00:00:50.620A group known as Canadian Women's Sex-Based Rights, or CAUSEBAR, with support from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, is suing over it.
00:01:15.100Okay, so a lot of people are going to look at this and scratch their heads over exactly
00:01:19.580what's happening in terms of this court challenge, but when did this begin?
00:01:23.480How long has this been going on in terms of the legal battle?
00:01:27.480So the legal battle started in April 2025 when we filed to pursue this charter challenge.
00:01:35.800And the charter challenge is in effect against Commissioner's Directive 100, which is the
00:01:42.500policy that allows male inmates to transfer into women's prisons and this policy came about in 2017
00:01:50.660with the formal policy coming into effect in May 2022. Did you see this as an inmate at the time
00:01:59.300where this policy was coming into effect and you started saying for lack of a better word if you
00:02:04.180want to call them biological males coming into the women's system? Yes so I was incarcerated
00:02:10.260in a federal prison in kitchener ontario in 2017 and 2018 so the policy change happened when i was
00:02:18.820a prisoner and there i was incarcerated with males who identified as women not only in
00:02:25.860uh the prison system but also at the halfway house once i was released and did you see
00:02:32.580people convicted of sex offenses in the prison system with women?
00:02:39.700Yes, so I was actually incarcerated with a male who identified as a woman who is a convicted
00:02:45.380sex offender in provincial jail as well. Unfortunately, it's happening on every level
00:02:50.340in Canada. I was fortunate enough to be released from federal before it got really bad, but a lot
00:02:56.420of the women that I was incarcerated with were impacted and were incarcerated with sex offenders,
00:03:03.300violent men, murderers, the whole nine yards. Amazing. So now you're involved in advocacy
00:03:10.500on behalf of the women in the system. What are you hearing from them?
00:03:15.700So I've been hearing quite a lot all across Canada. It's mostly a lot of grooming behavior,
00:03:23.780criminal harassment sexual assault sexual harassment a lot of the women are changing0.98
00:03:30.820their routines um they're not wanting to take part in mandatory programming because they have
00:03:37.700to take that programming with male sex offenders so there's a lot of emotional harm a lot of them
00:03:46.420are really triggered by it because they have extensive histories of sexual abuse and then
00:03:51.060they're being incarcerated with a prolific serial pedophile who's standing outside the bathroom
00:03:56.900um listening to them and then asking them if they're on their moon time and just a lot of
00:04:02.260grooming behaviors and are we talking showering with trans people uh possibly sharing a cell
00:04:12.820with them so it depends on where you are incarcerated this is happening a lot more
00:04:18.260in provincial jails because you're sharing a range that only has a shower fortunately if you are on0.85
00:04:24.820medium or minimum compound in women's prisons they're typically cottage-like homes so you have0.98
00:04:30.180a bathroom with a door that locks but correctional officers only go through the house once every two1.00
00:04:37.140hours so they have a lot of time available to be stalking and grooming and harassing women
00:04:44.100Now, this story, a column in the National Post, women assaulted in prison by trans inmates does not violate the charter, liberals say.0.53
00:04:54.720I mean, this suggests to me that the government prioritizes the, quote unquote, needs of these trans individuals over women in these institutions.
00:05:10.620um so the sexual assaults and uh all of the other things that they admitted to in their statement
00:05:17.220of defense is only admitting to what cause bar has filed in their statement of claim
00:05:23.860they produced particulars um that the attorney general requested they wanted the who what where
00:05:30.900when why how and the government only admitted to the what was answered in the particulars and if
00:05:40.100wasn't enough answered in there they said they didn't have enough information to respond so this
00:05:45.540is not a complete accounting of every single incident that has happened in women's prisons
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00:06:52.740episode have you appealed to members of parliament on this issue have you tried to meet with them
00:06:59.460perhaps talk to the minister has any of this taken place yeah so i've spoken to several members of
00:07:08.740parliament a lot of the times i get a template sent back to me telling me about bill c-16 and
00:07:15.060gender identity or expression being added to the canadian human rights act telling me that this is
00:07:20.180justified um a lot of the conservatives will meet with me and they don't agree with it but other
00:07:27.380than telling me that they don't agree with it and maybe saying something on social media there
00:07:32.180hasn't been much action from them and most liberal members of parliament will not meet with me to
00:07:38.900discuss this meantime women in the prison system are being assaulted and i mean raped there's been
00:07:50.020pregnancies hasn't there i mean what happens to the children babies born uh from these types of
00:07:58.100incidents yes there's there has been um quite a few sexual assaults rapes there have been
00:08:06.020pregnancies there's been women that have been taken out for abortion um there is a mother child
00:08:12.260program in women's prisons but typically you have to be minimum security so if you are not minimum0.82
00:08:18.820security. You do not get to keep your child. So I can only assume if they don't have family to1.00
00:08:24.300support them that the child's going into care. And then you also are at a disadvantage by being
00:08:31.660in the mother-child program because you have to be on your best behavior. So when you are
00:08:35.940incarcerated with these men and they're intimidating you or harassing you, you just have to take it
00:08:41.620Because if you do anything, it's going to be classified as retaliation or instigating, and then you're going to be at risk of losing your spot in the mother-child program, which means that you don't get to keep your child.
00:09:01.640I mean, these women have committed crimes, and so not everybody in society is going to feel a great deal of sympathy for them.
00:09:09.040But if they're doing their time and trying to come back, as you successfully did, able to get back into society, you then face the added issue of having to deal with possibly, you know, sex offenders, you know, in the same facility as you're in.
00:09:27.140And it sounds to me like they're not getting a whole lot of sympathy from staff, from prison guards and that sort of thing.
00:09:38.120like the guards and people administrating and running these facilities and operating them?1.00
00:09:44.220There are quite a few women, but there are male guards as well.1.00
00:09:47.600They won the right to work within women's institutions because it was sex-based discrimination.0.85
00:09:53.880They attempted to make it so that male guards couldn't work in women's facilities.
00:09:58.180Now, I have encountered quite a few correctional officers.0.79
00:10:00.820that do not agree with this because female correctional officers are required at the request
00:10:06.940of male inmates who identify as women to strip search them. I first encountered this issue in
00:10:13.180provincial jail where there was a sex offender. He requested a female correctional officer to0.96
00:10:18.420strip him and he used to get erections in front of them. And they complained they didn't want to0.95
00:10:25.440do it but unfortunately their rights don't matter just like women incarcerated women's rights don't
00:10:32.960matter i mean this is um i cannot imagine what these women are going through and yet here it is
00:10:41.220we're in the midst of it the media seems to not want to talk about this issue it seems to
00:10:46.100fallen into a black hole it's one of those stories that i guess they know that the government is
00:10:52.080to look bad, you know, having appointed activist judges to preside over these cases, you know,
00:10:58.400radicals in some cases. How is the court battle going? I mean, you've been at it for what, over a
00:11:03.840year now, something like that? Yeah, so it has been a long process. They've really been trying
00:11:10.080to drag it along. As you know, at first they filed motions to have our case dismissed and our case
00:11:18.640was while the judge ruled that the case was going to go forward on may 14th of this year
00:11:25.040so she dismissed their motions and then they were supposed to have 60 days to file their statement
00:11:30.240of defense but they took longer than the 60 days so now we've gotten through that and it's to the
00:11:36.960next point of the court case but i don't see it um wrapping up anytime soon this is going
00:11:43.840going to be a long-term battle all right and if it doesn't go your way do you have recourse i mean
00:11:52.320is there a higher level of court that you can appeal to yeah so we're currently at the federal
00:12:00.040court so there are courts above that to appeal i'm trying not to even think about losing um at this1.00
00:12:07.760point because it's just so obvious to me that this is wrong and that these women do have charter
00:12:13.940rights and they should be supported because if we allow this to happen to women in prison then it's
00:12:19.640going to happen in every other avenue of life you can't allow it to happen in one place and not in
00:12:26.000another place so essentially it isn't just about women that are incarcerated it's about women
00:12:32.740in sports and it's about women in shelters and rape shelters um hospital wards washrooms like
00:12:40.740it's all going to be affected by this yeah and canada seems to be at the forefront of
00:12:47.640being as permissive as possible in terms of allowing men basically into these facilities
00:12:56.240You look at athletic competitions and so forth, and so you've really got a fight in your hands.
00:13:04.600Maybe this is one of those precedent-settings that matters as well.
00:13:07.820Maybe that's why it's taking as long as it has, is the sense that whatever comes out of here, out of this proceeding, could resonate down the road.