Lift Me Up

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.

Lift Me Up

People come in, they get to touch a horse, maybe the first time in their entire lives they've actually seen a live horse up close and personal. And they have the opportunity to not only see them, but to, if I'm with you, then I don't mind taking you in there and actually brushing them and kind of just being around them. And their entire demeanor changes when you're around them. They like to be around people and people just calm down and relax. It's amazing, it really is.

Bringing calm

Stacie
Correctional Officer

My name is Stacie and I work at Edmonton Maximum Security Institution.

I bring horses on site for staff and officers to come in and have a little bit of a mental wellness break.

I was sitting in the gate one night shift or evening shift, and I had in the course of a four-hour shift, three officers coming in at various points. They didn't come in together, but they came in and they just needed somewhere to vent and to just talk to somebody and people don't mind talking to me. And over that course of that time, I realized that we just weren't doing well here. We needed something to help people decompress, relax, and just generally have something that was good and positive in this place. And I thought, you know what, perfect thing to bring to people. I had some conversation with my AWO (Assistant Warden, Operations), he was fantastically supportive in all of this. And he actually said, you know what, if you want to bring these guys in on a regular basis, then that is perfect.

Max comes in quite often. He's my main saddle horse and he goes everywhere with me. We have ridden everywhere. And this is actually his full sister Molly and they are 21 and 19 respectively.

With these guys, they'll come up to you and their breathing will start to match yours and they start to just kind of level out with you. They actually claim a horse can sense and hear a human heartbeat four feet away.

I am absolutely proud of this, I really am. It's gone way beyond what I expected it to be. I brought horses on site. I thought, you know, if it makes one officer smile in a day or one staff member for smile in a day, especially if you've, you know, you've had a bad day, you've had a stabbing or, you know, shots fired, whatever the situation is, you bring somebody in and they go in there and they pet these guys, they love them up and that, and that just goes away from their brain. That just goes away for that timeframe. Right. And if that makes one person happy, then absolutely, I'm very happy to offer this to people.

I've always said, if we can help one person here, maybe that person can help the next person and the next person. And it's, it's just the paying it forward aspect.

I'm so happy that these guys have embraced it as well as they have. I can't believe how many people have reached out and said, “you know, having these guys here has just made my whole day, made me smile, made my day happy for the rest of the day. This is amazing.” So that, that makes it worthwhile.

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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.”