Lift Me Up

Lift Me Up

Bill Staubi

The thing I love about being surrounded by artwork is the constant interaction. It's not decoration for me, it's an active thing in my life. I've always felt that if you wanted to live in a creative environment, then you have to do something to make it happen. Either you make the art or you make the creative objects, or you support them through purchasing in my case.

BUILDING
COMMUNITY.

Bill Staubi
2SLGBTQIA+ Leadership Award

My name is Bill Staubi. I'm an art collector, former CSC (Correctional Service Canada) employee, and gay about town.

There but for the grace of God go most of us. We're one bad friend away from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We're two beer away from doing something that goes tragically wrong. We're one pitched fit away from being more aggressive than we meant to be. Not everybody who is in jail is a bad person. They've done a bad thing, but they are not necessarily a bad person. And you see how sometimes the experience of being arrested and incarcerated and processed through a system can grind a person and can skew them.

One of the things that always frustrated me all through my career is the great paradox. Canadian society - we use expressions like “pay your debt to society,” but that debt is never ever paid off. You're constantly paying interest on that debt. We want them to live in a crime-free neighborhood, but not ours. We want them to meet a nice person, form a pro-social lifestyle, but not with our children.

We want a full-time job that pays well enough they don't have to consider crime, but not where I work. And how we expect this magic to take place if we are not prepared to make that commitment and that contribution to that process.

Those experiences teach you a lot about society at large and how things are working, and also you learn how to get things done, because you're working in an unconventional environment.

It was part of my responsibility as not only just as a queer person at work, but also because I was in the executive ranks.

My job was to create a workplace that was free of harassment or that was more respectful of people and that was a place that people wanted to work because there could be good things to be had by working there.

It comes back to what I feel about the creative community. If you want the world to be a certain way, you can wait for other people to make it that way, and if you're lucky, they will. But human history hasn't really shown that that's a good strategy. You want the world to be a certain way, you have to do something to help make it a certain way. You won't change the entire world, but you can change your immediate environment. I had to come out quite visibly, and so did. Started to talk about being gay, about being queer. Very openly, trying to find my place in that part of the organization. At that time there weren't a lot of “out” people. I found people were either extremely patient, “he'll get over this eventually, quiet down,” or supportive. I don't doubt that there were some people that disapproved. I don't doubt that there were some people that were offended. I don't doubt that it challenged some people's spiritual beliefs, those kinds of things.

The world is made up of all kinds of different people and CSC is no different than the rest of the world.

Because I didn't have a mentor of my own, an older, more experienced gay man in the organization  to say "okay, here's how you navigate this business." That made me very receptive to being that for other people.

I always feel that if you help people work through their difficulties, you can help them be a better person at what they're doing.

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Bill Staubi 2SLGBTQIA+ Leadership Award:

Correctional Service of Canada is establishing an award in honour of Bill Staubi to recognize a CSC employee who has made a lasting and substantial impact by actively supporting the 2SLGBTQIA+ community within CSC.

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I wouldn't want for it to create the illusion that it was me that made this change. I was part of things that other people wanted.

Other people were doing their thing in their own ways to make these kinds of changes.

But it is extremely humbling and gratifying to think that people remember that some of the things that I did made a positive difference. When people were initially asking me about the award, it was important for me that there be a component at some point in time that recognizes that offenders live in that world. They're not passing through it, they live there. That's their community.

And they do a tremendous amount of work, quietly and often unsung, to try and make it a safe environment for 2SLGBTQIA+ people, both staff and inmates.

The hard part for me at this stage in my life is I truly was unaware of the level of impact.

It’s just for me was - that's the way I walk through the world, that's the way I want the world to walk with me.

To be reminded now that no, it was for some people extraordinary or it was unexpected and appreciated has just been so incredibly rewarding and humbling.

The satisfaction of building is something that I've always enjoyed doing. My grandfather was a carpenter. I watched him at a young age, build out buildings around his house and that's something I took interest in right away.

Hi, my name is Jon, I'm an Ops (Operations) Manager for CORCAN Construction, Pacific Region.

CORCAN Construction is a division of CSC (Correctional Service Canada). CORCAN actually is an abbreviation for Corrections Canada.

We are a program first and foremost. We provide employability skills for offenders and we also run as a business so our objective is to produce a product for our clients and build it on time and within budget. We offer apprenticeship hours in the fields of carpentry, electrical, plumbing, HVAC. Those are the opportunities these men and women have when they come and work for CORCAN.

My experiences with working offenders, it's positive. What I see when these men and women come out and work with us, typically they don't have any skills. So, we're basically starting at a point where we're introducing the tools to them, we're introducing them how to read a tape measure, how to do basic math.

You can see them grow into a confident person. When they first start, they're shy, they're just quiet and then you see them slowly grow where they're sharing, they're interacting with staff and other offenders that are working with us. They understand the importance of working for CORCAN, they can see that they're gaining hands-on skills where they can take those skills and potentially use them to apply when they are released, apply in the private sector and get a good job out there.

What happened with Jasper last summer, they were affected by the wildfires. I believe there was about 350 structures damaged. CORCAN Construction reached out to Parks Canada, just letting them know that we're here to assist with any construction related needs they have.

So, we have currently shipped four homes to Jasper where they're placed on temporary foundations. And then in the next six months we're building another 20, just so that they can get their staff in in the summer to obviously, you know, they have to rebuild their trails, their park. So these will house them temporarily and during that time we will be actually forming and placing permanent foundations and once those are complete they're going to crane those houses onto those foundations.

I'm very fortunate that I wake up every day and I look forward to coming to work. And, also the fact that we work with offenders that are incarcerated, that didn't have the opportunities when they were a child, you know, giving them those abilities, those skills, those soft skills is something that I take home every day.

The Service. For Canada.

When a woman walks down a range in a male institution, what they experience and their perspective is going to be different than a large male correctional officer. They're going to have to address the situation in a different way than our male counterparts. So it is a different experience, but in my mind that just makes it so much more rewarding.

Crystal

• With CSC for 15 Years
• Served in Afghanistan with the Canadian Armed Forces
• Proud to represent Canada

Hi, I'm Crystal, a Correctional Manager.

I joined corrections 15 years ago. Before I joined, I was with the military, the Canadian Armed Forces. I was with 50th Field Artillery Reservists and I went overseas to Afghanistan in 2008. When I came home, I was looking for an employment that I didn't have to travel so much and that was more secured in one area. So, I applied for Corrections and I got in. It was definitely up my alley from my history and where I came from. So yeah, that was 15 years ago and I have haven't regretted it since.

Working inside a prison is very different every day. You come to work and the issues that you're going to address can be anything from a staff conflict or a challenging inmate or even pigeons that have drugs attached to them. We have dealt with anything, you name it, I have seen. It's fascinating work and challenging in a way that the answer is not the same every time. It wasn't a natural thing, when you joined corrections and an inmate tells you off or calls you a name, it's natural to take it personally and to take it to heart. This is a difficult job. We work with people who struggle in pro-social situations and with that they can be offensive and obviously violent at some times.

To experience that and keep your humanity is the biggest challenge. To walk out those doors and leave it here and be empathetic to where they came from and how they grew up or how they got to the situation. I love the people aspect of this business, from the men we work with to the staff. Everyone has such a different experience and something else to bring to the table.

I'm proud to have the Canadian flag on my shoulder. I feel that we represent compassion and empathy and we're not about punishment. We see the human life behind the individuals we work with.

The Service. For Canada.

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A poster with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.

The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears on the top right corner with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”

Correctional Service Canada’s federal identity is included on the bottom left.

The Canada wordmark is on the bottom right.

A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.

The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears in the center with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”

A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.

The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”
In the bottom right-hand corner is the Canada wordmark.

A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.

The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”
In the bottom right-hand corner is the Canada wordmark.

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A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.
The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”

A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.
The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”

A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.
The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”