June 2, 2016
Ottawa Citizen – Andrew Seymour
Naqvi committed to jail task force recommendations, but will need help from AG, health ministries
Forty-two recommendations flowed from the task force asked to help fix the long raging concerns over the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre (OCDC). Many of the regional detention centre’s problems are common in other provincially operated jails. Minister of Corrections Yasir Naqvi says that he will need the co-operation of other ministries of the Ontario government to effect the changes, especially from the health and bail reform recs. http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/bail-reform-among-recommendations-from-task-force-on-overcrowded-ottawa-jail Related article: Ottawa Citizen Editorial (June 1, 2016) Ways to fix the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-ways-to-fix-the-ottawa-carleton-detention-centre Related article: Ottawa Citizen – David Reevely How all our worst social problems end up at the Innes Road jail http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/reevely-how-all-our-worst-social-problems-end-up-at-the-innes-road-jail Related article: Ottawa Citizen – Tyler Dawson By the numbers: Key findings from the Innes jail task force http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/by-the-numbers-key-findings-from-the-innes-jail-task-force Related article: Ottawa Citizen – Anne London Weinstein End jail segregation of the mentally ill http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/weinstein-end-jail-segregation-of-the-mentally-ill Related article: Ottawa Citizen – Paula McCooey ‘Bail beds’ urged to help ease OCDC overcrowding http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/bail-beds-urged-to-help-ease-ocdc-overcrowding
CBC News – Alison Crawford
Correctional Service of Canada ‘negligent’ on information requests, commissioner says – Department did not respond to CBC News access to information request for more than 3 years
Under access to information laws, information requested should be deliverable within 30 days. Canada’s Information Commissioner has ruled the Corrections Canada has been negligent in the 3years and nine months it took to reply to a CBC request around the closure of the Kingston Pen, the Ontario Regional Treatment Centre and the Leclerc Institution, the latter two institutions with treatment programs for the mentally ill. Inmate patients were dispersed over other federal prisons without any special treatment programs. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/correctional-service-canada-information-request-1.3609436
Globe and Mail – Colin Freeze
Spy agency accidentally shared Canadians’ data with allies for years
Canadians must wonder if all the privacy issues don’t amount to a tempest in a teapot, until these sorts of revelations arrive. It appears that Canada’s spy agencies have in fact been sharing private information en masse for some time already, and what is worse, the private and identifying elements of the data, mixed with clandestine collected data, was supposed to have been removed but the software failed. The revelations by the Canadian Communications Security Exchange were by accident, not design. Jean-Pierre Plouffe, a retired Quebec judge who heads the Office of the CSE Commissioner, wants the Parliament top spell out clearly how the CSE is to function, and how surveillance is to be carried out and exchanged with foreign governments. The Liberal government has yet to address the reforms of Bill C-51. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/spy-agency-accidentally-shared-canadians-data-with-allies-for-years/article30243491/ Related article: CBC News – Dean Beeby Trudeau rebuffs calls for probe of RCMP spy operation against press http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-journalists-spying-inquiry-bellavance-1.3611282
Policy Options – Mark Jaccard
Effective climate change regulation: Let’s transform Canadian cars
Jaccard is a professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University and is advocating that we must make choices in addition to carbon tax and especially around vehicles. Environmental success, he suggests, requires policy effectiveness and political acceptability. Jaccard wants to grow the market for zero emission vehicles over the next decade and explains how that might play out. http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2016/effective-climate-change-regulation-lets-transform-canadian-cars/
CBC News – Neil MacDonald
Survey of Muslim Canadians rebuts lazy generalizations with hard data – Findings of Environics Institute survey reveal a community that’s not so different from other Canadians
The report from Environics says very clearly that Muslims in Canada tend to identify strongly as Canadians and slightly more as Muslims but do not enjoy the acceptance of other religious minorities. 94% say their sense of belonging in Canada is strong. Younger Muslims appear to be growing more devout and about 35% of Muslims in Canada say they have experienced discrimination or unfair treatment in the last five years while 62% are worried about or fear potential discrimination. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/muslim-canadians-survey-macdonald-1.3556222?nnw-200192
National Post – Lee Berthiaume, Ottawa Citizen
Former Chretien cabinet minister Anne McLellan to head panel on marijuana legalization
McLellan has a long history in the Liberal Cabinet of Jean Chretien that makes her well suited to chair the committee advising on the long expected removal of marijuana from the criminal code. Former Minister of Justice and Health as well as the first appointee to the ministry of Public Safety, McLellan and her taskforce, as yet unnamed but expected before summer, will report to Bill Blair by the first week of November. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/former-chretien-cabinet-minister-anne-mclellan-to-head-panel-on-marijuana-legalization