Nunavut government awards contract for construction of Iqaluit jail

The Government of Nunavut has awarded the contract to build Iqaluit’s new jail to Pilitak Enterprises Ltd. Construction.

The $74-million contract was awarded this past December and requires the company to employ Inuit as 20 per cent of its workforce, Nunavut’s Justice Department said this week.

The Qikiqtani Correctional Healing Centre is scheduled to replace the controversial and aging Baffin Correctional Centre by 2022 at an estimated cost of $84 million.

Pilitak was the sole company to bid on the project when it first went out for tenders in the spring of 2018, but its bid ran over the GN’s $76-million construction budget.

Last fall, Nunavut’s justice minister, Jeannie Ehaloak, indicated plans to negotiate a lower cost with Pilitak Enterprises, but suggested the contractor would want to lower its minimum for Inuit employment hires from 20 per cent to 15 per cent.

That didn’t sit well with MLAs, who threatened to withhold $3 million earmarked for the project in the territorial budget.

Ehaloak then promised to revisit the Inuit employment rate with Pilitak, an Inuit-owned company listed in the Nunavummi Nangminiqaqtunik Ikajuuti registry as based in both Hall Beach and Iqaluit.

This week, Ehaloak commended the GN’s work in getting the contract signed.

“This project supports the commitments made under Turaaqtavut to develop our infrastructure and economy in ways that support a positive future for our people, our communities and our land,” Ehaloak told the legislative assembly on Tuesday, March 5.

“The new facility will improve the access to programs and services for offenders housed in Nunavut.”

The new 112-bed correctional facility will be built on the western end of BCC’s current footprint and will include separate medium- and maximum-security wings.

The facility has already faced delays, however. It was originally expected to be complete by 2020; now the GN says it’s expected to open in 2022.

The project will end Nunavut’s reliance on the 30-year-old BCC building, which a former federal correctional investigator flagged for multiple human rights violations in his 2013 report.