Woman serving life sentenced to additional year for confining prison guards in N.S.

The Nova Institution for Women is seen in Truro, N.S., on Tuesday, May 6, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

HALIFAX — A Cree woman serving a life sentence in Nova Scotia was given an additional 12 months for unlawfully confining two prison guards, in a decision acknowledging possible mistreatment by the court system.

Serena Tobaccojuice, who is one of Canada’s longest serving female inmates, has been incarcerated for over 25 years. She was formerly known as Serena Nicotine.

Her lawyer, Jeremiah Raining Bird, asked for a complete discharge on the basis her traumatic history and Indigenous identity have never before been considered by the courts.

Tobaccojuice was 15 when she killed a group home operator in North Battleford, Sask., in 1997. Two years later, she was sentenced as an adult to life in prison.

Last November, she pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful confinement for an incident at the Nova Institution for Women in 2022.

Raining Bird said Tobaccojuice was disappointed by the sentence, delivered by Judge Ian Hutchison in Truro provincial court, as it further delays her eligibility to apply for day parole.

“As was noted by the court, she was making progress and is continuing to make progress,” Raining Bird said in an interview after the sentencing.

“I think once she has had time to process this, I think she’s going to keep making progress.”

The judge said the term would have been 15 months, but he found the sentencing that took nearly a year violated her right to a trial within a reasonable time frame, so it was reduced by three months.

Raining Bird said Tobaccojuice was seeking medical help from staff when she bent a pair of tweezers into a point and used them to prevent two guards from leaving a unit.

He said she then turned the weapon on herself, before guards pepper-sprayed her and handcuffed her less than 20 minutes later.

Tobaccojuice has previously been convicted multiple times for hostage takings behind bars.

In 2000, she held a nurse hostage at knifepoint at the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon. Later that year, she held a prison guard captive, burning her face with a cigarette and setting her hair on fire.

Raining Bird said it’s worrying that this is the first time the courts have had access to a Gladue report about Tobaccojuice before sentencing. A Gladue report outlines the background and experiences of an Indigenous offender and can be submitted as part of sentencing arguments.

Hutchison said there are “concerns as to the length of the jail sentences previously imposed, given the absence of the Gladue report.”

“The court is left wondering if the length of sentences imposed would have been less, if a Gladue report had been available to the sentence and judges.”

In his oral decision, the judge referred to a letter by Canadian Senator Kim Pate that was submitted by the defence.

The letter says for eight years in prison Tobaccojuice “was isolated in extreme conditions without services, programs or even basic clothing.”

“She was also frequently subjected to chemical and physical restraint, illegal and involuntary treatment and transfers across the country,” Pate says in the letter.

Crown lawyer Andy Melvin said he respects the judge’s decision in a challenging case.

“It must have been difficult for the judge to balance the competing interests, and certainly one of those ΓǪ was the Gladue factors and how to sentence Tobaccojuice properly as an Indigenous offender.”

Melvin said another factor was considering deterrence, and how that might impact people who are in or working in correctional institutions.

“Having people know that if you do something like that in a correctional institution, there will be consequences for it, which is extremely important for the protection of the public and of inmates and the protection of staff,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 19, 2025.

By Lyndsay Armstrong