Heather Mason is a mother, peer researcher, advocate, former federally sentenced woman, and survivor of fentanyl addiction. After being incarcerated five times provincially and once federally at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario, she became an advocate for women in the criminal justice system. She is a founding member and Chair of the Board of caWsbar, and has been a central figure in the national campaign to keep women's prisons single-sex.
caWsbar Charter Challenge: Keep Prisons Single Sex
Heather Mason is a co-founder of Canadian Women's Sex-Based Rights (caWsbar) and the driving force behind its landmark federal Charter challenge. Having raised the alarm about male prisoners being transferred into women's federal institutions as early as 2019, Mason worked in close collaboration with lawyers from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms and Charter Advocates Canada to develop the constitutional case that was filed in Federal Court on April 7, 2025.
The lawsuit challenges Correctional Service Canada's Commissioner's Directive 100: Gender Diverse Offenders — the policy that has allowed male inmates who identify as women to be transferred to any of Canada's six federal women's prisons regardless of surgical status. caWsbar argues the policy violates female inmates' rights under Sections 7, 12, and 15 of the Canadian Charter, as well as the Canadian Bill of Rights.
The federal government moved to have the case struck entirely, but on May 14, 2026, Associate Judge Catharine Moore dismissed that motion, ruling that the claim properly raises Charter violations and must proceed. In a separate decision issued the same day, the Federal Court granted caWsbar public interest standing — confirming its right to pursue the case on behalf of incarcerated women who fear that speaking out themselves could invite institutional retaliation or harm their parole prospects. The case is ongoing.
Brief to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (2021)
Heather Mason submitted a brief on the placement of trans-identifying males in women's federal prisons to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in June 2021, and has helped organize protests outside Grand Valley Institution to raise public awareness of what is happening to women inside.
Biography
Heather Mason's path to advocacy began with her own experience of incarceration. She was incarcerated five times provincially and once federally at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario, where she also survived fentanyl addiction. After her release, she became an advocate for women in the criminal justice system, focusing on the prison system's failures to address addiction, mental health challenges, and policies related to strip-searching and the transfer of males into women's prisons. Wikipedia
As a caWsbar board member, Mason provided a key affidavit in the organization's Federal Court challenge against Correctional Service Canada's Commissioner's Directive 100, which permits the transfer of trans-identifying male inmates to women's prisons. Her affidavit described harms that are neither abstract nor hypothetical, including sexual assaults, physical assaults, sexual harassment, stalking, and psychological trauma suffered by female inmates as a result of these placements. epfl
She sits on the Board of Directors for Strength in SISterhood (SIS) Society, a group of women who have endured prison and are now working collaboratively with allies to end imprisonment for women. She provides advocacy support to female prisoners to assist them with navigating policy and law, including the correctional grievance system, and offers consultant and research support on prison issues including programming, security classification, conditions of confinement, and parole. Wikipedia
