Thank you.
I'm going to try to talk a little about the model that the federal government could have considered as part of a truly meaningful effort to transform corrections and address some of the constitutional violations that were identified by the courts in Ontario and B.C. that have examined this issue closely.
The Province of Ontario has recently undertaken a significant amount of work looking at the state of corrections in the province and examining the practice of solitary confinement in particular. The province benefited from two thorough, independent reviews conducted by a team led by Howard Sapers, the former federal correctional investigator and a leading expert in criminology and corrections. Even recognizing the differences between provincial and federal institutions and the inmates they house, the recommendations made in the Sapers report could certainly have served as a strong foundation for reform at the federal level. They are not reflected in the bill that this committee is considering.
Indeed, Ontario passed legislation that incorporated many of Mr. Sapers' recommendations, and that legislation explicitly prohibits the use of segregation for certain categories of inmates, namely those who are pregnant or have recently given birth, those who are chronically self-harming or suicidal, those with a significant developmental disability, those with a significant mobility impairment, and those who require medical observation.
The legislation in Ontario also put in place hard caps on the amount of time an inmate can spend in segregation: 15 days at a time, and no more than 60 days in a 365-day period. Segregation placements require regular and independent reviews.
The bill this committee is examining contains none of those provisions, and in our view those changes constitute the bare minimum required to address the charter violation inherent in the existing scheme.
The Ontario legislation also makes it clear that a visit from the institutional head or from a health care practitioner that takes place through a meal slot does not meet the legislative requirements for visits from these people. Federal legislation should similarly reflect the fact that communication through a meal slot does not constitute meaningful human contact, just as it specified that a shower doesn't constitute time out of cell.
It should also make clear that segregation is a last resort. It should require documentation of other options that were exhausted before a decision to place an inmate in segregation was made, and require documentation of efforts made to engage an inmate in meaningful human contact.
To conclude, Bill C-83 is not the deep-seated reform that is required, and simple amendments to echo what my colleague and Senator Pate have said will not bring it into compliance with the charter. What is constitutionally required, in our view, is an end to indefinite solitary confinement and an end to its use for those with serious mental illness and for other particularly vulnerable groups.