Meegwetch.
Hello.
Good afternoon, honourable committee members and everyone.
My name is Virginia Lomax and I'm legal counsel for the Native Women's Association of Canada. I would like to begin today by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people. I would also like to thank the Standing Committee on the Status of Women for inviting us to contribute to this important study on indigenous women in the federal justice and corrections system.
The Native Women's Association of Canada has long advocated for the rights of criminalized indigenous women, including those within the federal corrections system. Much of this work has centred on the lived experiences of indigenous women, including their overrepresentation in prisons, as well as the socio-economic conditions that underscore this overrepresentation. Specifically, NWAC's policy priorities related to indigenous women in the federal criminal justice system include the need to abolish the practice of segregation; the need to meaningfully engage in sections 81 and 84 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act so that the act's legislative intent is better fulfilled; and the need for community-based, trauma-informed, culturally appropriate alternatives to incarceration for indigenous women.
The over-incarceration of indigenous women is a significant area of advocacy and policy for NWAC, but it is not the only area of the federal justice and correctional system where indigenous women are overrepresented. In Canada, indigenous women are more likely to be involuntarily segregated and face longer segregation placements than non-indigenous women. Presently, indigenous women make up 50% of federal segregation placements. Women may be isolated for months, and even years, on administrative grounds.
While the overall number of segregation placements is in decline, specialized units with similar restrictions are used to the same effect. It is segregation under a different name. Indigenous women continue to experience lengthy periods of solitary confinement, defined instead as modified movement, clinical seclusion, and structured or enhanced supervision. This shift in vocabulary does not necessitate any changes to the condition of confinement, and women may still spend up to 23 hours per day in isolation.
Many psychological and emotional harms of segregation are established and recognized at the domestic and international level. The UN defines solitary confinement in excess of 15 days as torture, and Canadian courts in Ontario and British Columbia have recently ruled the practice both discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Segregation is a particularly cruel practice for women with histories of trauma and abuse, another area in which indigenous women are overrepresented. Their specific lived experiences of colonial patriarchy, intergenerational trauma, and state violence makes them particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of isolation.
CSC guidelines exclude from segregation prisoners with serious mental illnesses and significant impairments and prisoners who are actively self-harming. However, the standard for serious mental illness is a clinical judgment and must include the presentation of symptoms resulting in significant impairment in functioning. This definition does nothing to protect women with histories of mental illness or those who are experiencing a lesser degree of symptoms, for whom segregation is equally detrimental.
Prohibiting the use of segregation for prisoners who are actively self-harming is an acknowledgement that the practice should not be used to manage mental health crises, but does nothing to address the fact that segregation itself is often the cause of escalating self-harm behaviours.
For these reasons and many others, the Native Women's Association of Canada calls for a complete end to the practice of solitary confinement by any name and for any duration.
Section 81 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act was intended to allow for indigenous communities to oversee the care and custody of indigenous prisoners, but its potential for indigenous women has yet to be fully realized. Indeed, many indigenous women are unable to access section 81 beds due to the minimum- or medium-security classification requirement. Given that indigenous women are classified at higher security levels, this requirement creates significant barriers. Further, NWAC argued recently before the Supreme Court of Canada in Ewart v. Canada that indigenous women are unfairly and discriminatorily classified as higher risk prisoners, exacerbating this barrier. The CCRA does not place limitations on the security classifications, and section 81 agreements were initially understood be available to all prisoners regardless of classification.
Also complicating access is the fact that there are only two healing lodges for indigenous women. Okimaw Ohci is located on the Nekaneet First Nation in Saskatchewan, and the Buffalo Sage Wellness House is located in Edmonton, Alberta, meaning that women outside of these areas must transfer farther away from their families and communities to access them. There are no healing lodges for women in the Pacific, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic regions or in the north. Government support and funding for the creation of additional section 81 healing lodges may help to remedy this inequity.
While section 84 was intended to support indigenous communities and engage them in the reintegration plans of indigenous prisoners, those supports are often not adequately realized. Communities may not have knowledge of section 84 for successful implementation, or may lack resources that women may need to meet the conditions of their release, such as addiction services or employment opportunities. Building resources and capacity in these areas supports entire communities as well as the women returning to them.
There must also be a degree of community ownership and self-determination in the development and implementation of reintegration plans. First nations, Métis, and Inuit communities are better able to meet the social, spiritual, and cultural needs of criminalized women.