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location: publications / books / Justice Behind the Walls / Sector 6 / The Grievance System -- Through the Eyes of a Prison Ombudsman

The report for that year also found the enactment of the CCRA had done little to improve the effectiveness of the grievance process:

The grievance process, despite years of internal review and past commitments, displays, at the national level, little if any evidence of effective management of the system or management commitment to the system. Grievance responses continue to be delayed well beyond the timeframes of the policy, and the thoroughness and objectivity of the reviews undertaken in many instances is wanting. The automated reporting system has yet to come on line and as such, the process continues without the capacity to provide relevant information on its own operations or management with ongoing information capable of identifying inconsistencies concerning the interpretation and application of the Service's policies.

The Corrections and Conditional Release Act requires of the Service the establishment of a "procedure for fairly and expeditiously resolving offender grievances." The current procedure does not meet this requirement. The process is anything but expeditious, with offender grievances taking up to six months to work their way through the process. The current process as well cannot be seen as directed towards fair resolution, it is rather an adversarial, win-lose exercise played out on a very uneven playing field with the offender having limited input at the higher levels of the procedure . . .

In conclusion on this matter, I return to my comments of 1989, that improvement in the effectiveness and credibility of this process will only happen when the senior management of the Service accepts responsibility for the operation of procedure. ( Annual Report 1993-94 at 23)

The 1994-95 annual report detailed the continuing "excessive delay, defensiveness and non-commitment" of the Service, especially at the National Headquarters level, and concluded with this observation:

The Service's responses over the course of this reporting year are consistent with their past performances. The responses have avoided the substance of the issues at question including a failure to address the specific observations and recommendations contained in last year's Annual Report. The responses are defensive, display little if any appreciation for the history or significance of the issues at question and provide at best a further string of endless promises of future action, with no indication as to expected results or how the results of these proposed actions will be measured or analyzed. ( Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator, 1994-95 [Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1995] at 57)

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