'I'm looking for help': Prisoner at Iqaluit jail on hunger strike to protest conditions

A prisoner at the Baffin Correctional Centre in Iqaluit has started a hunger strike to protest conditions at the notorious Nunavut jail.

Poasie Aniniliak, originally from Pangnirtung, said his protest began on Wednesday.

"The reason I'm being on [a] hunger strike is that I'm looking for help," Aniniliak said at the jail that day.

Sitting with his arms folded across his chest, wearing a dark blue, jail-issued T-shirt, Aniniliak listed a number of conditions he is protesting, including being on lockdown for 23 hours a day while in segregation.

Prisoners only get fresh air twice a week while in segregation — one hour on Saturdays and Sundays, Aniniliak said. If true, that would be a violation of the United Nations' Minimum Standard Treatment for Prisoners, of which Canada is a signatory.

Time in segregation makes him "go sideways," and feel suicidal, he said.

I want things changed for my own people.- Poasie Aniniliak, prisoner

"When you go down there, you feel something that you don't want to feel. It's not healthy. I really think one day my heart's just going to pop."

The Baffin Correctional Centre has come under fire for years, including by the Auditor General of Canada. A 2015 report found a crumbling building, with a lack of programming, that puts inmates and staff at risk. 

The Nunavut Department of Justice is currently expanding the facility with a major addition. The department did not comment on Aniniliak's hunger strike, but said prisoners in isolation get one hour outside their cell per day, including to shower and use the phone.

Denied programming

Aniniliak said he is serving a sentence for uttering a threat and is due for release in July. He admitted he has a long criminal record and struggles to control his anger. He and others have talked openly before about conditions at the jail, which he says contributes to his issues.

"I'm really trying. If I do get out in July — I don't think I will — but being treated like this, I don't think I'll make it to July in here."

When asked if conditions at the jail allowed him to focus on rehabilitation, Aniniliak quickly said "nope."

"Most of my life I've been going in and out [of the BCC] because there's no programming," he said. He said he's been denied on-the-land rehabilitation despite a judge's recommendation.

The department provided a list of eight programs offered at BCC aimed at addressing anger and mental health. But the department did not indicate whether Aniniliak was eligible for any of these programs or any other information on the programs.

Hunger strike a 'predictable result,' expert says

Judges have previously deemed conditions similar to those at the BCC as being "cruel and unusual," contrary to Canada's Charter of Freedom and Rights, said Tom Engel, a criminal defence lawyer in Alberta and an expert on jail conditions in Canada.

"Prisoners in these conditions become angry and depressed," Engel wrote in an email. "Hunger strikes are an entirely predictable result."

He pointed to a mass hunger strike at the Edmonton Remand Centre in 2018 that involved 200 prisoners, and a riot at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary that resulted in the death of a prisoner.

No one was injured during an inmate riot at the Baffin Correctional Centre one year ago, but there was significant structural damage.

Aniniliak said he has been in segregation on and off for a number of weeks now. When not in isolation, jail staff place him in maximum security, he said. Those units regularly have six or seven prisoners sharing six bunk beds on lockdown for 23 hours a day, said Aniniliak.

"I want something done. If something happened to me in here, I want things changed for my own people," he said. 

Aniniliak said he didn't know when he would end the hunger strike but for now is only drinking water.

The justice department said it "works to investigate and address all concerns [in a] timely and effective manner."