Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Minimum Wage

United Nations Standard Minimum Rules Dept: Before moving forward with the proposed wage restrictions, perhaps Toews and Prime Minister Stephen Harper should review the Corrections and Conditional Release Act CCRA , which states that prisoners retain all rights and privileges of Canadians except those that are necessarily removed as a consequence of one s sentence. The current state of inmate pay violates the Canadian Labour Code and prisoners rights to fair and equitable wages. These provisions are consistent with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners , which states that prisoners shall not be used as labourers without equitable pay, according to The Star. Prisoners are by no means striking it rich inside prison. Prisoners currently earn between $5.25 and $6.90 flat rate per day for working in various areas of federal institutions such as in the kitchen, library, institutional maintenance and so forth. Prisoners who work for the profitable CORCAN program, producing products and services for government and private sector contracts in the areas of manufacturing, construction, textiles and other services such as laundry, earn an additional hourly incentive pay that is approximately $1.25 to $2.50 per hour on top of the flat daily rate. Given that minimum wage in Canada is between $9 and $11 per hour depending on the province or territory, even with additional incentive pay prisoners are earning far below Canadian wage standards. Even so, should a prisoner earn more than $69 every two weeks, the Correctional Service of Canada CSC automatically deducts 25 per cent for room and board and last week Vic Toews, minister of public safety, announced that the Harper government intends to restore balance to the criminal justice system and increase offender accountability, by taking measures to reduce the amount of income prisoners can earn while incarcerated. If that is not bad enough, prisoners ability to earn money to support their families and prepare them for release is already extremely limited, and this move by the Harper government will further impede the ability of the incarcerated to successfully reintegrate into the community. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.