KRG to decide location for Nunavik prison

MIRIAM HILL

Nunavik is finally getting its own correctional facility, but the jury is still out on where the structure will be built.

Louis Dionne, the director of correctional services in Quebec, is hoping an answer about where to build the facility will come from the Kativik Regional Government by the end of this month.

Johnny Adams, the chair of the KRG, said two communities, Salluit and Inukjuak, have shown interest. The land requirement is about 40,000 square meters and Adams said Salluit would have a challenge coming up with that much open space.

Adams said land availability in the communities will be examined. After all the information has been collected, the regional council will vote, probably in the next few weeks.

After a presentation to members of the regional council in Kuujjuaq this week, Dionne said a facility will be constructed to house both detainees waiting for trial and those serving sentences less than two years. The facility will hold about 40 people.

It is part of the partnership agreement on community and economic development signed in April by Makivik Corporation, the KRG and the Quebec government.

Most of the money for the project will come from the Quebec government, Dionne said, but until they know where construction will take place, dollar figures are only guesses.

“At this moment we have a kind of estimate but we have a lot of unknown factors,” he said, citing such things as the quality of the ground in a chosen location. But, he said, it could be in the realm of about $20 million.

The facility will be different from those in the South, he said, first in construction, because of the climate differences and also because of the programs that will be offered within its walls.

“The programs are to be adapted to the Inuit people,” he said. “We don’t have that kind of reinsertion or rehabilitation program in the South.”

The province’s correctional service is geared toward reinsertion and rehabilitation, he said, as that’s the best guarantee for success. Currently offenders from Nunavik who need to be detained for more than a day or two are shipped to jails in southern Quebec, sometimes more than 1,400 kilometres from their homes.

Nunavik leaders have said for years that the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement calls for the construction of jails in Northern Quebec. Now the decision on where the facility will go lies in the hands of the KRG.

“It’s not for the government of Quebec or correctional services to say we want this jail facility at this or that place,” Dionne said, “but we are here to give a lot of information about what these kinds of facilities require.” And there is a comprehensive list of requirements.

Dionne says for efficient operation, the facility will need not only land space, but airport facilities so detainees can come and go, and housing for the people who work there.

A facility would create about 50 direct jobs, from administrators to cooks to nurses, he said, and those people require amenities, such as restaurants and educational services. The environmental impact of garbage and wastewater disposal also has to be taken into consideration, he said, as well as the level of community support.

“It’s our intention as part of the partnership agreement that most of the employees will be from the Inuit communities,” Dionne said, adding it’s imperative that all people are well-qualified for the job.

The facility, Dionne said, will be managed at the outset by the Quebec government. This means unionized public servants will have first crack at the available jobs. Dionne said this concern was raised during his presentation and it’s a valid one requiring further discussion.

“I think in the medium or long-term term it makes no sense to build a prison, a correctional facility, and bring back all the people from the South to operate it,” he said.

Richard Coleman, the director of evaluation and open custody services for Northern Quebec, said the appearance of the correctional facility has yet to be determined, but it will be state of the art, at least as far as the climate will allow.

“I’d be really surprised if they’d go full computerized, motion detectors and sensors that kind of stuff because it will probably always be broken in a northern context,” he said.

“But there will be some sort of preventive custody wing, which will be maximum security, concrete etc. And for people that are sentenced or are serving an actual custodial sentence it’ll be some sort of arrangement of some sort of less secure wing.”

Coleman said the building will need to house 40 beds, administrative offices, common areas and a kitchen.

“So it’ll be big. It’ll probably look like BCC [Iqaluit’s Baffin Correctional Centre] to a certain degree,” he said.

Dionne said he expects construction of the new facility to be completed in 2005 and be operational the same year.