(Un)mapping Penal Expansion in Canada: Preliminary Findings

By Justin Piché

To be presented at a public forum entitled
Prorogation as Opportunity:
Proposing New Directions for Criminal Justice Policy in Canada

Ottawa Public Library (Main Branch) – Auditorium
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
4:00pm

[CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY]

Introduction

Since the 2006 federal election campaign, the Conservative Party of Canada has stated that ‘tackling crime’ is one of its priorities. In the years since forming a minority government, they have introduced and passed a number of ‘justice’ bills which will result in longer sentences for individuals who have committed a wide-range of offenses. While there has been some discussion on penal expansion in Canada, these infrequent interventions have principally focussed on whether or not new federal penitentiaries will be constructed to absorb the influx of new prisoners. As a result, developments at the provincial-territorial level have often faded into the background.

What I wish to share with you today is information I have been compiling since February 2009 on new provincial-territorial prisons being built across the country. I obtained this data through informal requests by phone at the beginning and end of my study, as well as e-mail and Access to Information / Freedom of Information requests with each of the provinces and territories. Much of this information can be found on a Google map you can access through my blog Tracking the Politics of Crime and Punishment in Canada, which is fully referenced. A more detailed and complete account will be available in a forthcoming publication.

Prison Expansion from Coast-to-Coast-to-Coast

This story is much more complex and the idea of building new ‘correctional’ institutions often finds support across the political spectrum. Depending on the jurisdiction, aging infrastructure, rising remand populations and persistent facility overcrowding, as well as preparing for the influx of new prisoners resulting from on-going ‘tough on crime’ legislation at the federal level have all contributed to the latest Canadian prison boom.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the provincial government is considering building one or two facilities to replace Her Majesty’s Penitentiary – built over 100 years ago in St. John’s – in an effort to ‘modernize’ their prison system. They have also recently committed to building a new pre-trial detention centre for youth, women and individuals with mental illnesses in Labrador.

In Prince Edward Island, the provincial government is currently adding 48 beds to the Provincial Correctional Centre in Charlottetown. Once completed, an assessment of whether additional capacity will be needed in the province’s prison system will be undertaken to decide whether or not to replace the aging Prince County Correctional Centre in Summerside, which currently has 18 beds, with a new 60 bed facility.

Prior to the election of the New Democratic Party in June 2009, two new prisons were scheduled to be built in Nova Scotia, including a 100-bed replacement facility in Antigonish County and a 50-bed replacement facility in Cumberland County. However, the new Government of Nova Scotia has abandoned these plans in favour of constructing one new 100-bed replacement facility in a location to be determined.

In New Brunswick, the provincial government is currently constructing a new prison in Shediac – a town outside of Moncton – that will house up to 180 prisoners and is intended to replace the often overcrowded detention centre in Moncton which has a rated capacity of 58 prisoners. They are also building the New Dalhousie Correctional Centre which will be able hold 100 prisoners and is intended to replace the existing Dalhousie Correctional Centre that has a capacity of 30 prisoners.

Responding to overcrowding in its prison system, the government in Québec is building new facilities in the regions of Sept-Îles, Roberval, Montérégie and Amos that are intended to replace old facilities, as well as re-opening a previously closed facility in Percé, resulting in a capacity increase of 338 prisoners. It is also adding 324 spaces to the system through expansions of 5 existing institutions.

In Ontario, new detention centres are being constructed in Toronto and Windsor to address overcrowding in aging jails. However, it remains unclear whether the provincial government will decide to close the Don Jail once the new 1,650 bed facility in Toronto is constructed and whether the new 315 bed facility in Windsor will result in the closure of the jail in the city.

In Manitoba, a new prison for women is being built to accommodate 100 prisoners and is intended to replace the Portage Correctional Centre, which has a capacity of 45 prisoners. An addition was also made to the Millner Ridge Correctional Centre in 2009 (150 cells), with planned additions to the Brandon Correctional Centre (80 cells) and The Pas Correctional Centre (40 cells) to address overcrowding in the province’s prison system.

To address overcrowding and aging facilities in Saskatchewan, the provincial government there replaced the old Regina Provincial Correctional Centre with a facility on the same site that can hold up to 427 prisoners. A new remand centre that can also hold up to 427 prisoners will also be built on the grounds of the Saskatoon Correctional Centre and Saskatoon Urban Camp pending budget approval.

Systemic overcrowding in remand centres in Alberta also led the government from this province to construct the New Edmonton Remand Centre. It has yet to be decided if the existing Edmonton Remand Centre, a 734 bed facility, will be closed when the new 1,944 bed facility is opened.

A capacity crisis in British Columbia has led the province’s government to plan for the construction of a new remand centre. This facility, which was originally supposed to be built in Burnaby, will – pending budget approval – be constructed on the grounds of the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre due to community resistance. Other facility expansions in the province are underway at the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women (104 cells) and the Prince George Regional Correctional Centre (20 cells).

New prisons are also being built as far north as Nunavut where an 8 bed ‘correctional healing’ facility for women in Iqaluit and a new 46 bed ‘correctional healing’ institution for men are being constructed.

Since at least February 2003, officials from the Department of Justice of the Northwest Territories have been recommending to the territorial government to replace the existing Territorial Women’s Correctional Centre in Fort Smith which has a capacity of 18 prisoners. At this time, a new 45-50 bed facility is being considered.

In response to a Corrections Consultation that began in November 2004 which recommended the construction of a new prison in the Yukon, the territorial government is currently building the Yukon Correctional Centre. With 172 beds, the facility is intended to replace the Whitehorse Correctional Centre which has a capacity of 85 prisoners.

Summary

To summarize, there are at least 22 new ‘bigger and better’ provincial-territorial prisons at various stages of completion in Canada. Of these facilities, 1 is operational (Regina, SK), 10 are under construction (Shediac, NS; Dalhousie, NS; Roberval, QC; Percé, QC; Toronto, ON; Headingly, MB; Edmonton, AB; Iqaluit, NU; Rankin Inlet, NU; Whitehorse, YK), 4 are awaiting site selection (NS; Sept-Îles, QC; Amos, QC; Montérégie, QC), at least 3 facilities are in the preliminary planning stages (NFLD – 2 or 3; Fort Smith, NT); 2 projects are pending budget approval (Saskatoon, SK; Surrey, BC), 1 prison has gone to tender (Windsor, ON), and 1 facility may be built should additional capacity be needed (Summerside, PEI). Also, at least 1 addition to an existing facility has been completed (Millner Ridge, MB), with at least 9 others underway (Charlottetown, PEI; Québec, QC; Amos, QC; Trois-Rivières, QC; Sherbrooke, QC; Brandon, MB; The Pas, MB; Prince George, BC; Alouette, BC).

Should these facilities all come online I have calculated that they will augment the capacity of provincial-territorial prisons by at least 5,788 beds in addition to the extra capacity generated by prospective new facilities in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Based on the 2007-2008 Adult Correctional Services in Canada Reference Tables prepared by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics regarding the annual costs per prisoner, I have estimated that over $306 million will need to be allocated towards the additional annual operating costs that will be incurred should these 5,788 new beds for prisoners become occupied. This is in addition to the $2.724 billion spent on the construction of these facilities – it should be noted that these figures do not include the construction costs of the 5 prisons and 3 additions to existing facilities that have yet to be disclosed.

Questions Regarding the Future of Canada

Given that many of these new provincial-territorial prisons were being planned before the Conservative Party of Canada assumed office, I am left to ask several questions:

1) What kind of penal expansion will we experience when the provincial, territorial and federal governments will be forced to address rising prison populations that will surely result from recently passed ‘criminal justice’ legislation?
2) What kind of penal expansion will we experience should the ‘justice’ bills that were set aside prior to prorogation – legislation that had the potential of augmenting the Canadian prison population – be reintroduced in Parliament and are passed?
3) What kind of penal expansion will we experience should Parliament pass new youth ‘justice’ legislation that encourages judges to consider denunciation and deterrence as sentencing principles for our children who are often not equipped to assess the gravity or consequences of their actions?
4) What kind of penal expansion will we experience should Parliament pass new youth ‘justice’ legislation that enhances the ability of judges to sentence our children as adults?
5) What kind of penal expansion will we experience once the Correctional Service of Canada announces the “major construction initiatives” they will be pursuing in the coming years?
6) If we continue this so-called ‘tough on crime’ trajectory, will governments decide to keep open or re-open aging and decrepit facilities new institutions were intended to replace?

In a context where most governments in this country are running large deficits and will likely be cutting education, health care and other social programming to balance the books in the years ahead, I have other questions:

1) Where will the funds to construct future provincial-territorial prisons and federal penitentiaries come from?
2) Will we be forced to cut back funding for core services, like they have in jurisdictions across the United States, to bankroll our relapsed addiction to incarceration, or will we raise taxes, or both?
3) If we are to divert much needed funds from our children in schools and our aging parents who on occasion require hospital care, what benefits can we expect in return for our investment in prisons that is supported by solid empirical research?
4) If crime rates have been steadily declining for years, why should we continue to support an agenda that will augment the prison population and will result in the construction of new penal institutions, particularly when research has shown that relying more heavily on imprisonment does not reduce crime?

While I am sure there are many other questions that can and need to be asked, there is no doubt in my mind that we are at a turning point. The prorogation of our Parliament has given us an opportunity to re-evaluate the direction of our country. As our governments look to exercise fiscal restraint, the central question that Canadians as well as their elected and non-elected representatives of all political stripes should be asking themselves is "what kind of country do we want to build with the money that is left?"

In answering this question, we need to be reminded that penal expansion is not inevitable but is one choice among many policy options. When we build prisons, we are – in effect – choosing to not build something else. We need to be reminded that for every new prison built funding for a new post-secondary institution, a hospital or a fleet of buses is lost. That the money spent on every new prison guard hired could have been spent on providing ten deserving students’ tuition scholarships or hiring a nurse to deliver home care to our parents and grandparents. That for every person incarcerated, there is often a family and community left behind. Do we want to live in a country that constructs prisons instead of schools, hospitals, public transportation hubs and the like?

Far from a red herring, at some point we will need our political representatives to exhibit some leadership and address the questions I have put forward today. It is my hope that this will happen before we go ‘back to the future’ and unnecessarily subject ourselves to the costly, ineffective and unjust experiment of mass incarceration from which our neighbours south of the border are currently trying to extricate themselves.

Thank you. I look forward to the ensuing discussion.