A moral outrage

JUST as Adam Capay represents all that’s wrong with Canada’s prison and justice systems, David Orazietti, Ontario’s minister of correctional services, embodies the institutionalised failure of compassion that has brought us to this point.

Mr Capay is the young indigenous man who has been held without trial in solitary confinement for four years. And Mr Orazietti is the responsible government official who, when alerted to this barbarous state of affairs, refused to do anything about it.

The minister seemed unmoved that Mr Capay was kept in a cell bathed in 24-hour artificial light for 1 500 days, that these conditions seemed to be damaging his mental health, and that Mr Capay had been denied a trial in a reasonable amount of time. How did a case of human rights abuse by a Canadian state actor become so routine that when confronted a cabinet minister saw no reason to act?

In Mr Orazietti’s defence, it has taken years for Canada’s solitary confinement crisis to reach this nadir, and there are numerous causes for it. These include the “tough on crime” agenda of the previous Conservative federal government.

Mr Orazietti says he is waiting for a new review of solitary confinement in Ontario before he acts. The Trudeau government appears to be waiting for some unknown signal to begin implementing the reforms it promised when it came to power.

Mr Capay’s case is a cut-and-dried moral outrage. On Wednesday, Mr Capay was temporarily moved to a regular cell with lights that dim.

We’re happy for him, but his plight is not over. Until someone in Canada finally accepts responsibility for farcical abuses like this.