Nova Scotia creates commission to review deaths in custody

Nova Scotia’s Attorney General sets up a commission to investigate the deaths of anyone incarcerated in the county jail system.

Brad Johns said the commission is being asked to start with two recent deaths. He said he was concerned about the age of one of the victims, but there was nothing else in the medical examiner’s reports that prompted the decision to set up the commission.

“When people are in corrections and under the care of the county, it’s really a duty to make sure they get proper care,” Johns said in an interview.

“And if someone dies while they’re under our responsibility, while they’re in the [province’s] care, I think an assessment needs to be done.”

Johns did not provide details about the cases under review. A 27-year-old man named Peter Paul died at the Cape Breton Correctional Facility in Sydney in January. According to his family, he died by suicide. Meanwhile, family and friends of Sarah Rose Denny, 36, say she passed away in March after contracting pneumonia at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Burnside.

The custodial death review committee will be chaired by Dr. Matt Bowes, the county’s chief investigator. Johns said Bowes would have the authority to select the other committee members, but they would have to be a crown attorney, a general practitioner, an RCMP officer, members of the communities of Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotia and a retired senior correctional officer .

Johns said the purpose of the reviews will be to provide due diligence and, if something is found to have gone wrong, learn how to make the system more secure.

The committee issues advice to the minister, which is made public. Privacy legislation ensures that the subjects of exams are not recognizable.

Johns also hopes the investigation will provide information for the families of people who have died in custody.

Information for families

“When someone dies in prison, the families are traumatized as well,” he said.

“They have a lot of questions and I think having, you know, an independent view gives everyone a sense of assurance that things were done the way they should have been done – or that they weren’t. And then it opens up opportunities for people to take the actions families may want or need to take.”

The commission is the third to be established by the provincial government amendments to the Investigation of the Dead Act which was introduced by the former Liberal government and passed by the Johns government in 2021. When the Liberals pushed through the changes, they resisted calls for a commission to review deaths in custody.

Committees have already been set up to review the deaths of children in the care of the county and deaths related to domestic violence. Johns said none of these committees have had to act since they were created.

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