Commissioner's update for correctional employees:
October 30, 2023

First, I wanted to recognize Correctional Officer Jeff Longhurst for his recent quick actions that likely saved a colleague’s life. Jeff works at William Head Institution in British Columbia. While on shift, he noticed a co-worker choking while eating their meal. Jeff quickly assessed the severity of the situation and relied on his first aid training, successfully performing the Heimlich maneuver. Thank you, Jeff, for your quick thinking and life-saving skills.

Major planned outage

From Saturday, November 11, at 7:00 a.m. to November 13, at 5:00 p.m. (EST), all applications and services provided by our main data center will be unavailable. This will allow CSC to test its disaster recovery environment. The annual Disaster Recovery test is necessary to demonstrate that we have the right processes and tools in place to continue operating critical business applications in case of an emergency or disaster at the 340 Laurier data centre.

As the test will impact all CSC users across the country, in the coming weeks, take time to determine alternative plans to be able to continue operating during this period. You can find more information about the Disaster Recovery exercise in This Week at CSC.

Update on CSC’s new podcast: Prisons Inside / Out

Back in July, we sent a callout to CSC employees to help us with ideas on what to name CSC’s first-ever podcast series that our Communications team has been working to launch this fall. Thank you to all who took time to submit their responses. The Communications team was not expecting the level of interest and volume of ideas that were submitted! In the end, there were many great ideas, but we narrowed it down to one winner: Prisons Inside / Out.
 

After tallying more than 60 submissions, Prisons Inside / Out was, by far, the most popular name suggested, submitted by a number of employees. Among others were: Beyond Bars, Beyond the Walls, and CSC Chronicles. Thank you again for all the suggestions. I am very happy to see there is so much excitement around this new initiative and CSC pride in promoting awareness about the important and great work you all do.

Podcast production is well underway as we inch closer to our official release date in late November. There will be a few episodes released on the launch date, and you will be able to listen to them on our website or on your favourite podcast streaming platform.

Until then, watch our social media channels for a podcast teaser in the coming weeks!

If you have ideas for upcoming episodes or have feedback about the podcast, please email our Communications team at the email address below:

• GEN-NHQ-Communication

Daylight savings time

Just a reminder that the clocks move back Sunday, November 5 at 2:00 a.m. I wish you a Happy Halloween for those of you trick or treating with your kids tomorrow.