The idea that a fully functional male convicted of rape, sexual assault or even murder might declare himself a woman and on that basis be allowed to serve his prison term in a women’s gaol seems, at first sight, ludicrous.That’s because it is.And for this stupid — not to mention dangerous, cruel, and misogynistic — piece of legislation, lawyer Christopher Fleury, tonight’s guest on Hannaford, holds former prime minister Justin Trudeau to be primarily responsible..“Bill C-16 was passed in 2017 by the federal government under Justin Trudeau and his cabinet. Prior to that, Mr. Trudeau was asked directly about the transfer of men into women's prisons. And immediately prior to the changing of the directive, he said this was something they were considering. So, it certainly seems to go right to the top, in terms of Justin Trudeau and his federal cabinet.”In other words, Mr. Trudeau once more saw with penetrating insight what 99.99% of Canadians are still too thick to understand: that putting violent, dangerous men, who — not having had sex-change surgery — still self-identified as women, into a women’s gaol was really only fair and proper — and changed the law. As a result, for some years now men, often convicted of crimes of extreme violence including rape, have been routinely incarcerated with women, often with sorry consequences. Fleury says that for women inmates, it amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment.”.Hannaford: “Surely, even our corrections system wouldn’t actually have men and women sharing cells and facilities. How are things organized in the prisons to keep the obvious from happening?”Fleury: “The short answer is that it varies. As with male institutions, a female institution will have different security designations, so you'll have a minimum, a medium, and a maximum security. In the maximum security, you will get individual cells. In some cases, trans persons are housed there. But there are community living units within the female institution. Those do involve sharing what are essentially like cottages and being in a community living situation, if I can call it that, sharing kitchens and bathrooms and this sort of thing with the inmates.”Hannaford: “I hope you're going to tell me that those community living facilities are not available to somebody who’s claiming to be a woman but has actually been convicted of raping women?”Fleury: “There's nothing precluding them from being housed in there. And we have certainly heard from inmates to confirm that they are being housed in that sort of situation.”Hannaford: “How are things working out?”Fleury: “The stories have been awful… physical assaults, sexual assaults, harassment, abuse, certainly psychological impacts on the part of the women… You can imagine the impact on someone who has been the victim of a physical or sexual assault, then being confined in close quarters with essentially a man.”.The vast majority of women in gaol are, in addition to being convicted of a criminal offence, also themselves “disproportionately likely to have been the victim of physical or sexual violence at the hands of men,” says Fleury.How the self-professed feminist prime minister Trudeau ever conceived that putting biological males convicted of violent offences into a women’s gaol was smart, justifiable or just plain just, must remain one of the many unanswerables about his reign of error.The case has been brought by women’s advocacy group caWsbar and is being conducted by Charter Advocates, with whom Mr. Fleury is associated. The court action is being funded by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.Hannaford airs at seven o’clock, MT.
