Rob Tripp's Blog: Cancrime, page 12

Prison expansion manager, Vic Toews, resigns

The federal politician who has stage managed some of the biggest changes in the federal prison system in its 178-year history is calling it quits. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (inset) announced he’s quitting the federal cabinet and politics “in order to focus on my family and to pursue opportunities in the private sector.” (his full statement after the jump). Under Toews, the budget of Corrections Canada has swollen by more than 50%, from roughly $2 billion in 2006-07 to an estimated $3 billion in projected spending in 2012-13. Toews legacy likely will be that he permitted the creation of a dysfunctional, tax-sucking system more like the repressive penitentiary regime of the 19th century – a system that spews out angrier, more violent and embittered ex-convicts who are just as likely to commit more crimes.

Here’s the full announcement by Toews, posted on his website:

Statement by the Honourable Vic Toews – Resignation

July 8, 2013

Statement by the Honourable Vic Toews, Member of Parliament for Provencher, Minister of Public Safety, and Regional Minister for Manitoba [STEINBACH, MB] July 8, 2013

Today, I am announcing my resignation as Member of Parliament for Provencher, Minister of Public Safety, and Regional Minister for Manitoba, effective tomorrow, Tuesday, July 9th. It has been an honour to represent the people of Provencher for the past 12 and-a-half years in the House of Commons. I would like to express my gratitude to my constituents for placing their trust in me. It is a responsibility I took very seriously and a privilege I will never forget. I would like to thank Prime Minister Stephen Harper for giving me the opportunity to serve in his Cabinet as the Regional Minister for Manitoba since 2006 and, concurrently, in turn, as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, the President of the Treasury Board, and as Minister of Public Safety. Our Prime Minister is a man of great character and integrity. His leadership has seen our country through very difficult economic times. Canada is recognized as a global leader and is the envy of nations around the world. I know that Canadians will continue to benefit from this government’s ongoing work. I would also like to thank all of my parliamentary colleagues for their friendship and support. Specifically, I would like to thank the members of the Manitoba Federal Conservative Caucus. I could not be more proud of you and the work you do on behalf of our Province. I would not have been able to do my job if not for the competent and talented staff members who worked beside me over the years. Thank you to all of my staff in my riding offices, my regional office in Winnipeg and to my political and departmental staff in Ottawa. You have always been extremely dedicated and hard working. You have had a very positive impact on my life and for that I will always be grateful. The lifeblood of any political organization is its volunteers. Over the years I have met many volunteers who have worked hard on my campaigns and in many other capacities between elections. You have made all the difference. Thank you for your tireless efforts and enthusiasm. I would like to thank my spouse Stacey, my children and my extended family and friends for their patience and understanding. There are tremendous sacrifices made by family members so that elected officials can serve in public office. It is not an easy life for family and words alone cannot describe my gratitude for your unyielding support. When I entered federal politics in 2000, I did so with the intention of making a positive contribution to Canada by being a part of the movement to unite conservatives across the country. Looking back, I believe I accomplished what I did because of my desire to work with other like-minded people. Teamwork is the best way for individual Members of Parliament to accomplish the long-term goals of their constituents. I leave public office at a time when I believe our country is more sensitive to the needs of victims, more fiscally sound and safer for citizens and future generations of Canadians. I am proud of the achievements of our government over the last seven years. In addition to the numerous steps we have taken to rebalance the criminal justice system to ensure that criminals are held accountable to individual victims and Canadian society as a whole, we were able to renew Canada’s physical infrastructure. My home province of Manitoba received support for hundreds of important projects, including funds for the completion of the Red River Floodway Expansion Project. During my time as Minister of Public Safety, I was honoured to support the Prime Minister in the negotiation and implementation of the Beyond the Border Action Plan. I was also particularly proud that our government created Canada’s first Counter-Terrorism and Cyber-Security strategies, implemented a Human Trafficking Action Plan, and began a discussion with all levels of government on the economics of policing in Canada. These accomplishments are just some of the ways our government has made Canada a stronger, safer and more prosperous country. It takes a great deal of deliberation on the part of those who decide to enter politics. It takes an even greater amount of consideration and effort to step out of office when one still enjoys the support of those who elected them. However, for me, the time has come to step aside and begin the next chapter of my life. I am leaving public life in order to focus on my family and to pursue opportunities in the private sector. I leave with a store of many wonderful memories, lifelong friendships and a sense of having accomplished many of the things I set out to do when I first began my political journey. To all who made this possible, thank you.

I’ve written often at this site about Toews because he has presided over monumental changes in Canada’s federal prison system. Read about some of those changes here. Under Toews, the cost of our penitentiary system, now 57 prisons across the country, ballooned to $3 billion and yet, things inside are getting worse, though the government and Corrections Canada have often obfuscated when it comes to conditions inside or they have refused to answer. The truth is: There have been more assaults on staff, more violence among prisoners, thousands of convicts are not getting vital programs that could help them go straight after release (fulfilling the often-touted Tory promise to make communities safer), there’s been little little progress in bolstering the mental health system and therefore little to no progress in preventing deaths behind bars, and there’s been more convict unrest, the result of repressive conditions and overcrowding.

The government’s response to all of this, under Toews leadership, has been to make prison conditions more repressive, to lengthen sentences for many crimes, introduce more mandatory minimums, and build many more cells to house thousands more convicts – though, not surprisingly, that process is plagued by problems.

Did Mounties use Mr. Big-style sting in B.C. bomb plot?

Based on the cryptic information released by the RCMP about arrests in an alleged terror bombing plot in British Columbia, it appears possible that the Mounties used an undercover, Mr. Big-style sting to foil the plot and arrest two people. We might not know for certain for months, or even years, as the case winds its way through the courts. Investigators are withholding key information at the moment, citing the need to preserve evidence for the purposes of prosecution. But there are signs that the controversial, undercover tactic, or a similar scheme, was employed to crack the case. At the very least, it appears almost certain that undercover operatives were used to thwart the would-be bombers.

In releases today, investigators explained that there was never any danger of any bombs being detonated at the B.C. legislature in Victoria on Canada Day, as the perpetrators planned. Consider these comments from assistant RCMP commissioner Wayne Rideout:

The RCMP deployed significant resources over the past five months. The suspects were committed to acts of violence and discussed a wide variety of targets and techniques. In order to ensure public safety, we employed a variety of complex investigative and covert techniques to control any opportunity the suspects had to commit harm. These devices were completely under our control, they were inert, and at no time represented a threat to public safety.

The assertions that the bombs, pressure-cooker like devices similar to those used in the Boston Marathon bombings, were “inert” and “at no time represented a threat to public safety” and were “under the control” of law enforcement suggests that the Mounties had operatives inside the plot, in a position to render the devices unworkable.

The Mounties revealed that they first heard of a plot five months ago and began an extensive investigation that used “complex investigative and covert techniques.” While this clearly suggests surveillance and wiretapping were employed, it could also mean that investigators used a more intrusive tactic, the insertion of an undercover officer or officers, who would pose as criminals, in a bid to befriend the alleged bombers, leading them to believe they were dealing with a potential accomplice. In the classic Mr. Big Sting, a controversial tactic which has led to some false confessions, an undercover officer poses as the head of a criminal organization and demands a confession from a would-be recruit – the target of the police sting – before he’ll be admitted into the organization. Mr. Big was used in the investigation of the 2005 murders of four RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe, Alberta in 2005. A judge refused to convict a Manitoba man, Clayton Mentuck, who was accused of killing a 14-year-old girl in 1996, based on a Mr. Big-induced confession. The judge said that “the confession, if not false, is certainly too unreliable for acceptance as an admission of guilt.”

If investigators employed a Mr. Big-style sting in the B.C. bomb plot, which would be unusual since they are typically reserved for murder cases, it could lead to a spirited court fight over the admissibility of evidence about the conduct of the accused bombers. But there was clearly plenty at stake here. Police say the plotters were inspired by Al-Qaeda ideology , were self-radicalized and committed to acts of violence at a public place where innocent civilians would be maimed and/or killed. Investigators say the accused pair did not have any international connections.

It’s notable that the bomb plot appears to have been allowed by police to run its course right through to near completion, again a strong indication that an undercover operative or operatives were very close to the alleged perpetrators. Police have not made clear whether the devices that were assembled were actually placed at the legislature in Victoria, although the charges laid suggest the “inert” bombs were, in fact, delivered to the legislature. In the release today, the RCMP said the accused “took steps to build explosive devices and place them at the British Columbia Legislature in Victoria where crowds were expected to gather on Canada Day.” The two accused plotters, John Nuttall and Amanda Korody of Surrey, B.C., face charges under section 431.2(2) of the Criminal Code, which sets out that:

Every one who delivers, places, discharges or detonates an explosive or other lethal device to, into, in or against a place of public use, a government or public facility, a public transportation system or an infrastructure facility, either with intent to cause death or serious bodily injury or with intent to cause extensive destruction of such a place, system or facility that results in or is likely to result in major economic loss, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.

» Here is the complete RCMP release on the arrests

» Old news accounts of Nuttal’s previous crimes, showing he is a violent, petty thief and drug addict

Below are photos released by the Mounties of the devices that were allegedly assembled by the accused bomb plotters:

Pressure-cooker style devices intended to function as improvised bombs. The items were seized by the RCMP

Components of bombs seized in B.C. by the RCMP

A pressure cooker filled with rusted nails and designed as a bomb. The device was seized by the RCMP

A ghastly tableau of victims who must not be forgotten

Four years ago today, four were found. Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, Geeti, 13, and Rona, 50, together inside a small black car. Together in death. It was a ghastly scene. The car sat on its wheels on the bottom of a shallow canal at Kingston Mills, a tiny crossroads in eastern Ontario. The four had been murdered – the car shoved into the canal in a bid to conceal the deed – killed because they dared to pursue freedom, friends, affection and love. Killed by – in the case of the three sisters, their father, mother and brother – in the case of Rona, by her husband and co-wife and son. During the murder trial of Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba and son Hamed, prosecutors played in court and released publicly the complete 14-minute video taken by a police diver on June 30, 2009. It appears here online for the first time (after the jump), a grim but necessary reminder of the terrible fate of four who died for honour and who should not be forgotten.

In Without Honour, my book about the Shafia case, there appears a detailed re-creation of the work of Constable Glenn Newell, the police diver who recovered from the bottom of the Rideau Canal the bodies of Zainab, Sahar, Geeti and Rona. Before he removed the bodies from the car, submerged in about eight feet of water, he documented the scene with a video camera. The video above does not include any audio and it is frequently plagued by digital snow (pixellation) that Newell was unable to explain when he testified in court. Here is an excerpt from Without Honour that describes Newell’s inspection of the car and the removal of the bodies:

Constable Glenn Newell planned two dives to the submerged car. During the first, he would carry a video camera to document the scene. He would remove the bodies during the second dive. Newell went into the water for the first time shortly after five. He did not have far to swim.

As he stood on the bottom, only a metre of water separated the top of his head from the surface. Rays of sunlight cut through the turbidity, past the floating bits of dirt, rotting leaves and weeds, and struck the smooth metal and glass of the submerged vehicle beside him, a machine in an alien landscape. The beams of light danced on the shiny surfaces.

Newell considered the visibility good because he could see more than a metre ahead. It was not cold or dark or dangerous in the shallow canal, unlike most of the hundreds of dives he had completed in twenty-four years of searching for bodies in lakes and rivers across Ontario. In many cases, he groped through weeds or along a silty bottom beyond the light’s reach. Often, he could not see anything; he would inch through black water until he could feel a submerged apparatus or until he pressed up against the unmistakable softness of a body. He had brought more than 250 people back to the surface, but never so many at one time.

Never four bodies.

Here, Newell did not have to search or grope or anticipate in darkness an awful discovery. He could see it plainly, though he could not understand it. It was very strange, he thought. The bodies, suspended like specimens inside the car, seemed to be piled on top of each other.

The car was almost in Colonel By Lake. At Kingston Mills, the lake was connected to the Cataraqui River by four large stone lock chambers, each as wide as a tractor trailer and as long as three rigs. Boats entered the locks through thirty-centimetre-thick oak gates that swung open like saloon doors. The car had come to rest on the bottom just outside the northernmost lock, with its right rear bumper nudged up against the lock gates. The vehicle’s nose was close to the stone wall of the canal. It appeared to have plunged backwards off the wall, which was two metres above the water’s surface.

Dressed in his neoprene suit, fins, gloves and a full face mask equipped with headphones and a microphone, Newell was tethered to the surface by a cable as thick as his thumb. The camera he carried had no viewfinder. The surface crew told him where to point the lens as a recorder captured the footage. His camera lingered first over the car’s front end, peering down at the silver badge: “Nissan.” On the edge of the hood above the badge, there was a softball-sized dent and a scrape. Newell moved around the driver’s side and discovered a large scrape as long as his forearm on the top of the left front fender. He documented more gashes along the rocker panel beneath the driver’s door. When he peered beneath the car, he could see why the vehicle was tilted, nose down. The rear wheels were suspended off the bottom because the right corner of the rear bumper was snagged on a protrusion on the wooden lock gate. The front wheels were turned to the left.

When Newell moved to the rear of the car, he saw that the driver’s side tail light was smashed and missing pieces of its red and clear plastic housing. The bumper and fender beneath it were significantly dented and scraped. The silver S and E from the “Sentra” nameplate were missing. Newell moved around to the passenger side. The tires were fully inflated and this side of the car was mostly devoid of gashes and dents. He made his way to the front and swam up and over the hood until the camera could peer down through the windshield into the passenger compartment. The glass was undamaged.

Newell had been underwater for ten minutes at this point. For the first time, the half-dozen police officers huddled around the video monitor on the surface saw what the car contained. Through the front windshield, beyond the steering wheel, slender legs in tight-fitting pants came into view. The feet, missing socks or shoes, were starkly white in the drab underwater environment, where everything seemed drained of colour.

When Newell moved around to the driver’s side, he could see a thick mat of dark hair next to the pillar between the front and rear side windows. The manual crank driver’s window was completely rolled down, so he had an unobstructed view of the head of a young woman. It was tilted to the left. Knots of hair wafted lazily around her, obscuring her face. Her body was strangely positioned. She seemed to be hugging the driver’s seat from behind so that her torso was in the rear passenger compartment, but her legs extended between the front bucket seats into the centre console. Her right hand was wrapped around the driver’s headrest while her left arm dangled toward the rear footwell. Geeti was not trapped or entangled in any part of the car.

Newell could see that the slender legs and shoeless feet he had seen through the windshield belonged to another young woman who was facing the rear of the car. She was floating with her arched back up against the roof so that her head, arms and upper body were draped over the front passenger seat, dangling into the back seat. Long dark hair swirled around her face. Her toes rested on the front edge of the driver’s seat. It was as if Zainab had been slung over the seat, face down.

No one was sitting in the front driver or passenger seats. Newell was surprised. In 90 percent of the underwater recoveries he performed on vehicles, he found a body in or near the driver’s seat. Often, panicked drivers became entangled in the steering wheel or seat belt of a sinking car and were found dead in or near the spot they’d been when they were piloting the vehicle. Newell could not tell who, if anyone, had been driving this car when it went into the water.

The officer reached into the car with the video camera, through the open driver’s window, to document the controls. The shift lever on the floor mounted console was in first gear and the keys were in the ignition. The two front seat belts were unfastened. A cellphone lay on the driver’s seat.

Newell moved on to the rear of the car, where the driver’s-side rear window was rolled down an inch. A screen of objects—a large black and white purse, a blanket and a plastic bag—were pressed up against the glass, mostly obscuring the view into the back seat. In the lower right corner of the window, a smooth, bare back was visible near the glass. The person was wearing black pants and a black crop top. Pink underwear peeked from the waistband. Sahar’s upper torso and head were turned toward the centre of the car and were concealed by the blanket. To the left of her torso, a clenched hand with manicured nails protruded through the debris, beneath the plastic bag. Rona’s hand rested on the front edge of the rear seat.

Newell swam up and hovered over the rear window. A blue teddy bear, wedged under the glass, grinned up at him. Near the bear, a pair of heads were butted together, face down. Only a tangle of hair was visible. He swam over the vehicle to the passenger side and found a splash of colour, a fuchsia top with thick straps, clinging to the torso of the barefoot girl he had first seen through the windshield. A mound of hair that had fallen around her head as she drooped over the passenger seat back concealed Zainab’s face.

Newell had now seen all of it, every corner of the gouged and scraped vehicle that contained four contorted bodies and a few bits of debris. He was more perplexed. The water was shallow, the damage to the car was superficial and there were no signs that any of the victims had become ensnared, if they had struggled to escape the sinking car. The open driver’s window was large enough that a person could easily pass through. Newell could have swum through the opening, even with the air tank on his back, though the procedures he followed forbade it. He saw no evidence that anyone had tried to get out through the window, although he believed it would have been an easy path to freedom.

The position of the bodies was puzzling. In small sinking vehicles, frantic occupants seeking to flee would bump into each other, Newell knew from experience. Often, they would end up falling back into the spots they sought to escape. Two of the victims in the Nissan Sentra were awkwardly draped around and over the seats. There were no signs that the other two had struggled to flee.

His reconnaissance complete, Newell swam to the surface.

He told the Kingston officers that there were four female bodies in the car and he saw no obvious signs of trauma, although his view of three of the victims was obscured. Newell said it didn’t look as if any of the victims had made any effort to escape the car.

“Have you ever seen four people drowned in a vehicle?” Chris Scott shouted from shore.

“I’ve never come across that,” Newell answered.

It would be a fairly simple process to remove the victims, one at a time. Newell would swim the bodies to shore and pass them up. First, Newell opened the left rear door of the Sentra and reached in to grab Sahar. Unrestrained by a seat belt, she was easiest to reach and to remove. He slid her out of the vehicle and swam her to the surface. He passed the girl to officers and repeated the process three times. Rona. Geeti. Zainab. Scott helped lift the limp bodies out of the cool water. The sodden girls and Rona, all fully dressed, were gently placed into white body bags on the flat expanse of grass next to the water. The bags were left open so that Julia Moore could photograph them. They were beautiful and unblemished, but it was a ghastly, sad sight, Scott thought.

The victims

from left, Zainab, Sahar, Geeti, Rona Amir

Appeal court relaxes deadlines in Shafia honour killing appeals

It’s been six months since a significant milestone – the filing of a trial transcript – was reached in the appeal process for three convicted murderers, Mohammad Shafia (inset), his wife Tooba and their son Hamed, who were convicted of killing four family members, so you might be wondering what is happening with the case. No date has been set for a hearing and there’s no indication that one will be set anytime soon. It’s clear that the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the province’s top court, has essentially waived the usual deadline for the filing of important documents that triggers the setting of a date for a hearing.

The killers were each convicted in January 2012 of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13 (the children of killers Shafia and Tooba and sisters of Hamed) and Rona Amir, who was Shafia’s first wife in a polygamous Afghan family that moved to Canada in 2007. The convictions established the case as Canada’s first mass honour killing. (Three people were slain in one honour killing in Calgary in 1991.) Shafia, Tooba and Hamed filed appeals that will eventually lead to a hearing at the Court of Appeal for Ontario, in Toronto. But before a hearing can be scheduled, there’s a lengthy process in which lawyers compile the evidence from the trial and their legal arguments into packages of documents that must be filed with the court. Appeal court procedures give defence lawyers representing anyone who is appealing 90 days after the transcript of the trial is filed with the court to “perfect” their appeals – that is, to complete documents that set out their legal arguments in detail, along with filing evidence from the trial. The transcript from the Shafia trial was filed with the court in December 2012.

It means that double the usual time has now elapsed for the defence lawyers to complete their documents and file them with the court. Patrick McCann, the Ottawa lawyer who represents Hamed, tells me that the factum – the big document that will set out the legal argument urging the court to overturn the convictions – isn’t yet complete. McCann has taken a lead role among the three defence lawyers – Frank Addario for Tooba and Michael Dineen for Shafia. McCann has told me previously that he didn’t expect the appeal court to stick rigidly to the 90-day rule. Leeway always is granted in complex cases, and the Shafia case is incredibly complex. The transcripts of the trial and pre-trial proceedings alone clocked in at roughly 5,000 pages. In addition, there were thousands of additional pages of trial evidence, including transcripts of hours of interviews done by police with the convicted murderers and also hours of secretly-recorded conversations. Keep in mind that large portions of the evidence are translated transcripts, since both Shafia and Tooba speak Dari, their native language in Afghanistan, and very little English.

McCann told me he could not estimate when the factum being compiled by the lawyers will be complete and filed with the court. Until that happens, the appeal process can’t move forward.

In a brief notice of appeal filed in April 2012, Hamed Shafia cited three grounds for asking the court to overturn his convictions. Key among them is a defence attack on the evidence of Shahrzad Mojab, a University of Toronto professor who testified for the prosecution during the trial as an expert on honour killings and related issues of religion, culture and patriarchy. “The shedding of the blood is a way of purifying the name of the family… and restoration of the honour of the family,” Mojab told the jury. The defence argues Mojab should not have been permitted to testify. She gave similar evidence in an honour killing case in Ottawa. Recently, the Ontario Court of Appeal rejected that killer’s appeal, dismissing a defence attack on Mojab’s evidence.

In the Shafia case, prosecutors established that Mohammad Shafia was enraged because he felt his daughters had violated strict cultural rules about sexual modesty, dressed in revealing clothes and they were disobedient. Rona wanted a divorce and supported the three girls in their pursuit of western lifestyles. She and Tooba clashed frequently and Rona wrote, in a diary entered as evidence, that she was abused, humiliated and isolated. Shafia decided that the four had to be killed to restore his family’s honour.

» The Without Honour page includes an archive of my coverage of the trial and background on the case.

Black Widow Friedrich, killer con woman, back to prison

She’s been called the Black Widow, but really, Melissa Friedrich (inset) is simply a killer, con woman, and a thief. She’s going back to prison (after the jump, see her Florida prison info sheet) because another man who got close to her nearly ended up dead. Friedrich, 78, has been sentenced to three and a half years behind bars after she pleaded guilty to drugging her husband of a few days, Fred Weeks, in Nova Scotia. Friedrich spiked his drinks with benzodiazepine, a tranquilizer, while they were on a honeymoon trip in Newfoundland last year. An attempted murder charge laid against Friedrich was dropped.

In 1991, Friedrich’s then-husband, Gordon Stewart, ended up dead. Benzodiazepine also was found in his system. Friedrich also ran over Stewart with a car. She claimed that he had sexually assaulted her. She was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in penitentiary, one of many stints behind bars for a New Brunswick-born predator who has recruited many elderly victims over the Internet. The CBC’s Fifth Estate produced an excellent expose on Friedrich and maintains this up-to-date chronology of her misdeeds. Below is screenshot I preserved of Friedrich’s prison record while she was incarcerated at the Lowell Correctional facility in Florida between 2005 and 2009. She had been convicted in Florida of theft and fraud related to her relationship with Floridian Alex Strategos, a 73-year-old diabetic she wooed through an Internet dating site. Strategos ended up in hospital repeatedly after Friedrich arrived in Florida. Strategos signed over power of attorney to her during one of his hospital stays. Later, the man’s son discovered that $18,000 was missing from his father’s bank account. Medical tests also showed benzodiazepine in Strategos’s system. Strategos believes that Friedrich laced his ice cream with poison in a bid to kill him. Friedrich was eventually charged with exploiting and defrauding Strategos, though she was not charged with trying to kill him. She struck a deal, pleading guilty to seven charges that put her behind bars for five years, until her release in April 2009, when she was shipped back to Canada. She was charged in September 2012 with trying to kill Fred Weeks.

(Note: this post has been amended to correct an earlier version that incorrectly stated that Fred Weeks died.)

The prison record below notes that Friedrich has used many aliases.

Screen capture of the online prison record for Melissa Friedrich during her incarceration in Florida from 2005 to '09

Prison repairs behind schedule, plagued by problems

Federal prison bosses in Ontario are struggling to complete urgent repairs to crumbling penitentiaries, while simultaneously juggling tens of millions of dollars worth of new construction projects, internal Corrections Canada documents obtained by Cancrime reveal (read them after the jump). The records, summaries of the status of major renovation and construction projects underway at prisons across Ontario, reveal that some projects are behind schedule, plagued by cost-overruns and faulty work. In one case, some repairs to the perimeter security wall that encircles Collins Bay Institution in Kingston “have failed and must be re-done.”

$60 million was spent to build four new cellblocks at medium-security Collins Bay Institution in Kingston. They were completed in 2008. A new 96-bed maximum-security unit is being added to Collins Bay.

The project to repair the “perimeter walls and towers” at Collins Bay, an initiative that includes $2.8 million in planned spending this fiscal year, was supposed to be complete by July 31, 2013, the internal Corrections Canada documents reveal, but the contractor has now submitted a quote for “additional repairs” at a cost of $280,000. The problem, the document states, is “approx 50% of east interior concrete patch repairs have failed and must be re-done.” The contractor is “behind on this year’s schedule,” the document notes. The records obtained by Cancrime are stamped as having been updated on April 25, 2013. It appears that several other major projects are behind schedule. Collins Bay is an 83-year-old medium-security prison. It is one of the federal system’s few penitentiaries still secured by a tall stone wall that encircles the compound, with sentry towers at each corner. Another project at Collins Bay appears to suffer problems. The document notes that renovations at the front entrance of the prison, originally forecast for completion by February 28, 2013, are “substantially complete,” but “the entrance will not be occupied by CSC until there is confidence that the skylight was properly installed and will not leak.” A leaky skylight might not be a critical issue in a shopping plaza, but in a federal prison that houses killers and bank robbers, it could signal shoddy work that poses a security risk. Four new, medium-security cellblocks were completed at Collins Bay in 2008, at a cost of $60 million.

At minimum-security Beaver Creek Institution in Gravenhurst, Ontario, the construction of a new 50-bed unit is behind schedule, the internal documents reveal, citing “delay due to unknown underground water services and communications cables.”

Major repairs are underway across Canada to patch many of the country’s 57 aging and crumbling penitentiaries while new cells are simultaneously being built. In the past several years, the Conservative government and Corrections Canada unveiled plans to add roughly 2,700 new cells to existing penitentiaries. The decision to build the equivalent of five to 10 new prisons by tacking more cellblocks onto existing buildings or plopping them down inside current complexes was a surprising decision. It flew in the face of the key recommendations of a task force that the Harper government commissioned in 2007, at a cost of $3.5 million, to review the operations of the federal prison system and craft a blueprint for renewal. The task force produced a detailed report that called on Corrections to stop the endless renovating and patching and erect new regional prison complexes. The task force found that:

…most penitentiaries are many years past their life cycle and infrastructure replacement has been chronically under funded for a number of years and in particular over the past decade.

Years of renos were causing more problems, the task force concluded.

…the continued tinkering with existing infrastructure within the confined space of existing facilities often unintentionally creates other issues or concerns.

The task force, headed by former Ontario corrections minister Rob Sampson, recommended that until new facilities could be built, Corrections Canada should set rules to “minimize authorization of retrofit projects.” Instead, the Conservative government embarked on the biggest retrofit campaign in the federal system’s history. Since the Conservatives came to power in 2006, spending on prisons has skyrocketed, hitting $2.375 billion by fiscal 2010-11, up a whopping 44% since the 2005-06 fiscal year. New cells are needed to house a growing inmate population, the product of Tory “tough-on-crime” policies that will put more people behind bars for longer sentences, without any evidence that the measures will make communities safer. According to CSC’s last quarterly financial report, the prison service expected to spend nearly $3 billion by the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year, on March 31.

The Harper government trumpeted the Sampson panel as a critical, independent review that was “part of the government’s commitment to protecting Canadian families and communities.” The government’s decision to continue patching and renovating existing prisons bypasses the need for public consultation that likely would be necessary if new prisons were planned for properties not controlled by Ottawa.

The internal documents obtained by Cancrime also show that $6.9 million is expected to be spent this year on construction of a new, 96-bed maximum-security living unit at Millhaven Institution, just west of Kingston. The document does not indicate the progress of the project, but prison sources tell me that the work is behind schedule. Corrections bosses are scrambling to find places for high-security, high-needs convicts, particularly since maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary is slated to close this year.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews

The government and Corrections did not explain, when the mammoth expansion plans were first announced, that maximum-security cellblocks would be built at medium-security prison complexes, like Collins Bay, where $19 million is being spent to add a 96-bed maximum-security building. Putting maximum-security convicts inside a medium-security compound will present a host of challenges including the need to ensure that the maximum- and medium-security prisoners have no opportunity to interact. This decision suggests that the long-range prison plan is to create regional complexes through a convoluted process of renovation and retrofit (my 2011 story about this issue).

The internal documents indicate that construction also is underway on: a new 96-bed medium-security unit at Fenbrook Institution, a medium-security prison in Gravenhurst; a 50-bed unit at minimum-security Pittsburgh Institution just north of Kingston; a new 50-bed unit at minimum-security Frontenac Institution in Kingston; a new medium-security unit at medium-security Bath Institution, west of Kingston. When Public Safety Minister Vic Toews announced Kingston-area projects in 2010, he indicated that two 96-bed units would be added at Bath, a prison that the union representing guards has long complained is insecure. It was built as a minimum-security prison and later converted for use as a medium-security facility. Toews said the new cells at Millhaven, Collins Bay and Bath institutions would be completed in 2013-14.

During the October 2010 announcement,Toews defended the decision to renovate existing facilities rather than build new prisons.

“We take advice from all kinds of people and we sometimes accept that advice and sometimes we don’t,” Toews said. “In this particular situation, what we have said is that there is capacity in these facilities, there’s an existing infrastructure and therefore the units that we are building, the new units, are consistent with programming or other infrastructure available here.”

Despite claims by Conservatives that the government’s tough-on-crime policies aren’t filling prisons, stats compiled by the office of Canada’s independent penitentiary watchdog, the Office of the Correctional Investigator, show that Canada’s inmate population is ballooning at a rate of roughly 500 additional prisoners yearly, enough to fill one to two new penitentiaries. The prison population grew by nearly 7% in the two-year span from March 2010 to March 2012, from 14,027 to 14,983, according to the correctional investigator. Most worrisome, the report notes, is the dramatic increase in double bunking, the practice in which two prisoners are forced to live in a cell designed for one person. Double bunking increased by a third in one year, between March 2011 and April 2012. Prison guards, inmates rights advocates and researchers warn that increased double bunking will breed tension, violence and bitter parolees. The use of double bunking is surging because the government can’t build new cells fast enough.

Here are the internal Corrections Canada documents obtained by Cancrime that outline the status of construction projects in Ontario:

On a mobile device? Click here to read document.

Note: Prison abbreviations in the document:

MI: Millhaven Institution

BI: Bath Institution

FI: Frontenac Institution

CBI: Collins Bay Institution

FBI: Fenbrook Institution

BCI: Beaver Creek Institution

JI: Joyceville Institution

PI: Pittsburgh Institution

WI: Warkworth Institution

Federal prison workers attack top minister Tony Clement

Federal Correctional Officers are sticking it to Treasury Board President Tony Clement, during nationwide information pickets today at more than 50 federal penitentiaries. Pickets are toting banners that mimic a billboard that was posted in Clement’s Ontario riding. It chides him for his apparent public support for 7,500 workers, at the same time that the government has dragged out contract talks. The prison staff have been working without a contract for three years, as of today, and they’re accusing Clement of talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Here’s the release issued today by the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers.

Federal correctional officers demonstrate across Canada – UCCO-SACC-CSN members mark three years of working without a contract

MONTREAL, May 31, 2013 /CNW Telbec/ – Federal correctional officers are holding information picket lines outside 52 Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) penitentiaries between 6 am and 7 am this morning to observe the third anniversary that they have worked without a valid collective agreement.

The labour contract for the 7,500 members of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers (UCCO-SACC-CSN) expired May 31, 2010. This morning’s actions express growing frustration among the membership with the refusal by Treasury Board of Canada negotiators to take into account the dangerous nature of their work in an increasingly violent correctional system.

“In the last three years, we have seen much more conflict among inmates and attacks on staff,” said UCCO-SACC-CSN National President Kevin Grabowsky. “The federal government is failing to recognize the growing risks correctional officers take every day to keep Canadians safe.”

UCCO-SACC-CSN is demanding the government continue to respect the principle enshrined in the last collective agreement, namely that remuneration for correctional officers be maintained within a range afforded comparable groups such as RCMP officers. The current Treasury Board offer would greatly widen this gap.

The Conservative government also unilaterally clawed back a negotiated raise in the final year of the union’s last contract. In addition, the Treasury Board continues to demand that members surrender their right to severance pay.

“Treasury Board President Tony Clement always says he fully supports the correctional officers who work at the two institutions in his riding and across the country,” noted Mr. Grabowsky. “Support has to be more than just talk. It is time for Mr. Clement to step up and give a real mandate to his negotiators.”

After a series of crime bills, rapid expansion and then sudden cutbacks, the Correctional Service is a department under great strain, observed Mr. Grabowsky. He noted that public service employee surveys consistently show that CSC employees suffer the lowest morale and highest levels of stress in the federal government.

“We are seeing pressure from government decisions at every turn: from needlessly closing three institutions, which is exacerbating a huge problem with double bunking, to cutting access to programs and other rehabilitation services,” he said. “All these decisions make our jobs much more difficult. We will continue to do our jobs protecting Canadians. We simply want the government to recognize the value of our dangerous work at the negotiating table.”

Last December, Treasury Board requested conciliation. While the union is participating in this process, it believes direct negotiations are the best way to reach an agreement. After a union request, a face-to-face negotiating meeting is now set for next week with Treasury Board.

Here’s the billboard that the union erected on a road in Clement’s Ontario riding.

courtesy UCCO

Without Honour “very good,” “detailed, damning”

Still wondering if you should read Without Honour, my true crime book documenting the Shafia honour killings? Reviews of the book continue to roll in and, I’m proud to say, they are positive. Lawyer Damian Penny says the book is “a detailed, damning, and thought-provoking chronicle of one of the saddest criminal cases in recent Canadian history.” Penny’s new review has just been published online by Canadian Lawyer Magazine. Montreal resident, former journalist and psychotherapist Elaine Zimbel, calls it “a very good book,” in a new review posted online. Penny’s detailed and thoughtful review says the story is “well told, well documented.” For more reviews, visit Goodreads and Amazon. For the latest news on the Shafia case, which is still winding through the appeal process, check in regularly here at Cancrime. The Without Honour page is a clearinghouse of background and news on the case.

Triple honour killer viewed as “hero,” parole record reveals

Imprisoned killer Daljit Singh Dulay (inset), who gunned down his sister, her husband and another man 22 years ago in the name of family honour, is viewed as a “hero” by some members of his Sikh community, a Parole Board of Canada document reveals (read it in full after jump). Concern that family and community members still condone Dulay’s actions and strongly endorse the concept of honour killings was cited by the board in a decision last month to deny him unescorted passes or day parole, though Dulay has been out of prison previously on escorted passes.

Victims murdered by Daljit Singh Dulay in 1991 in Calgary, (from left) Gurdawr Singh Dulay, Kulwinder Dulay, Mukesh Kumar Sharma

He is serving life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in the 1991 honour killings in Calgary, Alberta of his sister Kulwinder Dulay, 20, her husband Gurdawr Singh Dulay, 28, and, Mukesh Kumar Sharma, 28. Sharma was a close friend of the couple and their employer. The six-page written record of Dulay’s parole hearing on April 24, 2013 is the most detailed expose to date of the chilling motive that drove him to murder. It documents the widespread conspiracy and encouragement of family and community in the murders and a plot to aid Dulay’s escape from justice. The revelations contradict the protestations of other honour killers in Canada and the defence arguments that they have presented during trials in an attempt to convince judges and juries that honour killings are not a growing threat in Canada fueled by widely-held traditional beliefs.

According to a 2006 psychological risk assessment, your understanding of the index offences remained shallow. You admitted that your actions were wrong but also noted that the murders maintained the status of your family in their community.

- excerpt from April 2013 parole decision

Dulay’s family lived in Vancouver when his sister moved to Calgary. The strict Sikh family grew up in an area of India where long-held cultural traditions about the honour of families were drilled into him. Dulay’s sister had eloped with a man who had grown up in the same village, an act that the Dulay family considered shameful and one that they believed required her death to restore the family’s honour in the eyes of the wider community.

You noted that, after negotiations with your sister and elder members of the family failed, you understood your family to ask you to do “whatever it takes” to maintain family honour. You confirmed with the board that the beliefs associated with honour killing motivated you to commit three murders, and that these beliefs could be considered risk factors in your case. With persistent questions, you noted that honour killings may be conducted for reasons other than a forbiden intimate relationship. However, until it was raised by the board, you did not mention honour killings involved concepts such as domination and control of women.

Dulay hired a private investigator who tracked his sister to Calgary. Dulay followed her there. He bought an AK-47 assault rifle and a car. He stalked the couple to a video store where they worked and when they emerged and began to drive away, he rammed their vehicle and sprayed them with bullets. Mukesh Kumar Sharma, who was a friend of the couple and their employer, attempted to flee. Dulay shot him in the back. Dulay hid out with family members for five days before turning himself in to police. In 1992, he was convicted but in 1996, he attempted to escape, part of a scheme to flee to India, back to the village where he was raised, where friends and family would shelter him.

You claimed that you were acting in conformity with your religious beliefs in committing the murders, and that you would not be considered guilty of any crime in India.

Dulay claimed in his parole hearing in April this year, as he did in 2007 in a failed bid to seek earlier parole, that he has renounced honour killing.

You stated several times during the hearing that honour killings were wrong and stupid, and that you were very ashamed and remorseful for your actions.

Although Dulay has been out of prison several times on escorted temporary absences, the board expressed concern about the influences of family and friends. In 2006, a psychiatric assessment concluded he was a low risk to reoffend but noted “there were differing versions on file about your family’s influence on you at the time of the murders.”

The psychiatrist also had concerns about your request for ETAs to the Sikh Temple as some members of your community viewed you as a hero.

In 2010, Dulay was granted escorted temporary absence passes for family contact and to visit a Sikh Temple. The parole board now appears to be grappling with changing accounts from family members about whether they supported the murders and encouraged Dulay to carry them out. As part of the process of determining whether Dulay can be released into the community, family and friends are interviewed by Corrections staff. In 2011, interviews revealed that some people “indicated that they were more accepting” of the murders. In the past, family members had openly condoned Dulay’s actions. In recent assessments, people interviewed appear “less sympathetic” about the murders.

The authors of a [community assessment] completed in January 2013 on family members concluded that the contacts said “all the right things” but the authors were unsure of the genuineness of the contacts’ comments.

Dulay told the parole board that, if released, his goal was to “educate [his] younger family members with respect to honour killings.”

He could not explain, other than saying ‘No,’ how he would stand up to family or community members who might pressure him to continue to endorse honour killings.

Dulay is subject to a deportation order to India that was imposed in 1993. If he is granted unescorted passes or day parole, he could be immediately removed from Canada. Dulay is not subject to stricter immigration and parole rules that came into force 11 years ago. A killer sentenced after June 2002, and who is subject to a deportation order, is not eligible to seek release on unescorted absences or day parole. Most murderers are eligible to seek those two forms of freedom three years before their full parole eligibility. In the case of a murderer like Dulay, who is serving life with no parole for 25 years, it meant he was eligible to seek unescorted passes and day parole after 22 years behind bars.

Here is the complete written record of the parole hearing held April 24, 2013:

Note: The document embedded here contains a typo made by Parole Board staff. On page five, the document states that Dulay “completed six years of family contact UTAs.” These were, in fact, ETAs, escorted temporary absences and not Unescorted Temporary Absences.

On a mobile device? Click here to read document.

Honour killer Mohammad Shafia sells strip mall in Montreal

Imprisoned honour killer Mohammad Shafia (inset) might finally have the cash he needs to pay his outstanding legal bills. Shafia, who was convicted in January 2012 of murdering four family members has finally sold a commercial strip mall he owned in Montreal, according to a Quebec-based business newspaper. Les Affaires says Shafia sold the mall to businessman Bao Hua Xiang for $2.4 million. The deal follows a disputed agreement to sell the property to another businessman for $2.25 million.

The buyer has agreed to give up on efforts to finalize the deal at the lower price, according to a lawyer quoted by the newspaper.

“The buyer, though convinced of his right, has preferred to settle by paying a slightly higher price agreement yet reached, to avoid charges, fees, risks and delays,” said his lawyer, Alain Mongeau. “He nevertheless remains convinced that it is a good deal and wants to turn the page of this unfortunate incident.”

Shafia also had another buyer on the hook previously and, when that deal collapsed in a dispute over price, a lawsuit was filed by the would-be purchaser. According to Les Affaires, that dispute has been resolved.

The deal might finally give Shafia the cash he needs to pay three criminal defence lawyers who defended him and his wife and son against murder charges. Sources tell me that lawyers Peter Kemp, who represented Shafia, David Crowe, who represented Shafia’s second wife Tooba Yahya and Patrick McCann, who represented Shafia’s son Hamed, are still owed substantial amounts of money for the work they did defending the trio. Shafia is paying the tab for all three lawyers. Shafia, Tooba and Hamed were each convicted on January 29, 2012 of four counts of first-degree murder. Shafia’s daughters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, Geeti, 13 and his first wife in a secret polygamous family, Rona Amir, 50, were found dead June 30, 2009, inside a car discovered at the bottom the Rideau Canal in Kingston, in eastern Ontario. Prosecutors established at the trial that Shafia orchestrated the mass honour killing in a bid to restore his family’s tarnished honour. He believed the girls and Rona had shamed him through disobedience and promiscuous behaviour.

The three have maintained their innocence and claim that the victims died in a joyride that ended tragically when Zainab drove the car into the canal. They have appealed and the lawyers representing them are now completing a document that will set out the grounds of appeal in detail. Once the document, a factum, is filed with the Court of Appeal for Ontario, a date will be set for a hearing.