PC leader demands urgent action on Thunder Bay Jail conditions

THUNDER BAY -- Touring the Thunder Bay Jail eight days after a riot laid waste to its top floor, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario sounded the alarm on conditions at the facility.

“Seeing it first hand, it really hits home,” Patrick Brown said on Tuesday evening.

“This building does not meet the needs of the inmate population, there’s not the maneuverability, there’s not the safety precautions available. It was an accident waiting to happen.”

Brown called for the province to either fund a new facility or for the building constructed in 1928 to undergo a “complete revamp.”

The new PC head was the first party leader to tour a correctional facility since the riot took place in the midst of Ontario-wide collective bargaining negotiations between correctional staff and the province.

Those meetings are expected to resume on Friday but in the interest of safety for the jail’s staff, Brown saw urgency far beyond a simple labour contract.

“The working conditions for the correctional officers are deplorable but when you have deplorable conditions for the inmates, it breeds the frustration and hostility that exists,” Brown said.

“Government has an obligation to correctional officers to remedy this situation. The fact that we have people working in adverse conditions, risking their own safety and the government continues to ignore their pleas for help to deal with this, I think is very unfortunate.

“I’m calling on the minister of public safety to stop kicking the ball around. He needs to deal with this.”