Features

Over the past three years, Edmonton Institution for Women’s (EIFW) gardening project has blossomed. What started as a small patch of vegetables has grown to over a dozen raised boxes, a medium sized plot, a few greenhouses, and composting stations—thanks to a group of offenders with green thumbs.

The Ephesus Project is a volunteer initiative that funds, organizes, and delivers post-secondary courses to incarcerated learners within the Correctional Services of Canada (CSC) institutions. The project, named for the great library in the ancient city of Ephesus, a centre of culture and learning in the Roman Empire, seeks to bring wisdom and culture to the incarcerated.

For 14 years, Carole Eldridge has worked with the Restorative Opportunities (RO) program at the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), providing her clients with compassionate care as a restorative justice practitioner and mediator in cases of serious crime. She has walked the path with both victims and offenders on their journey towards dialogue and meaningful accountability. We recently sat down with Carole following her retirement to discuss the RO program and her exceptional work.

Sedna is goddess of the sea and an important powerful woman figure in Inuit culture. That is why an Inuk offender chose to carve Sedna and anonymously donate her to Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada.

On January 20, 2022, Tam Le, a minimum security offender at Stony Mountain Institution, participated in a virtual Walls to Bridges symposium. Tam was not just an observer of the Zoom symposium, though. He was one of the presenters who discussed a study he had coauthored with university professor Dr. Judith Harris.

Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) has over 4,000 volunteers who work directly with offenders to support their rehabilitation and reintegration. Volunteering with CSC has deep historical roots going back to the late 1800s. Volunteers in correctional settings can offer an emotional and humanistic interaction that complement interactions with staff. They connect offenders to the outside world and model pro-social behaviour.

As we celebrate Black History Month, Let’s Talk Express wanted to check in with Maxime-Kalifa Sanou, four years after the story on his athletic achievements and his exemplary discipline was published.

If Heather Finn would have only one tip to give staff working with ethnocultural offenders, it would be to listen.

The Atlantic Region Indigenous Initiatives team, CORCAN, the Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) and community partners have come together to develop a bike repair and restoration program that will help support and uplift marginalized individuals in St. John’s, Newfoundland (NL).

The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) benefits from nearly 4000 volunteers, which includes 300 dedicated members of CSC's Citizen Advisory Committees (CACs). CSC is required by legislation to have a CACs at every institution and parole office across the country, who are the “eyes and ears” of their communities. This partnership provides CSC an opportunity to raise community awareness of our mandate as well as build trust and accountability with the public we serve.

This past summer, Canadians were saddened when hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children were discovered at residential schools in western Canada. By September 30, the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, hundreds more had been identified on the grounds of former residential schools in various other regions across Canada. People across the country, including inmates at Pacific Institution, wanted to highlight the importance of honouring the Survivors and recognizing the impact of the residential school system on Indigenous communities and individuals.

Shortly after Anne Marie Joyce first started at Correctional Service Canada (CSC) in 2000, she sent around an email that she later realized offended almost every person who received it. She didn’t understand what had upset them until it was pointed out that her military-style directness was not how people communicate in the public service.