Iqaluit council gives GN green light for new jail

This artist’s depiction shows the front of the new jail that will be built this summer in Iqaluit next to the Baffin Correctional Centre. (FILE PHOTO)

It’s a go: Iqaluit will see a new jail built this summer.

Members of Iqaluit’s city council unanimously passed a motion at their March 26 meeting, which allows for the construction of a new jail next to the Baffin Correctional Centre to move ahead this summer

The new jail, with 24 cells for 48 minimum-security inmates, will relieve overcrowding at the BCC.

“This will go a long way to helping the correctional centre,” said Jean-Pierre Deroy corrections director at Nunavut’s justice department. “We’re very thankful that we can move forward with this project.”

Deroy had told the council committee on lands and planning earlier this month about the desperate situation at the BCC.

Overcrowding there has contributed to fights, near-riots and fires, Deroy said.

The BCC, designed to hold 62 inmates, is now hitting a population of up to 115, which puts corrections in “major trouble,” he said.

The lands and planning committee members had passed a motion in favour of allowing Nunavut’s department of justice to build the overflow jail the territory needs.

Now, with the council’s March 26 vote, plans for the new jail can move ahead.

Called an “interim” jail, the new $15-million facility will be a permanent building, instead of the temporary tent-like structure initially planned. It will handle the BCC’s overflow until a larger prison with a capacity of about 300 can be built.

The new jail will house inmates with psychological problems and others who do not require high security and are in custody either on remand or serving sentences of less than two years.

As for the “interim” designation, that refers to the possibility of eventually using the building for other purposes, said Chris Stewart, the justice department’s manager of capital projects.

“It’s great that the city is behind the project unanimously,” said Mayor John Graham after the vote. “It couldn’t turn out any better than that, really.”