By Kezia Royer-Burkett, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
For families with loved ones inside Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton, waiting for a phone call can mean more than wondering when they will hear from someone they care about. It can mean wondering whether that person has received medical attention, whether they have been allowed out of their cell, whether they have access to a shower, or whether they have basic necessities such as food and toilet paper.
For Alison Craig, a founding partner of Posner Craig Stein, who represents clients held at Maplehurst, the concerns being raised by families are not new. Craig said many of the conditions being described to Burlington Local-News.ca are familiar to her through her work representing people in custody.
“Yes, I mean, all of that sounds extraordinarily familiar. And you know, they’re also all triple bunked,” Craig said when asked about reports of conditions inside the facility.
Craig also raised concerns about the medical care available to people in custody, describing what she called a serious and ongoing problem.
“The medical care is horrendous,” she said. “And it’s extremely frustrating. I had a client who was at Maplehurst for 34 weeks who was sick and began getting sicker. I brought this to the judge’s attention, and she ordered that Maplehurst Correctional Facility must provide this man with medical attention, and of course it was ignored.”
According to Craig, the man’s mother also repeatedly attempted to get help for her son.
“His mother called repeatedly and was ignored,” Craig said.
Craig said the man’s condition continued to deteriorate. She said his mother noticed unexplained bruises when visiting him and that he was becoming increasingly confused. Eventually, Craig said, the man was taken to hospital in serious condition.
“Ultimately, he ended up in the ICU at a local hospital with tubes in his lungs, and all sorts of stuff with an extraordinarily serious infection, because Maplehurst ignored him for a month,” Craig said.
The concerns raised by Craig and family members extend beyond medical care. Access to basic necessities, including toilet paper, has also become a recurring concern.
“I’ve been hearing [that] for quite some time now,” Craig said, explaining that inmates had told her they were receiving limited quantities of toilet paper.
“They’re given something like, I think, eight rolls of toilet paper every few days for 48 inmates on the range, which for obvious reasons is not nearly enough,” Craig said.
One family member who spoke with Burlington Local-News.ca alleged that their loved one had been forced to save the brown paper bag from lunch to use as toilet paper. The family member also said the inmate had seen toilet paper on a guard’s counter and, when he asked about it, was allegedly told there was none available.
Craig said some of her clients have described having to hold their bowel movements because they did not have adequate access to toilet paper.
“I’ve had many clients tell the court about having to hold bowel movements for days. I mean, this is how we’re treating people,” Craig said.
For Craig, the issue goes beyond the immediate discomfort experienced by people in custody. She questioned what the long-term impact of such treatment could be on people who will eventually return to the community.
“People wonder why people get out of custody and end up reoffending. Well, when you treat them like animals who aren’t even worthy of the basic dignity of toilet paper, I mean, what exactly do you expect to happen anyway?”
Craig said lawyers have limited tools available to address conditions inside correctional facilities and that raising concerns through the courts does not always result in immediate change.
“There’s only so much we can do as lawyers,” she said.
Craig said she has also attempted to speak publicly about conditions at Maplehurst in the hope that public pressure will lead to action.
“I try to be a loudmouth in the community, hoping that some people put some pressure on the government,” Craig said. “But you know, the rights of inmates are not exactly a popular topic.”
One of the challenges, according to Craig, is what happens when poor conditions inside a correctional facility are brought before a judge. Lawyers can ask judges to take the conditions of pretrial custody into consideration when sentencing, but Craig said there are limits to what judges can now do.
She explained that, following a Court of Appeal ruling, judges can no longer provide the enhanced credit for pretrial custody that was once available in particularly harsh circumstances.
“The only thing judges can do now is consider the horrible conditions as a mitigator,” Craig said.
Craig believes more significant legal action may ultimately be necessary to force changes inside the facility.
“I think we’re going to have to start bringing regular stay applications until something changes,” she said.
A stay application in criminal court is a formal request asking a judge to permanently stop a criminal case because continuing it would be unfair or would harm the justice system.
Craig also pointed to a previous case involving Maplehurst in which murder charges were stayed, arguing that the outcome should have prompted a broader examination of conditions inside the facility. According to reporting by CBC, Joseph Richard Whitlock, Kulvir Singh Bhatia, and Karn Veer Sandhu were charged with first-degree murder in the death of Arman Dhillon and attempted murder in connection with an attack on a woman. In an October 2025 ruling, Superior Court Justice Clayton Conlan stayed the charges after finding that the treatment of inmates was “akin to torture” and an “outrage to basic standards of decency.”
“One would think that after the incident, having murder charges thrown out, that somebody would have said, ‘Maybe we should change how we do things around here.’ But absolutely nothing has changed,” Craig said.
The allegations raised by families and Craig describe a correctional environment where, they say, people in custody can struggle to access medical attention and basic necessities while spending extended periods inside the facility. For families, the uncertainty can be especially difficult because they often have little ability to see what is happening to their loved ones once they are behind the walls of Maplehurst.
For Craig, the concerns are not simply about the conditions people experience while incarcerated. She argues that how people are treated while in custody has consequences beyond the facility itself, particularly when those individuals eventually return to their communities.
Until then, families continue to wait for answers while raising concerns about the people they love inside Maplehurst. For those families, the question is not simply when change will happen. It is what happens to the people inside Maplehurst while they wait.
