A BC coroner’s inquest into the 2021 death of Kendal Campeau, a 31-year-old member of Yellow Quill First Nation who died in a federal prison in Abbotsford, was scheduled to begin Sept. 28 at the Burnaby Coroners’ Court, and Indigenous organizations are using it to press Ottawa for changes to how Canada jails First Nations people.
According to the BC Coroners Service, Campeau died on Nov. 14, 2021, at Pacific Institution in Abbotsford. The service says the cause of death was a methadone overdose. He was three years into a seven-year sentence for offences including assault, escape from lawful custody, possession of banned substances for the purpose of trafficking, and robbery. Originally from Saskatchewan, he had been moved to Pacific Institution after being assaulted at another prison in 2019. He was found unresponsive in his cell, taken to a local hospital, and returned to the prison, where he died the same day, the coroners service said.
The service holds inquests when a death may have resulted from a dangerous practice or could lead to similar deaths without further intervention. A coroner’s jury can make recommendations, but those recommendations are not binding on Correctional Service Canada (CSC).
On Sept. 28, the BC First Nations Justice Council, the BC Assembly of First Nations, the First Nations Summit, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and Prisoners’ Legal Services issued a joint statement calling for action to end deaths of Indigenous people in custody. Their demands include redirecting resources from prisons to Indigenous governments and communities, immediate reforms to solitary confinement conditions in line with what advocates call “Tona’s Law,” full implementation of the BC and national First Nations justice strategies, and changes to CSC’s restrictions on opioid agonist treatment.
Ashley Fontaine, Campeau’s sister, said in the statement: “Kendal was a son, a brother, a friend to many. All he ever wanted was one Christmas with the whole family.” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, said the inquest “illustrates the critical need for emergency interventions.” Regional Chief Terry Teegee of the BC Assembly of First Nations said the case shows it is “past time for Canada to fully implement” the justice strategies. Hugh Braker of the First Nations Summit said “more security, surveillance and restrictions are not the answer.”
The groups say Indigenous people make up roughly one-third of Canada’s federal prison population. That lines up with figures from the federal Office of the Correctional Investigator, which said in January 2020 that Indigenous people had passed 30 per cent of federal inmates while making up about five per cent of the general population. Then correctional investigator Ivan Zinger called the trend “nothing short of a national travesty.” The office also reported that Indigenous women accounted for 42 per cent of the federal female inmate population at that time. Those numbers are several years old, so readers should treat them as a baseline and not a current count.
The concern about isolation is backed by newer reporting. An investigation published Sept. 26 by the University of Toronto’s Investigative Journalism Bureau, written by Anna Mehler Paperny, found that use of “observation cells” in federal prisons rose 53 per cent between 2018 and 2024, from 859 cases to 1,316. Placements of Indigenous men in those cells more than doubled over the same period, from 284 to 674, while placements of white men rose about 5.6 per cent, from 376 to 397, according to the bureau’s analysis. Canada does not formally label these cells as solitary confinement, but the investigation argued their use meets the United Nations’ Mandela Rules definition of 22 or more hours a day without meaningful human contact. Howard Sapers, a former correctional investigator, told the bureau such facilities operate “off the books.”
Campeau’s case also raises a question the public record has not yet answered: how a person in federal custody came to have access to a lethal quantity of methadone, and what treatment he was or was not receiving. The advocates’ demand for changes to CSC’s opioid agonist treatment rules suggests they see access to prescribed treatment as part of the answer, but the inquest evidence will be what shows whether that was a factor here.
Another inquest is also on the horizon. CTV News Winnipeg reported on Sept. 23 that an inquest is set for next month into the 2023 death of Elias Whitehead, a 37-year-old Indigenous man who died in Winnipeg police custody after being punched by officers nearly two dozen times, according to CTV. That inquest will examine what, if anything, could have been done to prevent his death.
For young Canadians who want to understand what reconciliation looks like in practice, these hearings are a test. Whether jury recommendations turn into policy change will depend on whether Correctional Service Canada and federal ministers act on them. CSC had not publicly responded to the groups’ statement in the material reviewed for this report.
Via BC Coroners Service (reported by Abbotsford News) and a joint statement distributed by GlobeNewswire. Original: Abbotsford News.
