Wellness Within Opposes Restrictive “Tough on Crime” Parole Reform
This Prisoners’ Justice Day, Wellness Within joins the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS) and Centre for Research into the Process, Outcomes, and Incomes of Incarceration (CRPOI) in speaking out against recent “tough on crime” calls to reform Canada’s parole system.
In July, the Toronto and Canadian police associations called on the federal government to make changes to existing parole law in Canada. The Canadian parole system is already profoundly punitive, creating an uphill battle for people who are working hard to gain release and rebuild their lives post incarceration. The parole hearing for Clinton Gayle, which police associations are leveraging to call for sweeping legislative reform, did not even result in parole being granted. The police association complaints centered around the Parole Board’s scheduling and administrative practices. The Parole Board of Canada sets its hearing dates and notice periods. The Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime has the mandate to address such matters. To call for wide-sweeping legislative reform following this case is egregious: solutions to the issues of scheduling and administrative practices already exist. This is an irresponsible ask during a time where deaths in custody and overcrowding in both federal prisons and provincial jails are rampant.
The Canadian Police Association has asked the federal government to apply to parole the same approach it used for bail and sentencing reform. That approach produced Bill C-14, a bill which reformed more than eighty clauses across four statutes, and included sentencing changes, restrictions on conditional sentences and amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Wellness Within joins a growing number of people in Canada who are deeply concerned that Parliament’s agenda is being set by a special interest lobby on a timetable that leaves no room for scrutiny, and in the absence of evidence that “tough on crime” agendas work to keep us safe.
The Prime Minister’s mandate letter of 21 May 2025 committed the government to “uphold the rule of law, protect our democratic institutions, and reinforce the unity of our country.” The same letter set out seven priorities for this Parliament. Changes to criminal law were not among them. Rather, the mandate letter described “focusing on results over spending,” and spending less on government operations. Holding one person in federal custody costs $156,700/year; $256,700 for a person incarcerated in a prison designated for women. Supervising one person in the community costs $47,500. Systems that prioritize punishment and vengeance harm our society and cost billions of taxpayer dollars that could be better spent on “helping Canadians to get ahead”.
The mandate letter committed to “advancing reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.” Indigenous women and gender-diverse people make up more than half of the people held in federal prisons designated for women.
People harmed by crime are being exploited to advance a harsher, more punitive system, while this government ignores the very real problems the Canadian prison system faces. Increasing dysfunction in the prison system in the name of victims, and assuming all want more retribution, instead of justice and healing, is a grave error.
Wellness Within is a volunteer-based registered non-profit organization that serves women, transgender, and nonbinary people who have experienced criminalization and are pregnant or have young children in Nova Scotia, part of the unceded and unsurrendered ancestral territory of the Mi'kmaq people.
Wellness Within supports people through the full spectrum of reproductive health experience; facilitates workshops and education sessions; develops resource materials; and advocates for reproductive justice issues.
Contact: Martha Paynter, martha.paynter@unb.ca or (902)292-7082
