Facts:
The Applicant, a public interest organization, sought judicial review regarding the Correctional Service of Canada’s (“CSC”) operation of the Edmonton Institution for Women. The Applicant argued that CSC breached its legal obligations by failing to address extreme indoor temperatures in the maximum-security unit. The evidence showed that the temperatures in inmate-occupied areas of the unit reached excessively high temperatures during certain times of the year, causing negative impacts on inmates. CSC had been aware of these issues, resulting from design problems with the temperature regulation system, for over a decade.
The Applicant argued that CSC’s actions violated s. 70 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act,1 which requires CSC to “take all reasonable steps to ensure that penitentiaries, the penitentiary environment, the living and working conditions of inmates and the working conditions of staff members are safe, healthful and free of practices that undermine a person’s sense of personal dignity”.
Decision:
Applicant granted; mandamus order granted (Conroy J.).
The Respondent argued that the Court should dismiss the application because of an adequate alternative remedy. In particular, it argued that inmates should exhaust the complaint and grievance process under the CCRA and its regulations before seeking judicial review. The Respondent pointed out that the courts have frequently dismissed judicial review applications from inmates that have failed to exhaust the grievance process. The Court rejected this argument.
The Court accepted that the grievance process was an adequate alternative to manage excessively low temperatures in the unit. CSC generally addresses such complaints in a timely way since staff have access to equipment to raise the temperatures when it is too cold.
The same is not true for complaints about excessive heat. That is because the excessive heat is generally a structural problem with the building, not particular decisions of staff members. The Court distinguished other inmate grievance cases due to the “institutional nature” of the concern with excessive heat. According to the Court, the grievance process is fundamentally ill-equipped to address institutional or infrastructure issues like inadequate climate control equipment. As a result, the statutory grievance process is not an adequate alternative to judicial review.
On the substantive legal issue, the Court concluded that CSC breached its legal obligations under s. 70 of the CCRA. This section required it to take “all reasonable steps” to ensure safe conditions for inmates. Once CSC knew that the living conditions could be unsafe or unhealthy, and that existing mitigation measures were insufficient, it had a duty to take additional reasonable steps. In particular, the Court identified two additional “reasonable steps” that CSC should have taken: maintain a written temperature log and seek approval to install A/C in the cells. While the CCRA did not necessarily require CSC to install A/C units, it did require CSC to “give serious and meaningful consideration to installing A/C in the inmate-occupied areas”.
On the remedy, the Court declined to provide declaratory relief, finding that it would serve no practical utility as it would not provide additional clarity and would lead to further litigation regarding compliance with the court’s order. Instead, the Court granted a mandamus order, requiring CSC to maintain a temperature log and seek authorization from CSC National Headquarters to install A/C units. The Court concluded that mandamus was available because CSC had a public legal duty to take all reasonable steps, and the court identified these two measures as additional available legal steps. However, because a mandamus order cannot direct CSC on how to exercise its discretion, the Court refused to order CSC to actually install A/C in the cells.
Commentary:
The Court’s decision here directs parties to carefully scrutinize claims of adequate alternative remedies. Indeed, the Court here parsed out the utility of different complaints under the statutory inmate grievance process, finding that the process is an adequate alternative for complaints about excessive cold but not for complaints about excessive heat. The difference to the Court revolved around the fact that complaints about cold are generally particular and CSC staff can address them through individual actions. However, complaints about heat are more structural and cannot be addressed by individual staff. Because the complaint process is ill-suited to structural or institutional issues, it is not an adequate alternative remedy to judicial review. Accordingly, parties should be wary of characterizing a potential alternative remedy in too broad terms. Instead, they should carefully consider the nature of the issue being raised on judicial review. If the issue is more institutional, it may be that an individualized complaint process is inadequate.
The Court’s determination on the appropriate remedy here raises interesting questions. The Court’s brief reasons rejecting declaratory relief are difficult to understand. The Court held that declaratory relief would not serve any utility because it would not provide additional clarity. Presumably, this is because the Court’s reasons already explain the legal conclusion. However, declaratory relief is never meant to provide additional clarity beyond the court’s reasons, it is meant to capture the court’s determination on the legal issues. In our constitutional structure, there is important value to a declaration from the courts that the executive has acted unlawfully, not least of which because we assume that the government will take seriously and abide by court declarations.2
Finally, the Court’s remedy is notable here for providing a mandamus order with respect to an obligation to take “all reasonable steps”. The qualification of reasonableness in the statute here seems to imply a certain level of maneuverability for CSC on what steps are “reasonable”. Nonetheless, the Court gets around any concerns here because it already identified certain specific steps that it concluded were reasonable and CSC was required to take. That being said, there are real questions about the utility of the Court’s order for CSC to request authorization from another department within CSC to install A/C units, while specifically declining to order CSC to actually install such units. Can CSC just decline to provide the requested authorization? Even if CSC headquarters grants the authorization, can the institution then simply choose not to install them anyway? In either of these scenarios, further litigation is a real possibility to challenge such decisions. Such future challenges would likely have to take the form of new judicial review applications challenging the reasonableness of the decisions, rather than a claim that CSC failed to abide by the mandamus order.
- S.C. 1992, c. 20 (“CCRA“). ↩︎
- See: Assiniboine v. Meeches, 2013 FCA 114, at para. 14; Newfoundland and Labrador (Attorney General) v. Uashaunnuat (Innu of Uashat and of Mani‑Utenam), 2020 SCC 4, at para. 248 (per Brown and Rowe JJ., dissenting but not on this point). ↩︎