With respect to parolee grievances, the purpose of that grievance system is to provide redress to parolees who feel they have been wronged while supervised on parole or mandatory supervision. This would include a prisoner on a day parole. When prisoners are released on parole, they are required to be advised of this procedure at their initial interview with the parole officer. Once again, they can only grieve matters within the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Corrections and that have occurred while on parole or mandatory supervision and have caused them a problem within the preceding two months. Furthermore, before submitting a grievance, a written complaint seeking corrective action must be submitted to the area manager or section supervisor reporting to the district director or area manager or to the director of community correctional centre, or an officer in charge of a small parole office. Furthermore, if there are no other internal remedies established for resolution or redress and the matter has not been resolved by written complaint to the person specified, then and only then can a grievance be submitted.

    Once again, there are three levels to the grievance system comprising the district director at the first level, the Deputy Commissioner of each region at the second level and the Commissioner of Corrections at the third level. The essential rules and procedures are very similar to the inmate grievance procedure.

    It is expected that prisoners will first try to resolve matters in discussion with their parole officer, but if that fails to resolve the matter, then submit a written complaint and if that fails to resolve the matter, then submit a grievance. Provision is made for sensitive complaints and to limit excessive complaints. Written complaints must be dealt with within five working days. If the written complaint does not resolve the matter, a grievance can be submitted to a district director who similarly has five working days to answer the matter. If the matter is not resolved at that level, it can proceed to the second level involving the Deputy Commissioner of the region, who has ten working days to review and decide the matter. If that fails to resolve the matter, the third level grievance is to the Commissioner of Corrections and is dealt with through the director of the inmate affairs division at National Headquarters in the same manner as for inmate grievances generally.

    Provision is made for withdrawal of grievances and to cover situations where a person is transferred within a region or between regions, as well as for the confidentiality of information and records and reports. If a grievance is submitted and then the prisoner or parolee's warrant expires, the matter can be dropped or continued by leaving an address with the parole officer where answers can be forwarded. Furthermore, grievances can be submitted no later than ten working days after warrant expiry date, provided the grievance concerns something that happened to the parolee during the period of supervision and on a matter that is grievable.

    Prisoners should be encouraged to use the complaint and grievance procedure on all suitable occasions. If it is ineffective, the best evidence of that will be in the record of the proceedings through the system. As a matter of fairness, it gives the staff and management an opportunity to hear a complaint and an opportunity to respond to it by corrective action or by at least stating their reasons in writing for not doing so. Resort to the grievance procedure is a mandatory prerequisite before a complaint can be lodged with the Correctional Investigator. Although not a mandatory prerequisite to judicial remedies, the record of proceedings throughout the grievance procedure will be an invaluable aid to counsel in assessing the merits for judicial action and avoiding the pitfalls suggested by Mr. Justice Pigeon in Martineau (No. 2), where he said as follows:

    I must, however, stress that the order issued by Mahoney, J deals only with the jurisdiction of the Trial Division, not with the actual availability of the relief in the circumstances of the case. This is subject to the exercise of judicial discretion and in this respect it will be essential that the requirements of prison discipline be borne in mind, just as it is essential that the requirements of the effective administration of criminal justice be borne in mind when dealing with applications for certiorari before trial, as pointed out in AG Que v Cohen. It is specially important that the remedy be granted only in cases of serious injustice and that proper care be taken to prevent such proceedings from being used to delay deserved punishment so long that it is made ineffective, if not altogether avoided.

    And the comments of Mr. Justice Dickson in his concurring reasons:

    5. It should be emphasized that it is not every breach of prison rules of procedure which will bring intervention by the Courts. The very nature of a prison institution requires officers to make "on the spot" disciplinary decisions and the power of judicial review must be exercised with restraint. Interference will not be justified in the case of trivial or merely technical incidents. The question is not whether there has been a breach of the prison rules, but whether there has been a breach of the duty to act fairly in all the circumstances. The rules are of some importance in determining this latter question, as an indication of the views of prison authorities as to the degree of procedural protection to be extended to inmates.