Ivan Zinger, correctional investigator of Canada, holds a news conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Oct. 31, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Canada’s federal-prison watchdog wants to include more healing lodges in Canada’s correctional system.

The proposal is one of 21 recommendations made by Corrections investigator Ivan Zinger in his 120-page annual report. The investigator’s office reviews and resolves complaints brought to his office by individual offenders.

Zinger’s report found Indigenous inmates spend more time in incarceration, more time in solitary confinement, and are more likely to have their parole suspended than their non-Indigenous counterparts.

More healing lodges, Zinger argued, could change these “terrible” outcomes for Indigenous inmates.

“Healing lodges offer a different way to remedy (bad correctional outcomes),” Zinger told reporters. “For the communities that want to take it on, it offers … some real hope.”

Correctional Services Canada (CSC) has healing lodges for Indigenous women and men where Aboriginal values, traditions and beliefs are used to design the services and programs for offenders. The lodges for women are minimum- and medium-security facilities. For men, they are minimum-security. Non-Indigenous offenders can also live there if they choose to follow Aboriginal cultural practices. Healing lodges have been part of Canada’s justice system since the mid-1990s. This year, 294 inmates are registered at them.

The lodges have become the subject of controversy after Terri-Lynne McClintic, who is serving a life sentence for murdering eight-year-old Tori Stafford, was transferred to one. Intense criticism followed news of the transfer, especially in the House of Commons.

McClintic confessed to killing Tori Stafford in 2010. She is now serving her sentence at the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge for Aboriginal Women, a medium-security facility in Maple Creek, Sask.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has called on the government to send McClintic back to a maximum-security prison.

“This isn’t some offender that deserves a second chance,” Scheer told reporters in September. “This is a person who took a child away … and for the prime minister to not answer questions … that’s disgusting.”

On their website, CSC says every offender’s risk to society is evaluated before he or she is transferred to a healing lodge.

Zinger said he could not comment on the McClintic case, but said the charged political rhetoric in the House of Commons is harmful.

“I actually cringe every time I hear politicians talking about crime and punishment,” Zinger said. “Egregious cases are being used by political parties as a wedge issue, and the end results are policies and laws that, in my view, go against … good corrections and public safety.”

Zinger’s recommendations are in line with those of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report, which asked the federal government to build more Indigenous healing lodges.

There are nine CSC healing lodges. Four are managed by CSC, while five are managed under agreements between CSC and Indigenous communities.

The report says CSC also needs to re-allocate its spending over the next decade to take into account the number of Indigenous people in prison and to create “truly Indigenized” programs and services for Indigenous inmates.

In the 1990s, the Native Women’s Association of Canada proposed building healing lodges, because mainstream prisons were not working for Indigenous inmates.

The over-representation of Indigenous men and women in the federal prison system continues to rise. In 2018, 28 per cent of all people in custody were Indigenous, even though they represent 4.3 per cent of Canada’s population. Indigenous women represent 40 per cent of all women in custody.

The report also found 20 per cent of young Indigenous inmates were gang members — a fact that politicians of all stripes have ignored over the years, Zinger said.

“This is the ugly truth in federal corrections,” Zinger said. “It’s a tragedy that when you have … young people who believe they have nothing to lose when they are serving relatively short sentences. You gotta ask the question why.”

The report quotes young Indigenous men who say they enter gangs to protect themselves, and are forced into committing violent crimes.

Zinger’s report also describes a riot at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary in 2016, in which 85 per cent of the 131 inmates involved were Indigenous. During the riot, two inmates were seriously assaulted and one was murdered. All three victims were Indigenous.

Zinger said the first report on the riot concluded it was a random and spontaneous event. It did not consider what drove Indigenous inmates to riot.

As a result, Zinger concluded that the CSC should no longer investigate itself.

“It is possible to read the board’s entire report, as well as the public case summary, without ever knowing that the ranges (cell blocks) that went up in riot were overwhelmingly occupied by young, predominantly gang-affiliated Indigenous men,” the report reads.

“Presumably, these young men were fed up enough to incite, instigate or participate in an incident that could result in a maximum sentence of life imprisonment; yet there is no serious or sustained attempt on CSC’s part to investigate why.”

Zinger said more investments in employment and vocational-skills training for Indigenous inmates could help them leave gangs.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale reaffirmed the government’s commitment to support “healing, rehabilitation and safe reintegration” for Indigenous offenders in a statement released Tuesday.

The 2017 budget set aside $65.2 million over five years to reduce Indigenous incarceration rates, he said. This includes $10 million over five years for the Indigenous Community Corrections Initiative (ICCI), a program to support community-justice solutions.

Such solutions include healing lodges.

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