ABBOTSFORD, B.C. - The Union of Canadian Correctional Officers says babies and children are being used as tiny drug mules to smuggle drugs to inmates and it's angry one of its members is being investigated for trying to stop the practice.
The union's B.C. regional president, Gord Robertson, says it doesn't appear the guard will face any formal discipline, but his methods were questioned by Correctional Service Canada following an incident in November at Matsqui prison in Abbotsford, east of Vancouver.
Robertson says a woman arriving at the medium security prison was stopped at the gate when her toddler's stroller tested positive for cocaine.
The visit was allowed to proceed but two days later the guard informed the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development about the incident, which prison authorities say breached the inmate's right to privacy.
"It's almost like they are intimidating our officers from actually reporting this type of thing,'' says Robertson.
"They're saying you have to get cleared through the warden and do all these steps and red tape to actually proceed with that when it's actually a legal obligation to report.''
Robertson says the union is upset because it appears corrections officials are ignoring the growing problem of the use of children to smuggle drugs.
He points to one incident at a Quebec prison where a woman was caught with 32 grams of heroin hidden in a stroller. But he says in most cases where drugs are found on children the visitor is simply sent away and police and social services are not called.
Guards are upset about the official response to the latest discovery.
''It seems that they are trying to divert the actual real problem,'' Robertson says. "They are ignoring the real problem and trying to make it an issue of `you shouldn't have reported it that way.'''
Robertson admits it's hard to know how frequently children are used as mules but he believes prisons have an obligation to act when confronted with solid evidence.
"It really is an obvious way for a visitor to bring in drugs because, realistically, with children, it's much more difficult. You can't search them.''
