Nunavik leaders ponder construction of two new jails

MONTREAL — When offenders from Nunavik need to be detained for more than a day or so, they’re shipped off to jails in southern Quebec that are usually more than 1,500 kilometres away from their homes.

But those days may be numbered.

That’s because when they meet this Friday in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik’s leaders are expected to give a thumbs-up to a plan that would see two new jails built in Nunavik.

The proposal under consideration calls for the construction of two 30-person multi-purpose jails, which would be called “community correctional centres.”

These community correction centres, or CCC’s, are to offer a wide range of correctional services to offenders sentenced to less than two years in jail.

Each one will have facilities for those in preventive custody who are waiting court appearances, and facilities for those who have already been sentenced to jail terms.

Organized loosely, perhaps in pavilions, these centres may also provide drug and alcohol counseling to men and women.The centres will create about 32 full and part-time jobs in each community.

The aim is to hire all-Inuit staff, as is the case at the Kativik Regional Police Force. To this end, Quebec is ready to pay for training programs.

The communities selected for the CCC’s must have good access by air, as well as a complete range of health and social services.

The Hudson Bay’s centre would likely be built in either Kuujjuaraapik or Puvirnituq, while the natural site for the Ungava Bay’s centre would be Kuujjuaq. Both Kuujjuaraapik and Kuujjuaq already have small jails.

Last Friday, the joint executives of the Makivik Corporation and the Kativik Regional Government considered the various options, although, due to the centres’ regional mandate, the KRG regional council will end up making the final decision as to where they should be built.

This two-CCC idea is the brainchild of a regional working group on detention that first met in September, 2001.

Its members include Makivik Corporation lawyer Jocelyn Barrett, two former members of Makivik’s 1993 justice task force, Zebedee Nungak and Peter Matte, and Kativik Regional Police Force investigator Lucien Brassard. Provincial officials from Quebec’s justice department and corrections services are also part of the committee.

To date, the committee’s proposal has been circulated only among a very few individuals. The mayors of Kuujjuaraapik and Kuujjuaq didn’t know their respective communities were under consideration for any new regional infrastructures.

Kuujjuaq’s mayor, Michael Gordon, is concerned about the challenge of staffing another large regional facility in his community with Inuit. Gordon said the demand for qualified Inuit workers already exceeds the supply in Nunavik’s administrative centre.

On the other hand, the regional police’s manpower could be less stretched if there were correctional services in Nunavik. Cops who accompany detainees to jails in the South could pare down their travel time from as long as three days to one.

The arguments in favour of building jails in Nunavik are not new. For years, Nunavik leaders have said the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement calls for the construction of jails in the region.

The agreement, signed in 1975, gave Inuit in Northern Quebec millions of dollars and other guarantees in exchange for the surrender of rights to their traditional lands.

Section 20.0.25 of the agreement says, “Inuit should not be, unless circumstances so require, detained, imprisoned or confined in any institution below the 49th parallel.”

The 1993 Makivik justice task force also said Nunavik should have the same level of correctional services as were available then in the Northwest Terrirories, and it recommended “jails and detention centres located in the region, designed and operated upon Inuit cultural and language needs.”

But, even last February, the Quebec government was less than enthusiastic about putting money into jails for Nunavik.

“You know my philosophy. You know where I stand. I’m not for the building of jails or cells across the Quebec region, no matter where it is,” Quebec public security minister Serge Ménard told the region’s leaders when he visited Kangirsuk last February.

Persistent lobbying by Makivik and the Kativik Regional Government has evidently softened this point of view. The word from Ménard’s department is now that he supports the idea of a jail — or even two — in Nunavik.

“Now, the minister is saying, ‘Let’s move on this’”, Bolduc said.

The two-CCC plan would cost at least $20 million to carry out. Depending on what shape and form these institutions take, the federal government could also be asked to chip in, so inmates in federal penitentiaries would be able to stay in Nunavik.

After Nunavik’s leaders finish evaluating the working group’s suggestions, their recommendations will go back to this group, and on to the Quebec government by summer.

A more thorough needs study of Nunavik’s prisoners would likely be the next step, suggested one official, before Quebec would agree to pick up the tab for any new jails.

Some observers are still not convinced Nunavik needs a conventional jail, or whether it’s even wise to attempt to keep some of those who should be behind bars in Nunavik, where they would be closer to their victims.

According to a May 1994 profile of crime in Nunavik, 30 per cent of all crimes are violent crimes.

But, even if the future CCC’s end up “no fence” institutions, a key official from Quebec’s public security department insists these will be secure.

“A person who is dangerous in the South is also dangerous in the North,” Michel Bolduc said.

But Bolduc said it could also be decided that prisoners who are considered dangerous could remain in the South for the duration of their jail term.