banged at the door and I could barely stand at this point and I told her to look and I backed away from the door so she could see now that this wasn't a joke. I still remember the look on her face and I couldn't believe what she was seeing as if I just hadn't been begging for help for 8 hours. Within minutes my cells full of guards and nurses and they have me lying on my bed and they're telling me not to push. To anyone who's ever had a baby you know that your body starts pushing on its own. I wasn't even listening because I knew my son was suffocating from the way he was being delivered and I just remember lying there for what felt like forever and I'm thinking like when is help going to get here and how come there is no paramedics. I later found out that for 49 minutes after they came into my cell they forgot to call an ambulance. By the time they did get there half of Gianni's body was outside of me. Half of his body was outside of me. The paramedics told me I needed to push. I pushed 3 times and my son was shortly born after 9pm. Now we're on a stretcher and I'm asking them if my son's okay and I'm fading in and out at this point but I'll never forget the fear I had when they told me they didn't know if he was going to make it. Forget about what just happened to me. All I was hearing is that my son might die. You can imagine how hysterical I was at this point and I was fighting to keep my eyes open and I remember holding him in my arms for the first time and I was just looking at him and he's so perfect and he's everything I ever dreamed of and more. And I remember telling him how much I loved him that I was so sorry for what was happening but he had to be strong and he had to pull through this. I had no idea that I had lost half the blood in my own body and my health or how my health was because I didn't even ask I didn't even care. I needed to be strong for him and that's all that mattered and that's all that ever mattered. As soon as we got to the hospital we were separated. He was taken to the neo intensive care unit and I was taken to an operating room. I had to be sedated because another placenta was not coming out. It's a little fuzzy for me after that but I remember coming to it was about 5 o'clock in the morning and I asked the guards if I could call home to tell him I just had my son. Apparently it was not important enough because I was told I could wait until later on in the day to call. Not once did they ask if I was okay not once did they ask how Gianni was. I almost felt like I was dealing with robots because surely no human being with a heart could be that awful even after everything they had just put me through. Around 8 am there was a new shift of guards at the hospital and I was told I could only call my mother. I said hi mom and she knew right away something was wrong because I was calling so early and I told her I had the baby I could hear the panic in her voice but I was surrounded by staff from the jail I couldn't really tell her what had happened to me. I was already told to lie and say I had my son in the ambulance. She told me she was getting Dakota and they would be on their way right away so here I am lying in the hospital in my room shackled to a bed with two guards in the room and I'm getting ready to go see my son because at this point he was on a feeding tube a breathing tube he was in very rough shape and he was in an incubator. I kept asking is he going to be okay I mean they didn't know I'm not much of a religious person but I've never prayed so hard in my life for my son to be okay so here I am getting ready to leave my room when a woman walks in on the clipboard and I knew right away it was children's aid she told me someone had made complaints that I was using drugs and that I was in an unhealthy relationship keep in mind I had been clean for a long time at this point I told her that both allegations were false and so she asked me if it was okay if I was okay with submitting a drug test and for Gianni to submit a drug test also I immediately complied and all tests were negative for any drugs for both me and my son she then said she would need to speak with Dakota and that was also fine because other than disagreements we had no major issues in our relationship my mother and Dakota showed up while I was speaking with her and she obviously wanted to know what my plans were going to be for Gianni until I was released but she was still in remand I had already discussed this with my mom and Gianni's father once I knew that I was going to be having him while incarcerated that we needed to come up with a plan my mother automatically said that she would take Gianni home and her and Dakota would watch over her until I could after she left we all had to see Gianni and it was so awful seeing him in an incubator with all these tubes attached to him we couldn't hold him or anything but there he was with all the finances that had full of hair he was so beautiful and we were so proud I ended up needing two blood transfusions but other than that feeling exhausted I was physically okay mentally not so much because on the third day I had to go back to the jail and I had to leave Gianni there and they still didn't know if he was going to make it or not I can't even begin to describe how I felt leaving him at the hospital I knew my mom and Dakota would be there with him I wanted to be there so badly I kept thinking what if he doesn't make it through this is this going to be the last time I see my son it truly was awful when I got back to the jail it was business as usual for them the same staff who had treated me so badly were actually working and not one guard apologized one nurse did apologize there are 21 people named in this whole situation one person apologized a couple of guards that came in towards the end of my delivery who were nice to the inmates so maybe two of them did ask how Gianni was doing but that's literally it so they put me in medical observation for two days which means I'm in a cell alone until I'm cleared by the doctor from the jail the last thing I wanted to be was alone again but again it wasn't my option two days later I was back in general population in a cell with two other women very hard being away from Gianni but it felt good to be able to talk to other people now my main focus was getting out being the best mom I could be for this little baby one day I went in to see the e-fry worker from the Elizabeth Frye Society in Ottawa and I told her what they had done to me she was extremely disgusted and showed me that what they had done was not right at all at the time I really didn't realize the severity of what they had done to us I guess you could say that I was pretty desensitized by this point she then put me in contact with the executive director Bryony Baxter who honestly couldn't believe what they had done she made arrangements to come and see me within the next day I believe I remember telling her detail after detail of what they had done at some point during our conversation I was asked if I wanted to contact if I wanted her to contact the media I never thought at the time I didn't have as much attention as it has and to be honest I was really hesitant because I didn't know how much longer I was going to be in custody and I was scared of the backlash I would possibly get from bringing that kind of attention to the facility I thought about it for a couple of minutes and I said you know what yeah go ahead you can contact the media she also contacted the abuzzments office for me and I started speaking with them on a daily basis I met two really amazing women from that office who went above and beyond to make sure that I wasn't treated badly and I was getting phone calls home on a regular basis I still remember the first time a guard came to my cell to tell me that there was reporters still remember the first time a guard came to my cell and told me that there were reporters calling the jail to speak with me they told me I didn't have to I got the drift like they were basically telling me they'd prefer if I didn't at this point I didn't care what they wanted because they could do whatever they wanted to me my son was now in a safe place and that's all that mattered I was calling home on a regular basis and Gianni's house was improving which alleviated so much stress within two weeks Gianni was on his way home finally in the meantime the public and the media was extremely outraged by the treatment we had and it was picking up a lot of traction a wonderful group of women even protested outside of the Ministry of Corrections saying they needed to reunite me and my sons and things of that nature if those people are listening right now I hope they know how thankful I was for that my lawyer was making arrangements for an emergency bail hearing due to what happened and while that was going on my first visit with my son since he was born was coming up at that time I didn't know what was going on but the jail was on lockdown which meant my visit was cancelled I later found out the men in the jail who had learned what happened to me had started a riot refusing meals and that's why they had the jail on lockdown I guess the media was waiting at the gate when my visit was cancelled so of course this made the newspapers so they arranged for me to have a special visit outside of visiting hours a couple days later a few guards made some smart remarks about the special privileges I was getting yes they really are that arrogant here I am waiting to see my son and him and his father come into the visiting room and it's behind glass so I didn't get to hold him but I was so happy to see him he was the cutest thing I've ever like for once I had happy tears because I knew my son was going to be okay I was finally getting to see him I called home a few times today to make sure everything was okay with my baby my mother told me that my lawyer had come to an agreement with the crown attorney and I could be released to the JF Norwood halfway house in Ottawa and that they had agreed to let Gianni come live with me finally I was going to be with my son and I couldn't wait I remember the day I went to court to be released there was over a dozen reporters there and I thanked them all for getting my story out there but I really just couldn't wait to get back to Ottawa because my mother Dakota and Gianni were waiting for me as a halfway house I remember getting to the halfway house and opening the door to the office and there was little Gianni in his car seat sleeping I think I actually asked if I could hold him it's kind of silly right because I'm his mother I can't tell you how happy I was finally to have him in my arms and I just started crying I agreed to speak with the media and let them see me and my son be reunited I still watch that interview a lot I did that interview because there were so many people supporting us around the world I figured they'd like to see that all their protesting and all the media coverage really did have a lot to do with my release from jail with my son and family after the interview I was brought to a private room where I had my own bed and Gianni's crib generally people are too to a room but because I had my son we had our own room they really tried to accommodate us as much as possible visiting hours were from 7 to 9 every night and they had to be in a common room of the halfway house other residents are not allowed in each other's rooms but I was allowed to have Gianni's father there from morning till 10 p.m. he was also allowed in my room so this obviously caused some issues with other residents who did not think it was fair few people took it as far as making false complaints to staff and calling children's aid obviously none of these complaints were founded but it did however cause a lot of tension at this point I was seeing children's aid on a weekly basis voluntarily because it was not court ordered I also had a nurse from the healthy baby program coming to visit us on a weekly basis so they could make sure Gianni was meeting all his milestones and believing he was he was doing great, strong, healthy and growing bigger and bigger the staff helped me a lot when I needed a little break so they would help watch Gianni Dakota would drive from Cornell to Ottawa on a daily basis to see us which really helped a lot because I had pretty bad postpartum depression at the time I never dealt with what I had went through because my son needed me and that was more important than everything so I put everything that happened to me aside and I took care of my son the best way I knew how after a couple months being there I sat down with my children's aid worker and I asked her if she had any concerns she told me she didn't so I said I'd appreciate everything she had done for us but I was ready to open a new chapter in my life and close that one she then told me she could understand that but since there were complaints coming from other residents such as me being on the phone at midnight that has absolutely nothing to do with parenting that were just making complaints out of spite I knew that every time somebody made a complaint a new worker would have to come and I would have to start my story from the beginning so it would be in my best interest to keep the file open because she was already aware of everything that had happened and that it would be the best route to go at the time I agreed with her and decided while I was there I would continue to let her see us I also within two weeks of being released I contracted MRSA from the jail within two weeks of being released I had a pretty big operation on my leg I almost had my leg amputated so I was put on a few different medications and one night I had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the office to get my son's bottles because they were kept in the office I remember getting really weak and I passed out this ended up happening on two different occasions so I went to the doctor that informed me that the medication I was on was dropping my blood pressure to a dangerous low that effect on me was in two weeks of this incident I was called out of my room one day and told that children's aid worker was there to see me I remember walking into the room where there was a staff member from the halfway house a CIS worker and her supervisor I automatically had a bad feeling they then went on to tell me that I was basically done parenting at the halfway house and they would be taking my son away from me I couldn't believe what I was hearing they weren't even giving me a straight answer to why they were wanting to apprehend my son I didn't understand I instantly started asking questions to which they weren't really answering and I told them if Johnny was going anywhere I would be with my mother since I had already sent kinship over to her in the event that I had to go back to jail to finish my sentence or in the event that something else had happened they then told me that he would be placed into with another family until they had things sorted out I was at the side of myself they wouldn't even give me a straight reason as to why they were taking him away from me I had a perfectly great relationship with my worker and to me it seemed that when I told her I was going to close the file with them that was in two weeks she was taking my son away from me as if we hadn't been through enough now this was happening again I put my own feelings aside I knew that I would fight for my son to the end I also informed them that without a court order my son wasn't going anywhere I left the meeting I immediately contacted a family lawyer and I was not going down without a fight I called home right away and told them what was going on and my whole family was extremely upset but we knew we would do whatever it took to stop this from happening one day goes by nothing two days go by nothing day three goes by as a knock at the door and I was told that there was someone there to see me I came out and I knew right away they were there for Gianni C.A.S. as there was a police escort and a warrant to take my son I started losing my mind they gave me a few minutes to get my son dressed and then they took him away from me I immediately broke down I couldn't believe this was happening to me it was so unreal I just wanted to wake up from this nightmare so I set up a meeting with my lawyer and we began court proceedings to ensure that until this was figured out I would have a visitation with my son at a minimum of three times a week and I would have an aboriginal on his father's side and the way that works is that they are supposed to place the child as a member of the family if that doesn't happen he is supposed to be placed he or she should be placed in an aboriginal community besides all of that papers were signed and he was supposed to go directly to my mother because I had already made these arrangements five months prior so C.A.S. ignored all of this I couldn't believe after being with my son I came down to this so one morning I had a visit set up to go visit my son and I went to see him at the C.A.S. building and I was even told by the supervisor that she couldn't understand why he was taken away and that I seemed to be a great mother well that made two of us two weeks passed by I go to see my son and I come back from my visit and I go back to take a nap in my room one of the staff members knocked at the door and told me they needed to speak with me and I didn't even talk to anybody and I was taking a nap I was informed that the police were there and that they were no longer keeping me at the halfway house I begin to panic if you don't know when you are incarcerated they do not take you to court for family court so it's not mandatory so there would have been no one fighting for Gianni if my mother hadn't been there so I began to panic as if what I had been through wasn't enough now I knew I was going back to jail I was petrified at the thought of going back to the Ottawa Carleton Detention Center after I had people fired reprimand and suspended due to what they had done I called the abundancemen and I called the lawyer from the police station and they made arrangements that so I would be going to Quinty Jail and Epony once I was there for about a week my lawyer informed me that I could go to another halfway house and bury us time for six months I automatically declined the offer and told them I would stay in jail because that way I could come home earlier and I was willing to do anything I could get I was willing to do anything I could do to get back to my son as quickly as possible in the meantime my mom was going to court and was awarded temporary custody of Gianni within a month which took a lot of stress off my back the conditions at this jail were like night and day compared to what the things were at work at OCDC and the staff was nothing but cordial and polite to the inmates by this time Lawrence Greenspawn who is the lawyer I'm using for my lawsuit had taken over my criminal matters as well he informed me that I only had to stay there for a little over two months and I would be back home it was really hard being away from my son but I knew we would be together again so two and a half months later and I'm in court and the judge then began telling me that she was comfortable with the time I had in so mind you I had almost three years of house arrest on this charge a year in total in jail 18 months probation five months and a half way house and I had my son in jail on the trafficking charge before even having a criminal record so then the judge began telling me she was comfortable with the time I had and sent it to me at 18 months of probation I cried because I knew that part of my life was now over we set up a meeting with children's aid right away who agreed that I could visit my son living with my mom as much as I wanted while they asked for a three month supervision order everything was going perfectly I pretty much moved into my mom's house I was with my son every day and I was so happy to be with him again I'll never forget the big smile he had on his face when I walked into the room and I just held him in my arms for what I felt like forever so we were seeing children's aid on a regular basis and I everything was going really well big difference with the children's aid from Ottawa to Cornwall like a very big difference so come September they agreed that they would be giving Gianni back to his father and I so we were slowly integrating him back into the home I would have officially had custody full-time of Gianni as of October 15 about a week before Gianni's first birthday he got sick and I brought him to see his doctor who put him on some medication to help him get better he really didn't seem like his happy self he was just learning to walk and he was taking his first steps and he was furniture walking all the time so his big day came and I had still this huge birthday party for him but he still wasn't feeling the greatest we had brought him back to the hospital and we were told he had a cold and he'd be better soon two weeks go by and now it's October 12th all he wanted to do was cuddle so he laid on my chest for a good two hours I just held him really tight Gianni was and always will be the love of my life the whole world to me I wasn't feeling that great that evening either so I gave him a big kiss I held him tight, I told him I loved him and then his father put him to bed around 5 am I was looking up to Dakota screaming that Gianni was not breathing I roamed so fast to that room and was on the phone with 911 he was completely unresponsive so we both began CPR as we were waiting for help I have never felt so helpless in my whole entire life but I was trying to keep it together because again my son needed my help three minutes passed and police showed up and became performing CPR and I just remember screaming for help and calling my mom to learn that Gianni was not breathing about four minutes later the fire department showed up and started giving him oxygen I could not believe this was happening six minutes later the ambulance was rushing and taking him away the police drove us to the hospital where we were put in a waiting room and I was in complete shock I remember my mom and Dakota crying and it wasn't registering to me I kept asking the nurse what was going on but they really couldn't tell me much this went on for three hours every minute that went by I felt like hours finally the doctor walked in and told us there was nothing else they could do for Gianni I dropped him my knees and I pleaded with them to keep trying they couldn't just give up on my son like that but now everyone was hysterical and they asked us if we wanted to come and hold him one last time at this point I had my son in my arms and I was just lost for me it gets blurry again here but from what I'm told I just kept telling them that it was getting really late and then I needed to take Gianni home I was completely in shock it really wasn't registering to me that he was actually gone so it was around 8am at this time and I was told they had to take him now they had to take him now I remember kissing him goodbye and not wanting to leave but I had no choice I was standing outside the hospital when they had the nerve to bring my son out in a body bag and put him in the back of a van I began screaming at the top of my lungs and I tried to get inside of the van I was pulled out by a police officer my heart broke a million times over that day how could it be that now my son was gone after everything that we went through he should have had his whole life ahead of him I remember going back to my mom's vaguely for the first couple days and it's hard for me to remember both my sister in law showed up and we ended up back at one of their homes I don't know how the media got wind of it so fast but they were at the door for hours we never spoke with them at that time I was a complete wreck I just remember that nobody would leave us alone and we had family with us at all times to be completely honest it's probably a good thing because after Gianni died I felt like I had no more reason to be alive either and I was going to go with my son I had no longer seen the point of being here anymore and I think everyone knew that and that's why they wouldn't leave us alone you know in life when you think of having a baby you picture yourself buying baby clothes strollers and toys you never imagine picking out coffins planning a funeral or bearing your child no parent should ever have to lower their child into the ground I was a complete train wreck Gianni was my heart and you can't live without your heart I fell into a horrible depression after my son and I would find myself at his grave just crying and talking to him although we had a lot of support from family and friends I just couldn't take living life without him anymore my life changed forever that day and every day since then has been a struggle for me every night that I go to sleep without him every morning that I wake up without him is hell it has now been two years since my son passed away and we do not have a cause of death to this day losing my son has been the hardest thing that I have ever dealt with to tell you it gets easy on time it doesn't you just learn how to cope with it I really like to thank everyone who has come out today to listen to my story you guys have no idea how much this means to me I'm going to continue getting my story heard and hope to raise awareness to everyone that has been through tough times or is going through it just know that you're all in my thoughts and prayers to the staff at the detention center I really hope you've learned some compassion throughout all of this I won't be giving them any more attention because they do not deserve it they no longer have control over my life and they can't hurt me anymore I'm going to continue to fight for the rights of people who are incarcerated and I want you to know that you will see better days if you have been or are there you won't be there forever so stay strong thank you so much for letting me come out here and letting me be part of all of this it really was an honor for me thank you I'm sure everybody needs a minute it's hard to even speak after the horror of Julie's story I've heard it before in it I've heard it every time I hear it there are no words there are no words that can ever make this right or justified or that can even make sense of how our society and our justice system failed Julie and Gianni this is our responsibility to us as lawyers as law students and as citizens we really need to own this we need to own all these horrors that are happening because that's the only way we're going to see change we need to learn and we need to change and we also need to hope we need to hope even from the most horrific things there is good that can come and so I'm deeply thankful to Julie for her willingness to share her story and her experience and to raise the awareness about how we treat mothers in our prisons and in our jails she shed light on what I think is an incredibly important area of law of justice or injustice and until Julie stood up and told her story most Canadians knew absolutely nothing about this reality and her lawsuit also is deeply brave and will also be a mechanism a legal mechanism to bring about change so if there's a moment of hope it's that Julie and Gianni have been the catalyst for change and even inspired action and even action specifically here in Nova Scotia so I do want to share with you some good that has come from Julie and her story and Gianni she inspired three women and some of them are here today and a group others from this group I think are here today Jean Steinberg, Martha Painter and Erin Fair to come together and design a doula program for women in our provincial jail so this doula service I'm not a doula but the services of doula is to offer continuous physical emotional and informational support for during and after birth for women in Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility or I'll call it Burnside and in my view and perhaps most importantly this provides a set of eyes and ears an external group of women who know what's going on who are there the initiative has expanded and we've joined forces with myself through Elizabeth Frye Society and LEAF and the Shabakto Family Center and we now have a group called Women's Wellness Within I have a Facebook page if anyone's interested and we're providing prenatal, postnatal care workshops on health and parenting and in my role through eFrye and I'll talk briefly about this I know we don't have a whole lot of time monitoring the conditions of confinement and the treatment of pregnant women and mothers in our prisons this is also the way we ended up having Julie come here in Nova Scotia so small progress perhaps but it's something to start and as I mentioned at the outside in my role as a regional advocate with Elizabeth Frye I work with two other women from the Atlantic region to look and monitor conditions in the provincial and federal prisons for women in Nova Scotia I provide assistance, triage navigation and support on many many issues from child protection, immigration human rights, community integration the list goes on and over the past year in this work we've documented so many issues and the one thing I want you to not walk away with is that somehow Julie's case is this anomalous aberration and that it's so horrific and that these things can't possibly be happening there are some things like this happening today many many themes and elements from her story happening today to women in this province so just to give you a little list of some of the things we've seen excessive use of strip searching increasing uses of segregation excessive restricted movement significant maintenance issues lack of access to adequate programming and of course many many failures relating to access to reasonable healthcare poor access to mental health services many of you would know we lost two women this year at Nova inconsistent access even to medication women getting the wrong types of medication little and in many cases access to public health so no access to prenatal visits from public health for women who are pregnant and Julie spoke briefly about the existence of MRSA and that's something we see a lot so we raise these issues we document them we send them in the federal context of the correctional investigator and the provincial context of the ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission and we look at the issues facing pregnant women provincially we've seen very few in our provincial jail and there is no mother child program in our provincial jail so there are no mothers and their children and federally we've worked with a number of pregnant women support them as they attempt to access the mother child program and in fact what brought me to this work was another story of a woman that I met who was pregnant at Nova and this is a young woman who grew up in the system she was in care her whole life and when I met her she didn't have a single family member a single friend a single person in her life she had significant, significant cognitive and mental health challenges the way we would talk to her and get her to meet with us is we bring her stories about princesses she loved princesses but she was deemed violent and dangerous to herself and to others and spent much of her time in segregation and she was very clear she was pregnant and she didn't understand really what was happening she had a lot of emotional and psychological distress and I saw this, I saw this she was pregnant and I was very worried about her I didn't know what to do in this before we had any doula program at Nova and I spoke to Martha and I said, you know, this is I'm really worried about this, I don't know what to do and Martha said, yeah you need to be worried about this this woman's gonna have a psychotic break when she gives birth, you need to deal with this and we were too late she gave birth and she had a very traumatic birth and Martha's words came true and she had a psychotic break and she was sent to the forensic hospital where she currently remains in Montreal but again, from her story comes some good and it is because of that that we now have a doula initiative at Nova and the first the first meeting between pregnant women and doulas happened this week earlier this week at the Nova Institute so there are things there are some moments of hope because of time I'm not going to talk at all about the mother child program, that's for another day there's a whole series of issues around mothering in prison and having your child and not going to go into that because I want to make sure in case you have time for questions that you'll have that but I will say, the one thing I will say about the mother child program is that at least in the federal system it is on paper quite a nice looking program and yet as far as I can tell and someone could correct me if I'm wrong there was currently no one not one mother and child living together anywhere in Canada so why is it so hard to access this program and the answer to that is not easy to come by but I can say that getting approved is very very challenging and it mirrors again some of the things that Julie talked about assessments through the Child and Family Services and going through what I would say lengthy and quite onerous barriers to be with your child so again I'm keeping my comments brief but I do want to be able to say following Julie's story that things are changing or getting better but ultimately these services, the things I'm talking about the work I see are coming from community agencies and almost exclusively volunteers I do this work entirely volunteer it takes up enormous enormous amounts of my time and I do it because it needs to be done it is an imperative we have to do this work where is the government responsibility in addressing the failings that Julie has highlighted for you and why are women not out in the community why are they not able to access healthcare in the community like other pregnant women why are they not able to go to public health classes prenatal courses breastfeeding support why is the discourse so different for women who are incarcerated because when you are pregnant and you are a woman not in the prison system the thing that gets talked about is attachment theory and breastfeeding the imperatives of breastfeeding and that that's the essential that's the rights of the child and yet when you find a woman in the prison system somehow those imperatives are no longer there they're missing so why do we have this dramatically different discourse I'm going to leave you with that give you 10 minutes for questions turn back to Sheila I had one point conceived of which is to construct a sort of big edifice of international law and federal law and kind of pierce it and say but the law is bullshit and then I would say well look at the women who are doing the work on the ground think about the protesters think about the media think about those men who ride it they were speaking they were speaking politically so I'm going to disclose that and I'm going to see if anyone has questions and we'll just be okay do we have a few questions? I'll field the questions anybody? is there a huge human rights problem like what are the conditions that women should be doing how are they responding do you want to talk about that? I can give some examples you talk about I don't know like a general overall yeah I mean I don't have a general overall response I'll go back to 2003 when the Canadian Human Rights Commission wrote a report on human rights issues women in federal prison I don't know if this was part of it but to be honest I seen a human rights case the case around the mother baby programing the English case in BC is one that I might have spoken a little bit about and it was a big win some people describe it as the most important prison law case that we've had in decades so it was a win in section 7 and 15 in finding that it was illegal and unconstitutional for prison authorities there to revoke, to take away a mother baby program which allowed women to be with and raise their children in the prison so that was a big win and there was lots of celebration but as Emma said since then the women who are there at OWET prison are unable to access as it's last I've heard there were two women who were expecting that it was going to work out for them they gave birth and their kids were apprehended shortly after they were both operational so what's that? yeah anyone have questions for Julie or for Emma I just want to thank you for your your candor and your bravery telling the story and doing it in the first place your actions like you took I think the importance of communication and being able to listen to women who need that help is so important and I would like to I just want to thank you for sharing you're welcome, for me this is a way to turn a really negative experience into something positive for a long time I couldn't figure out like everybody comes to this world for a reason I think Gianni's purpose was to come here and now he's still making a difference in the world so that's really my inspiration that's really pushing me forward it's opening a lot of doors and I really hope that this will prevent something from this ever happening again I'm really happy to be here so thank you yes what's your lawsuit faced in and where are you at with it? I can't really comment too much on the lawsuit because it's in progress but we are going to mediation soon have you done the discoveries yet? discovery? no we haven't I'm not sure about that the statement of claim is online if you put my name and then statement of claim that will come up so that might answer some of your questions but I'm really not able to comment on the lawsuit Lawrence Greenspawn is the lawyer doing the lawsuit we can send it out so minimal we can say it's a negligence suit also the college of nurses has a report on the nurse that was fired and all their findings are also online too so you'll find her name and the statement of claim and then you can search it on the college of nurses web page and it will give you all their findings because there was three separate investigations in the jail and the college of nurses was one of them we can post those on the health law web page and we'll post the report and the statement of claim what questions for Emma with the dual enrollment program have you collaborated with the Department of Mental Health? not in the past year the last time we spoke with reflective mental health they're just really really swamped really really swamped we would like to the dual program at Burnside is part of the health facts dual program which is an IWK funded program the NOVA program we're working on it becoming official satellite it's a lot of the same volunteers a lot of the same people it's just an intro so there's some logistical stuff to sort out we'd also really like to collaborate with public health so if anyone out here can help us in that we've asked many many times for collaboration with public health and we love public health support intro we have public health support here in health facts question for duly I'm just wondering if you've ever heard anything about why when you're at the halfway house they came in like child services and they were taking your son to that hallway there was ever anything about that they never really gave me a straight answer basically said parenting there wasn't a good idea like I said there was a lot of people were jealous of the fact that I had so much attention so many different things but to be honest I never really got a straight answer out of them so I kind of I got the feeling like once I said I wanted to when children's day comes into your life they usually make it seem like you have to deal with them they were strictly there on a voluntary basis until I said I wanted to shut the file and then things changed really quickly so but I could go on a boat show on a date for a really long time that's just to add to that I mean it's a whole other really significant issue that we're seeing is around mother child program consistency following release so into the halfway houses and a real difficulty maintaining those the relationship with the child in the halfway house having the children stay there it's basically legalized human trafficking so I don't know I really don't know one last word though some of you here are law students lawyers there are a number of folks in Nova Scotia who for the last few years have been getting more and more interesting how can we organize, how can we set something up to involve students and others in prison law so there's a number of people there's a number of people in this audience who are quite actively interested in that and if you're one of those people I would encourage you to get in touch with me because I can be a sort of through way to try we're trying to get something happening and for instance folks have put together a human rights handbook for women in the provincial facilities here in Nova Scotia it's just getting off the ground 95% done and there is a federal one there's a precedent at the federal level and we can pick up that starting to use to educate themselves when they're in prison so as opposed to just the doing for it's creating a tool for people to do for themselves and what I think would be beautiful to have in those handbooks would be a few little forms forms that you just fill out for yourself for instance the habeas corpus form habeas corpus is a beautiful little action where you can get in about six days before a court and make a human rights argument you have to kind of make a primal case and then it's really for the other side to show that their deprivation of your liberty was legal was not illegal so it's a wonderful little tool and in fact it's being used in Nova Scotia pretty frequently these days there's one judge in particular who apparently had boxed his full of these habeas corpus handwritten applications coming from the jails and one guy suddenly won he had this huge win I mean we can talk about in a law school class or if you're interested in prison law for habeas corpus the last few years in the court so there are these little little openings in law but I don't want to leave you with the sense that law is the place to look for answers to be honest these guys are the best I just wanted to say if you guys know you can think of questions later or something I'll leave you with my email address it's julie underscore b as in bob i l o t t a so if you guys don't need help I'll leave you with any questions about what happened just feel free to contact me at any time so I get this right yeah what else do you need excellent yeah thank you and I just wanted to make sure I recognize the small but I've lost students many of whom are here today who are doing a lot of volunteer work and helping with a lot of the creation of the provincial handbook the creation of habeas do-it-yourself materials and a whole bunch of other passionate and motivated wonderful work so thank you to those who are here please keep that up you guys matter you can really make a difference as students also thank you so I'm just going to remind people first of all that our next speaker is a week from today it's Alice Strager she's speaking on topic is with social justice and science clash over questions of sexual and gender identity who it is that's next Friday back over to our regular room at noon and I'll just ask you to join me and thank you our speakers one at a time