REGINA – Advocates for prisoners’ rights were at the Legislature on Monday marking Prisoners’ Justice Day in Canada.
They were outside at the statue of Queen Elizabeth II, where they lined the fence with posters, photographs and ribbons commemorating those who passed away while serving time within the criminal justice system. The posters included pictures of those who died while in custody, and those who have advocated for changes while incarcerated.
Placed there were green ribbons to represent the deaths that happened inside provincial jails, red ribbons for federal jails, red and blue for RCMP custody, green and blue for those in city police custody, and white ribbons for those in locations they did not know.
The remembrances took place in the wake of a tragic accident in Alberta days earlier that had claimed the life of Kiara Mooswa, a member of Poundmaker First Nation, as well as two Corrections officers. They were killed when their corrections service van was involved in a collision in eastern Alberta while Mooswa was being transported from Edmonton Institution for Women to another facility.
Sherri Gordon was organizer of the display outside of the Legislature. She said they were honouring upwards of 186 individuals who had died in custody since 2000.
Among the posters put up was one that included a lengthy list of demands of Correctional Services Canada for changes that need to be made. In the wake of the most recent incident, among those demands was a greater focus on transport.
“One of the biggest demands I've heard, especially from the women's institution, was they want safer transportation,” Sherri said. “Those vehicles don't have seatbelts inside them… And you know, the correctional investigators said for years those vehicles are unsafe, they need seatbelts.”
Other demands they posted at the rally included changing CSC‘s use of a national catalogue for property sales which forces inmates to buy electronics through the catalogue at significantly marked up prices; concerns about access to lawyers and calls for the institution to provide these services within the fastest possible timelines; more cultural supports; access to adequate physical and mental healthcare; meaningful recognition of progress for prisoners who complete their correctional plan to have the ability to have a lower security classification; better protection and support for incarcerated women, particularly indigenous women; ending systemic, racism and discrimination; and greater support for people returning to the community, as examples.
Sherri said she commends CSC for the changes that they have made. “I've talked to other ‘lifers’ and they do say yes, they've made changes, but every year we're getting more and more deaths inside provincial and federal and it's, you know, these inquests happen, but nothing's followed.”
As for what is causing the deaths, she points to a lot of self-harm situations, as well as overdoses.
“And sometimes it's do we need to have, you know, guards checking on the cells more often than the one-hour walk, especially in the nighttime. I think programming would help,” Sherri said.
She also believes there are a lot of “undiagnosed mental health issues” that need to be addressed, saying the “biggest complaints I often get are the lack of health care and lack of mental health.”
Sherri’s husband is Bronson Gordon, who is currently serving a 25 year life sentence for first degree murder. He spoke to reporters in Regina by phone from the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon about what the day meant.
“As a lifer, it means everything,” he said. “We're currently, like, losing a lot of privileges that a lot of people went to bat for, like, lost their lives for.”
Bronson pointed to his own personal struggles having to advocate for himself in trying to be admitted to programming within his institution.
“You're not allowed to do your programs until at the end of your sentence when you're about to head out the door. But I was, like, that makes no sense,” he said
“So, I'm going to sit here for 15, 10 years doing nothing and possibly pick up another murder charge, pick up another violence charge or whatever? …. I want to do programs. I want to better my life now, you know. So, I had to, like, really advocate for myself and push for that.”
He said there has is one area where there has been a change for the better.
“There's lifers are all doing their programs now, right when they want to do them. So, that's a really big change.”
Sherri believes more programming has made a difference in terms of people checking in on Bronson more often.
“Like my husband said, you know, he was a self-harmer and once he started getting programs, I did see a difference in him as well.”
Another longtime inmate and advocate in the criminal justice system, Ricky Leslie, also spoke to reporters to acknowledge the significance of the day.
“This day is to honour the fallen inmates that fought for our rights and the people that committed suicide in their cells because they were being tormented by guards.”
Leslie noted the day was in commemoration of an incident where an inmate in Millhaven Institution, Edward Nolan, committed suicide in 1974.
“He was being tormented by the guards,” he said. “That's why this day actually came to effect, right? And it's a really good day for people like me and my buddy and everybody else here, because I mean — we've got TVs now, we've got stereos, we've got clothes. We've got all that stuff. And it was all because of people advocating for us.”
As for what he would advocate as greatest need is right now, he pointed to mental health and addictions and making it easier for those who need treatment to it in a timely manner. He pointed to a situation where he had OD'd on fentanyl back in 2018 and advocated for shorter waiting times to get Suboxone.
“I had to wait 18 months to get back onto Suboxone and at that time I could’ve OD'd, right? So I fought for that, I fought for a lot of things actually.”
As for changes Sherri Gordon particularly wanted to see, what she hears from those inside is there is a need for more mental health support.
“A lot of the indigenous women, they want staff to be more culturally appropriate and trauma informed,” she said. “There's a lot of, you know, lack of access to elders… they're saying is they have no elders. They want to see their nation come inside. My husband, like he said, he's fortunate to have that. A lot of nations don't do that.”
And I always say too, you know, I was a First Nations rep in one of my previous positions working with children in care and advocating for them. And I had somebody asked me one time, ‘why is it the nations don't come out to us? Why do they not care about us — you know, trying to bring us back to the land?’ And it was a good point. I do think that if CSC is going to open the doors to nations, a lot of them should start going in there and seeing their people a little bit more because there's some horrific things that go on inside. That's a big thing I would like to see.”
