CSC Wants to Reassure Me. Then Show Me the Prisoner Compartment.

Nearly four months after I began asking how Correctional Service Canada protects pregnant prisoners during transportation, I have received another statement about safety, dignity and policy.

I have also received a clear admission: older CSC transport vehicles without prisoner seatbelts remain in service.

That deserves more attention than the reassuring language around it.

On September 18, 2026, CSC media relations manager Kevin Antonucci sent me the organization’s response to questions I submitted on August 31. It contains useful information. It also leaves a considerable distance between an assurance that safety matters and evidence showing how a person is protected.

My request is straightforward: show the prisoner compartments, explain the design, and provide the evidence supporting their safety.

Months of process, basic questions still unresolved

I submitted my first access-to-information request on May 22. It specifically raised seatbelts, passenger safety systems, collision prevention and the transportation of pregnant incarcerated people.

On May 26, CSC proposed narrowing the request to policies and Commissioner’s Directives to facilitate an efficient search and timely processing. I agreed. That matters: this was a narrowed policy request, not a demand for every engineering record CSC possessed. CSC’s subsequent letters recorded June 1 as its receipt date for the request.

On June 29, CSC sent a notice taking another 30 days to respond. On August 11, I was told the file was in the final stage of review and should not take much longer. On August 20, CSC could no longer give me a confirmed release date.

The disclosure arrived on August 31, more than three months after my original submission.

In my response that day, I explained that I could not identify the policy answers I was seeking about seatbelts, collision safety and protection for pregnant passengers. I questioned the duplicate and non-responsive material and the reliance on publicly available directives. CSC’s covering letter also confirmed that records or portions had been withheld under paragraph 21(1)(b) of the Access to Information Act.

The problem was not that no documents arrived. The problem was that the documents did not resolve the safety questions that prompted the request.

I pursued complaints and separate requests for the underlying vehicle, design and safety records.

On September 2, acting ATIP deputy director Daryl Hurov offered to help scope a new request, waive the processing fee and give it priority if I dropped my complaint and another request. He also explained that the office was overwhelmed, that staffing issues had affected my file and that records sometimes arrived late from other sectors. I declined the conditional proposal.

I understand that an understaffed access office faces real constraints. I still found it troubling to be offered priority assistance on condition that I abandon an existing complaint and request.

There have also been constructive exchanges. On September 11, acting deputy director James Merhej set out my outstanding research questions in detail and proposed consolidation and a discussion involving technical staff. Those efforts deserve acknowledgment. They have not yet supplied the evidence at issue here.

What CSC now says

The September 18 response confirms several important points:

• CSC’s fleet includes different vehicle configurations, with either forward-facing or side-facing seating and differing seatbelt availability.
• Since 2024, newly acquired security escort vehicles must have a non-retractable, two-point lap belt with a lift-latch buckle.
• Older vehicles originally supplied without seatbelts continue operating in that configuration until replacement.
• CSC says a contract for 60 additional vehicles will complete fleet replacement by fiscal year 2027–28.
• Standard passenger vehicles may be used for pregnant individuals where appropriate and feasible following an individual assessment. There is no national procedure prescribing a particular vehicle type solely because a person is pregnant.

These are answers. They also establish that a replacement program is not the same thing as protection for everyone travelling today.

CSC describes transportation decisions as taking account of security, health, individual circumstances, operational considerations and available resources. What the response does not establish is a minimum level of collision protection guaranteed to every pregnant passenger, regardless of which vehicle happens to be available.

The statement also says:

“The applicable Commissioner’s Directives governing escort-related matters have been shared with you via ATIP.”

I know. I received them.

What I still need is the connection between those directives and the physical protection of the person sitting in the back. Which provision determines the seat, the belt and the alternative when the available vehicle cannot provide suitable protection?

A policy citation does not show what happens to a passenger in a collision.

Three OCI reports, more than a seatbelt question

The Office of the Correctional Investigator has already explained why this deserves scrutiny.

In its 2016–2017 annual report, the OCI described a cramped metal compartment without seatbelts. It said the modified minivans it examined had not been designed or crash-tested with a metal compartment of that size. Those were findings about the vehicles examined then, not proof of the testing history of every vehicle CSC operates now.

In 2019–2020, the OCI reported that a replacement prototype still lacked prisoner seatbelts, despite their being supplied by the manufacturer. CSC cited possible weapon use, self-injury and risks to staff fastening or releasing belts; the OCI said it had not received supporting incident documentation. It recommended appropriate safety equipment, including handholds and seatbelts, and inspection of any prototype by Transport Canada before production and service.

In 2021–2022, the OCI again criticized the cramped, hard interior and the absence of two-way audio or an emergency call button in the design it examined. It called for safety and restraint features in all escort vehicles, including those already operating, without further delay. It also called for CSC to reconsider its modernization design.

CSC’s response in that report described improvements including video monitoring and heating and cooling, and said it would seek official confirmation of compliance from Transport Canada.

My question in 2026 is therefore specific: which of those concerns have been resolved, in which vehicles, and what evidence demonstrates it?

The OCI’s concern extended to the passenger environment itself. A belt procurement specification does not answer that whole concern.

Show the evidence behind “safe”

CSC’s latest statement says vehicle configurations were developed by “Transport Canada-certified engineering firms” and meet applicable safety standards.

It does not identify the firms, the certification involved, the standards applied to each prisoner seating position, or the test results and engineering assessments supporting that assurance.

Naming a certified firm is not the same as providing the evidence for a finished vehicle configuration.

As I argued in A Seatbelt Does Not Make a Cage Safe, my concern is the protection provided by the entire occupied compartment. I want to know how the seat, belt, anchorages and surrounding structure work together, including when the occupant is seated sideways or wearing security restraints.

I am not claiming that every current CSC vehicle lacks testing. I am saying CSC has not supplied the evidence I need to evaluate its assurance.

If the evidence consists of crash tests, identify the configurations tested and provide the results. If it consists of component tests, calculations or other engineering assessments, say what was evaluated and what those methods establish. Explain any limitations.

That would be more reassuring than another declaration of commitment.

Why is the metal compartment necessary?

There is a question before all of this: why choose this form of confinement in the first place?

Havis, a manufacturer that sells prisoner transport inserts, also markets passenger-van partitions, including its P-MID-2 for the Ford Transit. The product photographs show an approach that separates occupants within a conventional passenger interior.

A catalogue photograph cannot prove that a conversion preserves every original safety feature, passes every relevant test or suits every security situation. It does establish that the enclosed metal insert is not the only design approach available for consideration.

Has CSC compared these alternatives? Could a configuration retaining manufacturer-installed passenger seating and restraints, with appropriate partitions, meet the assessed needs of some prisoners?

CSC’s own acknowledgment that standard passenger vehicles may be used for pregnant individuals makes that question particularly relevant.

Pregnancy does not tell us everything about a person’s security risk. Neither should incarceration alone settle what transport environment is necessary.

If CSC concludes that a full metal compartment is required in a particular situation, explain the risk being addressed and why a less restrictive design cannot manage it. Show how the chosen arrangement protects both staff and the person being transported.

“Security” should begin that explanation, not end it.

Dignity must reach the back of the vehicle

My concern extends beyond collisions.

Can a passenger reliably call for help? Can staff hear them? How are ventilation and temperature maintained and monitored? What happens when someone panics, becomes ill or cannot tolerate the confined space?

These are questions about actual equipment and operating procedures. They deserve concrete answers.

There is also the experience of being placed inside a bare metal enclosure. To me, the cage-like appearance communicates that containment has displaced concern for the person. That is a moral judgment, not a crash-test result. It is part of why I am pursuing this issue.

Respect for Indigenous people, LGBTQ+ people, pregnant women and everyone else in custody has to extend to the physical conditions in which they travel. Human dignity should be visible in the design.

I want a transport system whose starting point is a human passenger who must remain secure and protected.

Show us

Québec’s response to my separate request was disturbing: it explicitly confirmed that identified transport vehicles have no seatbelts or other occupant-restraint systems and can be used for pregnant women. It also supplied photographs. Some information was withheld, but I could at least see the compartments and understand that basic fact.

On September 18, after receiving CSC’s statement, I asked for photographs of its prisoner compartments, including seats, orientation, belts and surrounding surfaces. I also asked for supporting safety information and precise policy references. That follow-up is new; I am not presenting the absence of an immediate reply as a refusal.

CSC can provide a clear photographic or video walkthrough of the passenger environment, with genuinely sensitive security details obscured where necessary. Then it can explain what protects the occupant and how the design responds to the OCI’s concerns.

I will publish substantive answers and correct the record when the evidence warrants it.

Until then, I will continue seeking records, asking questions and advocating for humane transportation. A replacement timetable and reassuring language do not close this issue.

Show the compartment. Show the protection. Explain why this degree of confinement is necessary.

Reporting note: This article draws on my CSC correspondence and access request A-2026-50061, CSC’s September 18, 2026 media statement, Québec’s September 2 response to request 2026-12972, and the public sources linked above. The correspondence describes CSC’s position; outstanding questions and judgments are identified as mine.