UPDATE - Federal Court Finds Heat in Edmonton Prison's Secure Unit and SIU “Excessive,” Orders Air Conditioning remedy

OTTAWA, Ontario, July 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On July 16, 2026, the Federal Court released its Reasons and Judgment in an Application brought by the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS) on behalf of incarcerated people challenging the conditions of confinement in the Secure Unit (“Secure”) and Structured Intervention Unit (“SIU”) at the Edmonton Institution for Women (“EIFW”). CAEFS argued the Application a year earlier, on June 11, 2025, before the Honourable Madam Justice Conroy.

At issue was the extreme heat in areas of Secure and the SIU occupied by incarcerated people. Drawing on an extensive evidentiary record built by CAEFS, the Court accepted CAEFS’ evidence and found that the heat in these units was “excessive” and “potentially unsafe and unhealthy” — conditions the Correctional Service of Canada (“CSC”) has known about since at least 2012.

“CAEFS is heartened by the Court’s validation of what both incarcerated people at EIFW and CAEFS have been telling CSC for years, to no avail,” said Emilie Coyle, Co-Executive Director of CAEFS.

The Court also found that CSC’s failure to take temperature logs was a “significant oversight and unreasonable,” particularly given that the “health and safety of human beings” was at stake. In doing so, the Court affirmed the vulnerability of incarcerated people, recognizing their inherent right to be treated with respect and dignity — a right made all the more precarious by their status as incarcerated people.

As a result of CAEFS’ Application, the Court ordered the exceptional remedy of mandamus, directing CSC to take temperature logs in Secure and to seek permission from National Headquarters to install air conditioning in “inmate-occupied areas in the Secure Unit, including the cells” at EIFW. Because the Court repeatedly relied on evidence that air conditioning is the only way to bring the temperatures down, and directed CSC to give “serious and meaningful consideration to installing A/C,” CAEFS expects that air conditioning is the only way CSC can bring these conditions into compliance with the law.

“CSC must give serious and meaningful consideration to installing air conditioning — anything less will not meet the standard the Court has set,” said Coyle. “The Court has ordered CSC to provide us with the temperature logs and its requests to National Headquarters, and we will be watching closely to ensure compliance.”

CAEFS acknowledges that this Application could not have succeeded without the courage and significant work of the incarcerated people who helped build the evidentiary record. Their repeated complaints, grievances, and appeals to CSC — in what must have felt, at the time, like a hopeless situation — are a testament to the resilience and strength of incarcerated people, even in the face of conditions that CAEFS submitted are torturous.

CAEFS also thanks its counsel, Kate Engel, for her exceptional work on this matter and the sustained advocacy of Toni Sinclair. Together, their excellent advocacy on behalf of and with the brave contributions of federally incarcerated women and gender diverse people led to the resolution of this longstanding problem at the Edmonton Institution for Women today, and hopefully in the near future, the same resolution nationally.

For Comment:

Emilie Coyle
Co-Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
ecoyle@caefs.ca
613-316-6785

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