Summary of CSC advancement - Federal Pathway Annual Progress Report 2024 to 2025

List of acronyms
CSC

Correctional Service Canada

DEP

Digital Education Project

IOEI

Indigenous Offender Employment Initiative

NEWG

National Elders Working Group 

NIAC

National Indigenous Advisory Committee

ODE

Offender Digital Education

RTCs

Regional Treatment Centres

Correctional Service Canada (CSC) contributes to public safety in Canada. We support the safety and well-being of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people inside and outside of the Canadian justice system.

To do this, we have been advancing the calls for justice relating to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which can be found in the Government of Canada's 2024 to 2025 Federal Pathway Annual Progress Report. We have been developing culturally responsive solutions that better support the challenges Indigenous Peoples face within the federal correctional system.

Here's how we've been taking action towards real, progressive and systemic change. We've:

Read more about each Call for Justice relating to the federal correctional system and what we're doing to advance them, below.

Call for Justice 14.1

Establish facilities to ensure that Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQI+ people have options for decarceration.

CSC provides culturally appropriate interventions, treatments and facilities focused on transition to the community.

CSC is also:

Call for Justice 14.2

Ensure that facilities established under Sections 81 and 84 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act receive funding parity with Correctional Service Canada-operated facilities.

CSC currently provides funding to 10 Healing Lodges across Canada. It manages some of them, while others are managed by partner or community organizations. CSC finalized a Section 81 Strategic Action Plan which monitors progress. CSC is:

Call for Justice 14.3

Rescind the maximum-security classification that disproportionately limits federally sentenced Indigenous women classified at that level from accessing services, supports, and programs required to facilitate their safe and timely reintegration.

CSC is in the process of updating policies to define the objectives and steps required to obtain a lower security classification.

Call for Justice 14.4

Evaluate security classification scales and tools to consider the nuances of Indigenous backgrounds and realities.

Call for Justice 14.5

Apply Gladue factors in all decision making concerning Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQQIA people and in a manner that meets their needs and rehabilitation.

CSC is:

Call for Justice 14.6

Provide mental health, addictions, and trauma services for incarcerated Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQI+ people.

CSC works with National Indigenous organizations, federal departments and advisory bodies to help ensure the successful rehabilitation and community reintegration for Indigenous women. This includes:

Call for Justice 14.7

Prohibit transfer of federally incarcerated women in need of mental health care to all-male treatment centres.

One of CSC’s priorities is ensuring that individuals incarcerated in Canada's federal institutions have access to quality, safe, patient-centred care. CSC provides essential health care and reasonable access to non-essential health care to offenders in keeping with professional standards.

CSC policy ensures that:

In fall 2017, CSC enshrined in policy the requirement to use men’s Regional Treatment Centres (RTCs) for women only in emergency circumstances and only for short-term periods. Further, CSC requires that these placements only occur based on the recommendation of the treating physician and that services provided to any woman placed at a men’s RTC will be monitored by CSC’s Regional Person-Centred Health Committee for the duration of their stay. All efforts are made to minimize the number of transfers while attempting to keep individuals close to their home community.

Call for Justice 14.8

Ensure correctional facilities recognize the needs of Indigenous women when designing and implementing programming.

CSC is revising Indigenous programming to provide an immersive cultural environment for rehabilitation. Additionally, CSC has taken steps to ensure correctional programming considers Indigenous women's lived realities, including intergenerational trauma and culturally responsive healing practices and rehabilitation services. Families, survivors, and Indigenous communities benefit from this initiative by ensuring Indigenous women in the correctional system receive culturally safe and trauma-informed rehabilitation services. CSC is:

Removing barriers for Indigenous women to maintain familial bonds while incarcerated is important. CSC’s Audit of the Mother-Child Program Report has been published. Its implementation plan will be finalised in the fall of 2025, with a completion date of 2027. CSC will review its policies accordingly.

Call for Justice 14.9

Increase opportunities for meaningful vocational training, secondary school graduation, and post-secondary education.

CSC is:

Call for Justice 14.10

Increase and enhance the role and participation of Elders in decision making for all aspects of planning for Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

Elders, spiritual advisors and Elder's helpers guide Indigenous Peoples in federal corrections to traditional Indigenous ways of life, based on their own teachings. They work both individually and in groups using teachings, counselling, and traditional ceremonies and practices. CSC is reviewing and revitalizing policies and procedures related to Indigenous corrections in consultation with the National Elders Working Group (NEWG) to provide direction on the role of the Elders in cultural interventions. The NEWG met three times in the 2024 to 2025 fiscal year. This gave various groups opportunities to consult on:

CSC audits and evaluates important projects and seeks advice on research being conducted from the newly established Indigenous Research Advisory Circle.

In March 2024, CSC supported moving forward with regional and national discussions on how to implement an improved procurement model for Elder services. This includes:

Call for Justice 14.11

Expand Mother-Child programming and to establish placement options described in Sections 81 and 84 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to ensure that mothers and their children are not separated.

Removing barriers for Indigenous women to maintain familial bonds while incarcerated is important. CSC’s Audit of the Mother-Child Program Report has been published. Its implementation plan will be finalised in the fall of 2025, with a completion date of 2027. CSC will review its policies accordingly.

CSC is also broadening the Mother-Child Program, by broadening the definition of “mother” to be more culturally inclusive, and to reflect kinship bonds.

Call for Justice 14.12 

Provide programming for men and boys that confronts and ends violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

CSC provides programs and services that address offenders’ criminal behaviour. CSC offers these both in institutions and in the community. For more information: https://www.canada.ca/en/correctional-service/programs/offenders/programs.html

Call for Justice 14.13

Eliminate the practice of strip searches.

Strip searches are one of several approaches and tools that CSC uses to prevent the entry of contraband into institutions. CSC is:


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2025-09-29