Questions raised over conditions inside Kitchener prison

A van carrying jurors from the Ashley Smith inquest arrives at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ont., on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013. (Colin Perkel / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Kitchener’s Grand Valley Institution for Women has been making headlines recently for the in-custody death of Ashley Smith in 2007.

But aside from the details pertinent to Smith’s death released at a public inquiry, little is known about what actually goes on inside the ominous-looking building on Homer Watson Boulevard.

“What happened to Ashley Smith is horrific, but it’s not as unusual as people would like to think,” says Ann Hansen, a former inmate.

Opened in 1997 as one of five facilities designed to replace the Kingston Prison for Women, Grand Valley was – and still is – the largest women’s prison in Canada.

It was originally designed to be different from its predecessor up the 401.

In the Kingston prison’s 66-year history, it was subject to 13 commissions and inquiries relating to its treatment of prisoners – a legacy Grand Valley was determined to avoid.

Rev. Con O’Mahony was at the prison the day it opened, a day he recalls as hopeful and reflective.

As both a volunteer chaplain and the man tasked with hiring the prison’s full-time chaplain, O’Mahony has made many return trips to the prison, and now says the hope and reflection have long since dissipated.

“Most residents of Kitchener-Waterloo, if they saw the current housing conditions in the institution, would be horrified,” he says.

Overcrowding is an issue broached repeatedly by those who have been inside the prison, either visiting one of the approximately 200 women housed there or behind bars themselves.

One of those women is Ann Hansen, who was sentenced to life in prison for her role in the “Squamish Five”, a group of B.C. activists who were responsible for multiple Canadian bombings in the 1980s.

She spent eight years at the Kingston Prison for Women, otherwise known as P4W, before being released on parole.

Parole breaches led her to two stints in Grand Valley, where she says the biggest difference was the Kitchener facility’s maximum security unit – something that had never been part of the Kingston prison.

“When you have a maximum security unit, it ends up that you have all the people who have sort of emotional and mental health issues also in the max security unit,” she tells CTV.

“Every pod you’ve got, out of five people, maybe two of them have very extreme emotional and mental health issues and aren’t really being treated.”

The warden of Grand Valley Institution for Women, which is run on an annual budget of $30 million of taxpayer money, refused repeated requests to allow CTV cameras inside the prison and to answer questions on camera.

Abigail Bimman’s five-part investigation into Grand Valley Institution for Women is airing this week on CTV News.