Prisoners can watch porn on TV

OTTAWA A Federal Court judge has quashed a decision by the Correctional Service of Canada to cut off two cable channels that broadcast late- night pornography to inmates at Archambault Institution, a federal penitentiary north of Montreal.

Haris Naraine, a 46- year- old Archambault inmate, filed a grievance in 2013 after prison authorities cancelled the two channels, included in a local cable package purchased by a group of inmates. The inmates accessed the sexually explicit programs in their cells on closed circuit channels, typically after 11 p. m.

In an affidavit, Naraine said he had viewed sexually explicit content at Archambault, which houses minimum- and medium- security inmates, and two other institutions for at least seven years without incidents or complaints from correctional officers.

Naraine’s grievance was denied by CSC’s acting senior deputy commissioner in 2014. But in a judgment dated July 30, Federal Court Justice Jocelyn Gagné overturned that decision and sent the matter back for a new determination by a different commissioner at CSC.

The role of the court, Gagné said, was “not to determine whether or not inmates in CSC’s institutions should have access to sexually explicit television programs, but rather to assess the legality of the commissioner’s decision.”

Ottawa lawyer Todd Sloan, who represented Naraine at the Federal Court hearing, argued that CSC’s decision to ban the channels violated his client’s constitutional rights.

Federal lawyers conceded that the ban did limit freedom of expression but argued the commissioner’s decision struck a “proportionate balance” between the Charter guarantee and the statutory objectives of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

But Gagné said it was impossible for the court to assess whether the ban had a disproportionate impact on freedom of expression “as no real balancing exercise was conducted by the commissioner.”

Sloan, a former general counsel to the correctional investigator of Canada, said Friday it was clear the court had “determined that the issue of freedom of expression can’t be restricted without justifiable, demonstrable reasons for doing so.”

In an emailed statement Friday, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said the Conservative government was disappointed by the court’s decision.

“Our position is clear — we do not believe that inmates should have access to pornographic material,” Blaney said. “We will explore all avenues to correct this unacceptable situation.”

Our position is clear — we do not believe that inmates should have access to pornographic material. STEVEN BLANEY, Public Safety Minister