The Ben Mulroney Show - Inside Canadian Prisons -- a former inmate explains how it works

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

GUEST: Robin Marc Smith – former federal inmate turned prison‑reform advocate If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠���⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. We have a lot of conversations on this show about Canada's justice system and the prison system, what feels like a revolving door of our jail system,

it feels sometimes like it's broken, but I'm very lucky to have never been in that machine. So I'm only looking at it from my perspective as a citizen. And we are so fortunate today to be joined by a former federal inmate. And now he's a prison reform advocate, Robin Mark Smith. So Robin, thank you so much for being here. Just as a way to introduce you, if you could give us as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as however comfortable you are, tell us how you ended up in a federal penitentiary. It started at a very young age.

I come from a successful family, but I was the king of shortcuts, which led me to fraud, and I basically excelled at that from about 1980 to 89. and finally, Toronto Police, fraud squad was on to me, and he started, the chase was on. So I got arrested, I bailed out, and then it was cat and mouse after that. I kept getting arrested every time I showed up to court

to the point where I just said, I can't afford to keep putting up bail, also I booked it to the U.S. Anyways, I came back in 91 and was sentenced to three and a half years at Collins Bay Federal System. After doing about six months, I was granted a two-day pass. I was released. I went to where I was supposed to go and I got arrested again, saying they didn't think I was going to where I was supposed to.

So brought me back to Collins Bay. Two months later, they released me again. This time I wasn't playing the game. So I took off for two decades. Oh, wow. And how did you ultimately find your way out of the system? No, in 2007, I got arrested in the U.S. and I was sentenced to five years of which I had to do two and a half.

Basically, I always knew I'd back myself into a corner where I couldn't get out until the day that the roof came in, which it did. From that day on, I knew I was done. I was done with the system. I had promised my wife that when the U.S. thing was done, I would come back to Canada, earn myself in and finish that time. She passed away while I was incarcerated down there. I'm sorry.

I kept my promise, came back to Canada. I went through Quinty detention to Millhaven, to back to Collins Bay, and in about a year and a half, I was released and finished my parole in another six months. That was 2011, and from that point on, spoken at schools. Documentary was done at Queens. Obviously, CBC was going to do a full documentary, but Corrections Canada put the

Kaibaus on that. I was pretty outspoken about the system and they don't like hearing the truth sometimes. So that didn't happen, but I joined groups immediately out of prison. when they took the cattle or the cows out of Collins Bay, there was strikes going on. I immediately attended them. In fact, my first night out, I ended up standing beside, I think it was Bob Milligan and Bob Ray and Peter Milliken. Anyways, they were pointing me in directions. I joined John Howard on the board. but because I've had fraud charges.

I couldn't be on the board if I'd have been a pedophile. If I'd have been a serial killer, I could be on the board. But I understand when you're raising funds, you don't want a fraud guy. So here's what I'd like to have happen in this conversation. I think there's two parts to it. One, I've got so many questions for you because, as I said, as somebody who's not been in the system, I know a lot of people want to know, what is the truth about what it's like inside a federal penitentiary.

But the other part that I want to talk about is what are our goals for the justice system and putting people and incarcerating people? And do you think we are achieving those goals? But first what I want to do is I want to start with, you know, that for how old were you on that, on the first day that you were sent to a federal penitentiary? About 29. Yeah. So you're not, not that old.

Not that old. You didn't have a too, too many. highway miles on you yet. Were you scared going into prison? Definitely. Yeah? Yes. My eyes were pretty big, but I learned when you do a little county time first,

just keep your mouth shut. Don't get into debt. And stay away from everything, which I did. I did my own time. So you pretty much stuck to your own. You kept your back to the wall. You didn't, you didn't, because there's so many stories that we hear in movies, in television shows. And because we see them repeated in different movies, in different TV shows, we just assume that that's fact.

You know, you hear the story about, they tell you, on your first day in prison, punt somebody square in the mouth to let them know you mean business and not to be, that you're not to be trifled with. Is that, is that just something that's made up or is that real? It happens in certain places when I was did my time in the U.S. There's two prisons. There's C.M. California Men's Colony West, lower level one. And then there's California Men's Colony East. As a white inmate, I'm not allowed to do my time at the East.

So if I'd have been, if that's where they had sent me, I got to take somebody out the first five minutes there. Go to the hole. They transfer you. That is something that goes on. Where I was, when I went to this California Men's Colony, the West Side, it's a dorm-style prison. None of the stuff that you see on TV, you hear about it sometimes, but you just don't see it. Riots, definitely. There was a riot there my first day there.

Oh, wow. And I think there was about 136 inmates involved in that riot. So Was it was it hard? Was it hard to To avoid violence in prison? Did you find that you were worried for your safety in prison? In Collins Bay, definitely.

But again, don't get into debt, you know. What do you mean by that? What do you mean don't get into debt? Don't owe favors or borrow things or ask anybody to do anything for you? Exactly. People, most a lot of people in there are addicted to drugs. The first thing they want is to get high.

Everything's available to you there, but you have to get your outside people sending money in, and it's readily available. When I was in California, I only hung around seven-figure people, and I swear I saw more $100 bills on the yard in prison than I did on the street. What? Is it, I, so, so the, the, the criminal underground networks are alive and well in prison. So that, that, that, what we see in, in movies, that part is true. That part is true.

Wow. Well, listen. Yeah, well, we, cell phones. Cell phones. Okay. Cell phones come in through staff. We're going to take a break. Drugs come in through staff.

Yeah, we're going to take a, we're going to take a break. We're going to talk about all this stuff. But I want to look at it through the lens. of what exactly are we doing in these prisons if the goal is to protect society and punish those responsible for the crimes, but also rehabilitate those who are on the inside so that when they come out, they have a better shot at being productive members of society. I want to talk about all of that with you when we come back. Don't go anywhere.

My conversation with Robin Mark Smith continues after this right here on The Ben Mulroney show. Our conversation with Robin Mark Smith, former federal inmate turned prison reform advocate continues now. Robin, thank you so much for sticking around. Problem. Okay, so the most general, but I think apt definition of the purpose of prison is to contribute to a safe and just society by punishing offenders, deterring future crimes, rehabilitating individuals,

and ensuring public safety. Does that ring true to you? Should that be the goal of the prison system? It should be the goal, but it's just not, on my opinion, it's not executed at all. Okay, so let's dig into that then. First of all, the notion of, let's go point by point, the goal of punishing offenders, is that achieved in the current system? Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair.

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It's achieved to somebody that wants to come out on the other end. For a career criminal or somebody that's using it as a stepping stone note, You know, violent crimes, I think, for the most part, are handled property here in Canada. Okay. But drug crimes, narcotic crimes, crimes against spouses are not, as far as I'm concerned. Now, when we talk about deterring future crimes, the deterrence aspect of our justice system, I really feel just writ large, generally, across all aspects of the system. we're not doing a good job deterring people.

The value proposition for a lot of crimes, like home invasions, for example, it's such an attractive crime because the risk profile of that crime is such that, you know what, chances are the homeowner is not going to do anything because they're afraid that they're going to get arrested. So it's a crime we can do time and time and time again. And how is the prison system,

supposed to deter people from committing future crimes? Well, it's mandatory when you go there. When you're incarcerated, you have to have a job. You have to have an education, and you have to go to certain programs. The problem with the programs is they're all generic, they're repetitive, they overlap. You can have somebody that's going in there

for being a sexual predator, and he's taking basically the same time. that a drug addict is taking. Really? I sat in on some of these. I wasn't required to take any of these. But it came to the point where we had a guy that worked in the gym at Collins Bay. He was the coordinator.

So he lived on the street kind of thing. And I asked him, well, how did you get this job? It sounds like pretty good. He said, well, I used to be in psychology. And I said, you were in psychology? What were you doing there? He says, I was writing reports on inmates. And I says, and why are you in the gym now?

Because I wasn't qualified to write the report. And he was writing reports for parole. My God. A good friend of this show, former conservative member of parliament, Michelle Ferreri, was on our show a few months ago. And she said that she had taken a tour of one of our federal penitentiaries. And there was an entire floor of one of the wings where it was, there was open drug use for anybody and everybody to, see, including the prison guards, and nobody was doing anything about it. How have we gotten to the point?

Like, I understand. I don't agree with it. We've gotten very permissive with street drugs in cities like Toronto. But I thought, surely in our prisons, that's the place where it was going to be harder to get drugs. And not only have you said it's easier, but we have that firsthand account by Michelle that says it's everywhere. How did we get there and why is it happening?

It's how it gets into the institution, one. But I guess it's prevalent. There's nothing. You get caught, you get charged, but the charge is in a serious charge. So you don't worry about it. Now that you can't really even go to segregation or the hole anymore, or you're limited. At one time, if you got caught with contraband, could cost you 30, 60 days in the hole. Not anymore.

All right, because that's cruel and unusual punishment. It is. And you get the worst of the worst. Were you ever putting a hole? In there, too. I was in, I was in California for 60 days and it's for something I didn't do. But I could, I knew what was going on.

It was gang and drug related, gang, race and drug related. They knew I didn't do drugs. They didn't know what a gang I was with. And they didn't know what race I was because I was Canadian. They couldn't figure that out. But so what did 60 days at the whole do you? Well, the first few, it was, it was a mind-altering kind of thing because it's 24-hour lockup.

You get to go out maybe once every four days and you go into what basically is a dog kennel to walk around. Eventually, you're meeting guys on the tiers or whatever they're in the hole. And that's all racially segregated. So eventually the Ariens and the whites found out that I was white. So they start talking to you and sending you stuff under your door, making sure that you're solid, that you're there and you're not there because you're a snitch or whatever. Right.

Hey, Robin, in our last few minutes, I want to get to this notion. Because I think what everyone wants, right? If we do have a criminal element, we want them punished and we want them going to an institution that will keep us safe, but just, I think just as importantly, we want to make sure that they're going to go through that system. And when they come out, they are better people than when they went in. I think that's what everyone should want from the system. It's a recognition of that these elements exist in society.

So how can we best mitigate them? But there's this argument that you go to prison and you come out, you go to prison to become a criminal. And a lot of people come out hardened and they come out antisocial. and they come out broken. Is that a fair assessment? And I want to give you the floor for the last couple of minutes to talk about solutions that you think we can bring the bear

to make this system better. Punishment fit the crime. In my case, I was given three and a half years for credit card fraud. I knew going in, I'd do six months. So when you're telling the public that this guy got five years or this guy got six years, your first time in you're going to do no more than the third of your time. So eventually for violent crimes, parole should be two-thirds of your time. Okay.

That way you can't skate the first time around either. If it's a violent crime, if it's a sexual crime, going in, As far as these programs, get programs that will definitely, definitely help. Is there interest by the prison population? Do they want to take these classes? Is there a buy-in from a significant number of them that say, yeah, I'm here, I'm going to make the most of the time that I'm serving, and I want to come out better?

There's a few, they're the minority. Most people take those programs because it's part of their parole. Okay. It's required for them to even apply for day parole or full parole or halfway else. You have to take these programs. Especially if you go in and you blamed alcohol or drugs for the reason you're there. You've got to take these programs. And in my case, even though you didn't use any of those excuses,

they didn't put me in a program until I was released. And that was just so they could come up to 10 people. They needed 10 people to run the program, so they brought me off parole off the street just once a week to go do one of these programs. Last question for you, and I only have about 30 seconds left. But when you got out of prison, and I'm so sorry to hear that your wife passed away

while you were incarcerated, but when you got out, was there a moment where you were worried whether or not you could reintegrate into society? No, because I'd made up my mind. When I pled out in the U.S., a peace came over me, I was fine. And then two months after I was released, my daughter was in Florida.

So my family, you hope for a clean slate, but not that kind of clean slate. So if I didn't go back then, I'd never go back. And I was sure that I wouldn't. Well, Robin, I want to thank you. I want to thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for this candid conversation. I hope we can continue it at a later date. I think we've barely scratched the surface here.

but it's a great conversation. I appreciate you. Thank you, sir. Thank you for having me. Have a good day.