'A national travesty:' Prison watchdog urges reform to tackle Indigenous over-incarceration

Canada's prison watchdog is denouncing the over-representation of Indigenous people in federal prisons as a travesty while urging significant reform, as he releases the second part of a two-year investigation.

In the conclusion of his Ten Years Since Spirit Matters report, Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger calls for the devolution of correctional power to Indigenous people to address worsening rates of over-representation.

"The steady and unabated increase in the disproportionate representation of Indigenous peoples under federal sentence is nothing short of a national travesty and remains one of Canada's most pressing human rights challenges," Zinger wrote.

His latest findings were released Wednesday with the office's 50th annual report, which says the over-representation of  Indigenous people in federal prisons has been an area of steady concern since the correctional investigator's office was created.

It's a crisis Zinger has sounded the alarm over with stronger language every year.

"I am deeply frustrated and disappointed each time I report on reaching or surpassing yet another sad milestone," he wrote in this year's annual message, dated June 2023 but tabled in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

"Canada's federal correctional system needs to get on board and begin to divest itself of the authorities, controls and resources that have kept Indigenous people over-incarcerated for far too long."

In a statement issued Thursday, Correctional Service Canada (CSC) Commissioner Anne Kelly said she welcomes the report and is attuned to the issue of over-representation.

"We recognize there is more work to do, but I can assure Canadians that we continue to make this a priority," she said.

Zinger joined Indigenous leaders at a news conference Thursday morning in Ottawa where he announced "the evidence that Canada's correctional system is failing Indigenous people could not be any clearer."

The original Spirit Matters report was tabled in Parliament 10 years ago. When it was released, Indigenous people made up 25 per cent of federal inmates. Today, it's 32 per cent, with things still not improving, Zinger found.

The national Indigenous leaders who joined the investigator on Thursday called the findings disturbing, unacceptable and startling but not surprising.

"It is disheartening, deeply, deeply concerning to see that 10 years after the Spirit Matters report was released the situation has only gotten worse," said Ghislain Picard, Assembly of First Nations regional chief for Quebec-Labrador.

"We can't afford to come back 10 years from now to hear the crisis situation has only gotten worse — again."

Cassidy Caron, president of the Métis National Council, said the report confirms what the Métis Nation has long known: "that the colonial correctional system does not work for us."

Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, told reporters Inuit communities need "upstream" solutions to keep people out of prison.

"This over-incarceration has a direct link to basic lack of necessities and needs being met in our communities, specifically in health, education and wellness," he said.

"We can't address justice effectively without tackling systemic racism."

Correctional Service panned

The correctional investigator's team conducted 223 interviews with Indigenous prisoners, elders and spiritual advisors, CSC staff, and executive directors of healing lodges and community-based residential facilities at 30 penitentiaries and 81 healing lodges countrywide. 

"The plight of Indigenous peoples behind bars has become steadily and progressively worse," Zinger wrote.

"Indeed, Canada's correctional population is becoming disturbingly and unconscionably Indigenized."

Zinger concluded penitentiaries are "historically and inherently colonial institutions," limiting the progress that can be made in the system as it now exists. 

He found "organizational paternalism" and "incapacity for self-reflection" in the correctional system, and expressed worry CSC is "playing a game of recognition politics, where it has learned to talk the talk of reconciliation to increase its resource base, quell the concerns of detractors and advocates, and stall for yet more time."

He also noted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 2015 findings on this topic remain relevant, but mostly unfulfilled.

Key takeaways

The special report is structured into three parts, with each corresponding to an area under investigation: healing lodges, the Pathways program, and the role and impact of elders.

From these, the investigator distilled five key findings, all of them critical:

1. CSC is failing to make changes to address, mitigate and reduce the chronic over-representation of Indigenous people behind bars.

2. State-run healing lodges are funded, resourced and occupied at significantly higher levels than their "grossly under-resourced" community-run counterparts.

3. The contributions of elders are undervalued, under-reported and under-supported by CSC.

4. Signature interventions like the Pathways initiatives or healing lodge programs have no meaningful impact on over-representation because they serve too few people.

5. CSC's pan-Indigenous approach to Indigenous corrections erases significant historical and cultural differences between and among First Nations, Métis and Inuit.

The three Indigenous leaders broadly agreed with the findings, and expressed particular concern about potential discrimination against elders, who are supposed to be on the same level as prison chaplains. The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples expressed similar disappointment in a Thursday news release.

In a release of its own, the Native Women's Association of Canada called the report "damning," before referencing Zinger's findings from last year that 50 per cent of federally incarcerated women are Indigenous. 

"No country that considers itself to be a world leader in human rights would allow this injustice to continue," said association President Carol McBride in the release. 

Zinger has offered a list of recommendations to implement his call for reform, telling reporters many were deliberately directed at the minister of public safety, who can compel the CSC to act on them.

"The response of the service over the years has been dismissive and unresponsive," Zinger said, adding that he is supposed to notify the minister if he's unhappy with the agency's response.

In a written statement issued Thursday afternoon, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc pointed to the Canadian government's technical response to Zinger's recommendations but did not directly address the special investigation's findings.

LeBlanc's statement called engagement with Indigenous communities essential to addressing the issues, which is why a deputy commissioner of Indigenous corrections was appointed earlier this year, and added that the government is working with Indigenous organizations to provide alternatives to incarceration.

The first part of Zinger's investigation was released last year; he has released the full two-part version online, calling it a roadmap for reform.