By: Renu Mandhane
This commentary was first published in the Ottawa Citizen on April 18, 2011.
The inquest into the 2007 death of Ashley Smith while in federal custody, now set to start in May, could last several months. Ashley died due to the state's conviction that solitary confinement is a legitimate response to mental illness, coupled with systemic discrimination against female prisoners who have less access to treatment and are often incarcerated far from community support because of their low numbers.
Ashley's death should have been a wake-up call for Canada but, instead, more than three years and at least four major reports later, Canada has shown absolutely no willingness to address human rights violations against prisoners with mental health issues.
Ashley's death is a damning critique of our government's treatment of prisoners with mental health issues and illustrates Canada's failure to protect and promote fundamental human rights as guaranteed in international law.
Canada's blatant and continued violation of the rights of prisoners with disabling mental health issues has wide-ranging implications for civil and political rights all over the world.
Rightly or wrongly (and there is much debate), Canada is seen as a global leader in corrections and in our treatment of the disabled. When Canada fails to show leadership to address the multi-layered discrimination faced by prisoners with mental health issues, which are hardly unique to Canada, we set the bar far too low. We cannot allow other states look to us to justify their similar failures.
Canada should be blazing the trail and advocating for policies and programs that place the protection of human rights above political expediency, alleged financial constraints and, quite frankly, discrimination and fearmongering.
For years, Canada has been party to international treaties that require it to limit the use of solitary confinement and stop discrimination against women. In 2006, prior to Ashley's death, the United Nations Human Rights Committee considered Canada's human rights record and "express[ed] concern about the situation of women prisoners, in particular . women with disabilities." Last year, Canada ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and, at the time, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon spoke strongly in support of Canada's commitment to the rights of the disabled. Given that the Disability Rights Convention explicitly protects persons who are imprisoned and suffer from mental impairments, how do we explain the government's continued failure to address the factors that contributed to Ashley's death?
Government inaction means that rights are violated on a daily basis, and yet it is commonplace to justify inaction by suggesting that solutions are too elusive. This is simply not true; concrete recommendations are not hard to find.
Late last year, the parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security made 71 recommendations aimed at the federal government to stop rights violations against prisoners with mental health issues. In her recently released report on the death of Howard Hyde while in provincial custody, Justice Anne Derrick, a Nova Scotia judge, sets out a number of recommendations aimed at provinces that would chart a way forward, including, for example, that provinces develop a mental health strategy informed by the Disability Rights Convention.
It is hard to imagine what it would take for Canada to act to protect the rights of some of most vulnerable members of our society. Another scathing report? Unlikely. A complaint to the UN? We're thinking about it.
Another death? I would surely hope not.
Renu Mandhane is the director of the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law.
