Boris and Richard both spent a significant amount of time in detention (over two years each) and the experiences they describe is of serious concern. Early mornings, late nights, minimal communication, and being mixed in with the general prison population which included inmates with serious criminal charges. Lengthy detention of stateless persons can occur in provincial criminal facilities despite the fact that many immigration detainees have no criminal record or charges pending. Boris was held in a provincial correctional centre for three years despite having no criminal record, because he was perceived as uncooperative in relation to his removal to Russia. “Well in detention it was all criminals. I mean, I could easily get stabbed and killed for just saying or looking wrong way. […] It doesn’t really matter that you live in that, you know, in that immigration unit. You really have to be smart to survive there. As I said, once I freaked out and I went on hunger strike they treat me like everybody else. They freaking crazy people in segregation where I was living, you know, in cold very cold cell without anything except toilet. It was horrible. Now, security, what security?” [Boris] Richard describes one of the more challenging aspects of his detention: the trip from the detention centre to his detention review hearings every 30 days. “The condition wasn’t good at all… first, they wake you up at 4am to take you [to the review hearing]… and then they kept you in the van with different people… it’s so cold in there and [then you wait for] the next two hours [with] everyone from [the other detention centre] who is on trial for murder, robbery, or whatever… the condition in the truck is so bad. It’s hot or it’s very cold. And if they have to stop somewhere, they have to leave you inside with the conditions… You have to wait until you get to one of those institutions [to go to the bathroom]. There’s no water or anything. [There is food] only when you get to the institution… When you get [to court] you sit [from] 8:30am or 9am o’clock until 4pm o’clock when they are ready to bring you back and then you don’t even see [anyone]. They’ll just bring you down to sign a piece of paper or to make a phone call to the embassy. So we’ll leave at 4pm o’clock [to go back to the detention centre]. It’ll take maybe an hour and a half, depending on the traffic. So they get to [the other detention centre to drop off the others] at 5:30pm. You have to wait in a room --the room is very cold, especially in winter—from 5:30 in the afternoon until 8 or 8:30 at night, then they’ll pick you up from there, and they’ll take you up to [the detention centre], which is the next 40 minutes or so, and then when you get there, you’re not getting anything hot, you’ll get a frozen meal… sometimes you’ll get to your unit and you cannot even have a shower, you cannot even heat up your food because it’s already lock-up time, or it’s close to lock-up time. There is no communication. Nothing”. [Richard] In practice, it can be extremely difficult for persons to advocate for themselves during detention reviews, especially if they do not have legal representation, as support and resources are limited or nil. 27