Goodale says there is no tolerance for ‘inappropriate use of force’ in prison

OTTAWA – Federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale says there should be no tolerance for the inappropriate use of force by corrections officials.

Goodale also said family members and the public deserve to know what happens in cases involving inmates and guards.

He was commenting on the death of Matthew Hines, a 33-year-old Cape Breton man who was pepper sprayed in the face at Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick last May.

A report said correctional officers used five blasts of pepper spray, including four administered to Hines’s face just seconds apart, after he refused to return to his cell.

A three-person panel says the use of force was inappropriate, noting that Hines was “under sufficient control of the staff” at the time of the repeated spraying.

The details of the struggle with guards and the lack of medical attention have been criticized by Hines’s siblings, who say they were initially given scant and inaccurate information about how their brother died.

The Correctional Service of Canada also issued a statement Wednesday, saying it couldn’t get into details about his death but that it is co-operating with investigations into the matter.