Proposed class-action lawsuit targets Ottawa over prison practice set to become illegal

A proposed class-action lawsuit recently filed in Nova Scotia could see some former inmates seeking compensation for a prison practice that's been performed on federal prisoners for years, but which will soon be illegal in Canada. 

The practice is called "dry celling." It is a type of confinement that critics have described as more restrictive and less regulated than solitary confinement. Dry cells are used when guards suspect an inmate of having swallowed contraband or hidden it in a body cavity.

"It was humiliating. It was degrading," said Macquel Weatherbee, one of the lead plaintiffs in the suit filed Wednesday, about her experience. 

"You don't feel like a human."

There is no running water or places with privacy in the dry cell and the lights are always on. Inmates are watched by guards through a window and monitored by security cameras, even while using a toilet that doesn't flush. The expectation is that the prisoner will expel the contraband in their waste. 

Two Correctional Investigators of Canada have called for the practice to be limited to a maximum of 72 hours.

And in a groundbreaking court case last year, former inmate Lisa Adams and her lawyers successfully argued if the practice is used to find contraband in a vagina, that discriminates against women and people with vaginas as they may be detained longer. 

Following the decision in the Adams case, Weatherbee and another plaintiff from Nova Scotia came forward to co-lead a class action for damages. 

Weatherbee said that in 2017 she was an inmate at Nova Institution for Women in Truro, N.S., when guards placed her in a dry cell on suspicion she had pills in her vagina. She said she had hidden cigarettes there for her own use and as a tool to negotiate with other inmates. 

Weatherbee was placed in the dry cell under 24/7 observation.

"You don't know what time it is. You feel like an animal in a cage. You don't have anything," she said. 

At the end of five days, Weatherbee said she admitted to the institution's warden that she had cigarettes. Two female guards took her to a shower, watched her strip and instructed her to take out the package. 

"They asked me to lay on my back and spread my legs," Weatherbee said. "I wouldn't do it. I said no."

"Even though, yes, we were in prison for crimes we committed, humans still do not deserve to be treated like that. Prison is supposed to be about rehabilitation, and there's no way a person can rehabilitate from that."