Summer 2025 Correctional Service Canada National Consultation Team Newsletter
Community region:
Community Mental Health (CMH) will pilot two discharge planner positions in the coming months as part of the CMH priorities review. Details for these positions are still forthcoming, but if your site has been identified for the project, you should hear about updates soon. The discharge planners will report to the community and become part of our CMH teams.
At the end of June 2025, a virtual Advisory Committee on Community Safety and Operations (ACCSO) meeting was held. The meeting was an opportunity for community staff to discuss the realities of community corrections as they pertain to staff safety and reintegration.
During the last meeting in February 2025, CMH members’ occupational health and safety concerns were discussed. Please do not hesitate to contact Melissa Wood, CSC NCT COMM Region Representative, to discuss any concerns at your site. You can also contact another member of your National Consultation Team to discuss.
Melissa Wood, CSC NCT COMM Region Representative
BC-Yukon region:
24/7 Healthcare operations began in Kent Max and FVI women’s in April of this year. They seem to be running smoothly, and we have not heard any concerns yet from the staff. Of course, the removal of portfolios and M-F staff are concerning as they assimilate into the front-line rosters. We will see how the assessment this October goes and what our RDC and RD intentions will be.
Mental health:
A new mandatory training module was recently launched at RTC/PI. The 98-page workbook is titled “Suicide and Self Injury Needs Classification, Assessment and Intervention Planning Training”. This is concerning. A 2-hour training and work workbook is not sufficient to make all HC staff Mental Health specialists.
Compensation and overtime:
The 75-hour cap on compensation time has put a significant strain on vacancy lines and filling shifts. Staff have not been picking up overtime (OT) shifts as there is no incentive for them if they can’t compensate the time. This leaves members below their minimum numbers on their units, as management tends not to fill these gaps. This also creates unsafe environments for staff and their clientele.
National has promised Pharmacy that they will provide and approve OT for their staff as they train and switch to a new medication project named KROLL. We will see how this unfolds.
Discrimination and harassment
PIPSC is addressing staff concerns about discrimination, especially against minority women. PIPSC EROs have been working diligently with the members and OCIR. We are still hearing concerns about bullying, harassment, and staff leaving CSC.
Retention and recruitment have been very difficult. With the current work environment, negative culture, and a gap in pay from the province, there is no incentive for individuals to join CSC.
Palliative Program:
Due to many recent adverse incidents, management, frontline, and physicians are working collaboratively to improve the process of palliative care to a comparable level to community standards.
Stephan Deo, CSC NCT PAC/Yukon Region Representative
Prairie region:
The PIPSC Prairies Consultation Team has been busy meeting with members and management over the past few months.
Consultation representatives traveled to several sites in Alberta in late February including Edmonton Institution, EIFW, Edmonton Parole, Bowden, Drumheller, and Calgary Parole. In June, Consultation representatives traveled to sites in the Winnipeg area including Stony Mountain Min/Med/Max and Winnipeg Parole.
At all of the sites, we made an effort to connect with PIPSC members and management. We discussed workplace issues, local consultation, and encouraged members to consider stewardship.We have followed up on these issues and will continue to discuss until resolution.
Consultation meetings and staff:
Regional Labour/Management Consultation Committee meetings were held in March and June. A National Labour/Management Consultation Committee meeting was held in May.
Your current consultation team members include: Rob Scott, IT, Saskatoon, Rachel Boyko, Nurse, RPC, Michael (Todd) Ryan, IT, Edmonton, Alexandra Foran, Nurse, SaskPen, and Melissa Wood, Social Worker, Edmonton Area Parole.
If you have any issues that you would like to raise through regional consultation, please contact a member of the team.
Rob Scott, CSC NCT PRA Region representative
Ontario-Nunavut region:
Since the last update, I have been in Kingston and Ottawa, meeting with members and management for both formal and informal consultation. I have spoken to many of you via phone, email and video. You have made your message clear to me and I have heard you.
During our bilateral meetings, and our Management Committee meeting in Kingston and Ottawa, I delivered a consistent message, informed by engagement with you, our members in Ontario. Our membership has faced an unprecedented attack on our collective rights in the past few months. This conduct is inconsistent with the employer's voiced commitments to work-life balance, health and well-being. I have heard the impacts from many of you.
The message has been directly delivered to management at NHQ and RHQ, in no uncertain terms. We must remain vigilant to demand better for all our members and enforce the rights afforded to us by our collective agreements.
Join me in solidarity
I know you are angry and tired; I hear that each time I visit a site or take a call from you. That said, the employer has been unwilling to reconsider many of these serious and deliberate practices and policies that have been imposed. They have continued to wantonly deny compressed work week requests and have continued to engage in disrespectful, often aggressive ways. We deserve better.
I hope you will all join me in solidarity to take up our fight. It is time we made it clear to the employer: we cannot take any more. Respect our collective agreement. Respect our members. Prove that their commitments are more than words.
I will continue to engage with you, including bringing management to sites to see and hear firsthand the human impact their choices have caused. I end with the timeless words of Ralph Chaplin, that I hope you will view as a call to action:
"Without our brain and muscle, not a single wheel can turn. We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn, That the union makes us strong."
In solidarity,
Adrian Smith, CSC NCT ONT/Nunavut Region Representative
Quebec region
Since April 4, 2025, I have replaced Florcy Lavaud as the new president of regional consultation.
Due to the short staffing during the changeover, we had to cancel our May regional consultation, but we kept our bilateral meetings together.
Since I took this new commitment, we have resolved some issues. We discussed problems with some members not receiving employer communication. For example, the mental health sector was not receiving emails such as competitions or other important messages. This issue was resolved.
Going forward, I will continue to address the:
- sites with 24/7 nursing and all issues surrounding it
- professional licensing timeline payback from our CA in a reasonable timeframe
- work climate in Donnacona.
- uniform issues (recently resolved but needs more clarification within the HUB)
- challenges about the new system PSI, and daily workload
Eric Massey, CSC NCT QUE Region Representative
Atlantic region
We have been active in our region, holding RLMCs every four months and regular meetings with local managers. We continue to engage IT members, but we haven’t been successful in recruiting stewards.
Twenty-four-hour nursing coverage has started in 2 institutions with ongoing staffing challenges. Many nurses are performing overtime throughout the summer to allow colleagues to have vacation. Management has been encouraged to focus not only on recruitment but on retention as well.
Four new stewards in the region have helped increase communication and involvement. Our first community steward in a while also helps link community issues.
Priority issues:
We continue to pursue the provision of protective outerwear for healthcare staff who must deliver services to units outside of their department, many times a day, in all weather conditions. CSC does not seem interested in supporting this.
Grievances have been filed over the Health Services directive on only allowing a 2-week based compressed work week. Consultations regionally and nationally were not successful in changing this direction.
We have been involved in OICR regionally to brainstorm ways to decrease bullying and harassment in the workplace and increase awareness of the support available. Moving forward, we will continue to work towards a more collaborative approach with management and hope to see some movement on issues.
Susan Beaton, CSC NCT ATL Region representative