Shaming the Nunavut government

When Nunavut’s finance department created its first in-house budget, in 2000-01, the capital portion stood at just $66 million.

The year after that, it climbed to $71.1 million. Last year, it rose to an estimated $99.8 million.

In the fiscal year that started on April 1 the Nunavut government plans to fork out more than $143 million by way of its capital budget.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with government jargon, the “capital” budget is the document that puts aside money to pay the one-time costs of physical structures like buildings, equipment, supplies and renovations.

In three years, Nunavut’s capital budget tripled, mostly because the government decided to spend all but $2 million of its accumulated surpluses before the next election. The big spending comes just in time for incumbent MLAs to wow the voters with pre-election ground-breaking ceremonies all over Nunavut. What a convenient coincidence.

It also means that there’s no excuse whatsoever for the continued absence of either a women’s correctional centre or a women’s remand facility in Nunavut.

This month, a 19-year-old Iqaluit woman charged with a variety of offences spent four nights at the all-male Baffin Correctional Centre. A justice of the peace ordered that she be held there on remand after she twice failed to show up in court.

“Remand” is the word used to describe the form of detention for accused persons who can’t be trusted to obey the law or show up in court while they’re waiting for their charges to be dealt with.

Most accused persons, especially those charged with petty crimes, aren’t held in custody until their trials or plea-bargain hearings come up, and they’re released on a promise to appear in court at a designated date. Usually, it’s only those charged with extremely violent offences, such as murder, or those who pose a serious flight risk, who are held in remand. And the Crown must always persuade a judge that there’s just cause for detaining a person who has yet to be convicted.

Remand is also used for people who can’t find a way of showing up for their promised court dates. In these cases, the courts often have no choice but to order that an accused person be held until he or she is due to appear.

Such was the case of the 19-year-old Iqaluit woman who appeared before justice of the peace Bill Riddell this month. Since there was no evidence, apparently, that she would be capable of honouring any future promises, he ordered that she be held in remand until her next court appearance.

This time, however, he ordered that she not be held at the RCMP lock-up in Iqaluit. The only alternatives to detention there are the overcrowded Baffin Correctional Centre or a long and expensive plane ride to a small women’s correctional centre in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories – the only women’s correctional facility in the northern territories.

It’s not surprising then, that the Government of Nunavut sent its lawyers to court in an attempt to overturn Riddell’s decision.

A large proportion of BCC’s inmate population is made up of hard-core repeat offenders convicted of sexual assaults, wife-beating and other crimes of violence against women. To protect and care for a single female remand prisoner in such an environment would surely place a great burden on BCC’s staff, who are already coping with the stresses of a badly overcrowded institution.

Unbelievably, BCC was originally designed as a co-ed institution. In the 1980s, male and female offenders were actually confined there, together, under the same roof. But this mushy headed policy turned into an unmitigated disaster after a series of sex scandals rocked the territorial government of the day. Those scandals included the sexual harassment of female prisoners by male guards. Since about 1991, no female offenders have been housed at BCC – until now.

On paper, Nunavut is responsible for operating a justice system. But in reality, Nunavut does not have the infrastructure to perform this task.

Why? Because Nunavut is run mostly by people who get all defensive and squirmy when icky-poo subjects like crime, violence and public safety are put before them.

Those who planned for the creation of Nunavut, including the Nunavut Implementation Commission, paid little attention to justice and corrections issues, likely for the same reason. The construction of new correctional facilities was never identified as one of the reasonable incremental costs of creating Nunavut.

And it remains a rock-bottom low priority for Nunavut MLAs. Since Nunavut has the highest per capita rate of violent crime in Canada, you would think that more correctional centre spaces would rank high on their to-do list.

But this dim-witted group seems incapable of making that simple connection. Instead, they’ve chosen to spend the government’s entire surplus this year on a long list of feel-good, vote-for-me projects.

It’s a good sign, though, that this issue is ending up in court. Perhaps only the courts can shame the Nunavut government into taking its corrections responsibilities seriously. JB