Let’s Talk To Almost Everyone: The Disconnect Of Suicide In Ontario Jails

By Samantha Burton 

Most people on social media are aware of the Bell Let’s Talk Campaign and its aim to de-stigmatize mental health issues and to normalize the experience of mental health. Their website boasts impressive statistics: from 1,168,302, 700 interactions over social media and donations since the initiation of the campaign in 2011, to partnering with more than 1,000 organizations who have supported over 3,806,409 Canadians with access to mental health services. There is absolutely no doubt that they are having a positive impact, but there is a space where the company’s presence has had a negative influence over one of the most vulnerable populations—Ontario jails. 

Prisoners possess a heightened likelihood of completing suicide and attempting suicide—especially the male population. Thomas Reuter published a report in 2017 that cited the leading cause of death for prisoners in Canadian jails as suicide. Those who are flagged for suicide risk in Ontario jails are cut off from their loved ones during one of the most pivotal times in their lives, and this is all because of a company that claims to want to prevent it. 

Cleve Geddes, known as ‘Cas’ to his loved ones, was a young man who was locked up while suffering from schizophrenia. He was due to be assessed for psychiatric intake but was taken to the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre instead due to a lack of beds. He was put on suicide watch and segregated, which led to him taking his own life, largely because he was unable to contact his family due to their lack of access to a landline phone. 

Bell Canada and the ministry charge the families and loved ones of prisoners $0.40 a minute in addition to an initial connection fee. These calls can only be made to landlines, although only 2/3 Ontarians use landlines. They are also cut off after 20 minutes, no matter what. Lack of access to switchboard lines prevents prisoners from contacting crisis lines and mental health facilities where others may be able to help them through their plight. 

Other provinces that do not use Bell offer a higher level of service through a US corporation called Synergy. Through Synergy, prisoners are allowed to receive voicemail, call cell phones, all internet phones, and offer discounted call packages for the families of prisoners. But even this company isn’t something to brag about—public outrage surged through Saskatchewan and Manitoba jails as families of inmates complained of absurd charges. A Saskatchewan woman whose husband served five months in jail racked up a $4,000 bill, merely from one or two twenty-minute phone calls per day. 

Because Canadian jails mostly imprison people of colour, Black and Indigenous individuals and those of low-income families at a higher rate than any other group, it is these groups who are being disproportionately affected by the limitation placed on them by Bell and the Ministry. The inability to contact their families further damages a prisoners mental health and well-being within an institution where neither is prioritized in the first place—all for the sake of seeking profit. 

This is the reality for prisoners in Ontario. It is immoral to remove the human connection from individuals already suffering within an environment that does not treat them humanely. It has been statistically proven that contact with family and support reduces the likelihood of suicide and suicide attempts.

In January of this year, Bell claimed that they would soon be implementing the allowance of calls from jails to cell phones. Before that reality was able to come to fruition, COVID-19 flipped the world upside down, including jails and its inmates. Prisoners were suddenly unable to receive visits from their loved ones. Toward the end of March, protesters and the plaintiff's counsel, David Sterns, pushed for Bell to do the right thing during this unprecedented time and waive all phone fees.

“This hardship will be caused entirely by Bell's desire to profit exorbitantly – and increase their already exorbitant profits due to the increased volume of calls - from their forcible confinement.”

It is time for Bell to step up and talk about their hypocrisy when claiming to aid everyone suffering from mental health issues.