Draft report prompted warning by bureaucrat
Nunavut officials worry about possible legal challenges
Casey Lessard
Northern News Services
Monday, March 16, 2015
IQALUIT
The conditions at Baffin Correctional Centre are woeful - and have been for years, by all reports - but the facility faces existential challenges now that Canada's auditor general, Michael Ferguson, released a damning report on corrections in Nunavut March 10.
In 2013, this is how the dorm showers looked at Baffin Correctional Centre. Canada's auditor general had harsh words this week for the conditions at the prison. - photo courtesy of Office of the Correctional Investigator |
In a memo leaked to The Canadian Press, a top bureaucrat who saw a late draft of the report warned the premier to be ready for legal challenges about the facility's constitutionality.
Viewing the draft report, Department of Justice deputy minister Elizabeth Sanderson warned cabinet secretary David Akeeagok that Premier Peter Taptuna should brace himself for the impending report, according to a memo leaked to The Canadian Press earlier in the week. Nunavut News/North did not see the memo first-hand, but it reportedly was copied to Justice Minister Paul Okalik and several other colleagues.
Aside from the possibility of lawsuits, Sanderson warns the courts could order the government to shut down Baffin Correctional Centre.
"In my opinion, the Government of Nunavut is likely in significant breach of constitutional obligations towards remanded accused and inmates housed at the BCC facility," Sanderson stated, according to the report, "and faces a high risk of civil liability towards inmates, staff and members of the public in tort law."
Sanderson's concern stems from the slow pace of improvements at Baffin Correctional Centre. In the wake of a 2011 arson at the facility, Keith Peterson, in his capacity as finance and justice minister at the time, reminded legislators of his push for renovations.
"In December 2009, I asked for some assistance to look at renovating, upgrading, or expanding the facility, and asked for $300,000," Peterson said at the time. "We got a clear message from the House that investing in prisons in Nunavut is not something that is important. Unfortunately, schools, gymnasiums, and community halls are a high priority. There is limited funding available as well from our capital planning."
The federal Office of the Correctional Investigator made public serious concerns about the conditions at the facility in 2013. It wasn't until November 2014 that legislators approved $850,000 for renovations to BCC.
These improvements could not go ahead until inmates were moved to the new Makigiarvik minimum-security facility next door, which happened last week, two months later than planned.
Okalik told fellow legislators March 11 that BCC was at 40 per cent capacity with 24 inmates and the renovations had started March 9, the day before Ferguson's report was released. The work will take 12 weeks to complete, he said.
This may take a little of the bite out of Ferguson's report, because by not taking action at BCC, Sanderson warned that the government is opening itself to a class-action lawsuit for not fixing the facility sooner.
"The (Nunavut government) has, since 1999, failed to take appropriate measures to correct the constitutionally suspect, legally deficient use of BCC as a correctional facility," she reportedly wrote.
Built in 1984 as a minimum-security facility, BCC was upgraded in 1996 to add medium-security areas. Despite this, Ferguson writes that "subsequent reports (including one prepared in 2010 by an engineering firm) indicate that the Baffin Correctional Centre still lacked the basic security requirements of a correctional facility greater than minimum security."
The facility continues to house inmates with a maximum-security rating.
"What we really need is a complete rebuild of a full-sized facility," lawyer James Morton told Nunavut News/North last month, foreshadowing Ferguson's report.
The Department of Justice estimates bringing BCC up to national fire code standards will cost $8.8 million, but that would do nothing to improve its ability to house maximum-security inmates.
