THUNDER BAY -- The Thunder Bay Jail needs replacing, city council says, and there's as strong of a case to have the federal government fund its construction as there is for the provincial government.
As city council passed a formal memorandum on Monday that would lobby Ontario to replace the Thunder Bay Jail, the conversation turned to the potential role the Government of Canada could have in that construction.
"I’m hoping the province asks the federal government and we can get this new facility here," said Neebing Coun. Linda Rydholm, offering to raise the issue of a 50 per cent federal funding commitment to the Thunder Bay Jail when she's in Ottawa next week.
Westfort Coun. and chairman of the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, Joe Virdiramo authored the motion to "request that the province approve the funding necessary, in order that the construction of the replacement for the Thunder Bay District Jail can commence."
Virdiramo said his memorandum was coincidental to the recent national media attention surrounding Adam Capay, an Indigenous man who was locked in an isolation cell for four years as he awaited trial.
"These people at the Thunder Bay District Jail are people who have been remanded. These are people who can’t get bail. These are not convicted people. These are people who are in waiting and sometimes they wait four or five years," Virdiramo said.
"Sometimes, the people who are incarcerated and have been to trial and have been charged and whatnot, they live in better conditions than the people who have not gone to court yet, have not been charged, have not been convicted."
Coun. Iain Angus reasoned that while the province would be responsible to pay for operations at a new jail, the temporary and sorting function of that institution could have a case for federal funding.
"Although it's a provincial institution, the decisions of a court will determine whether or not individuals have committed federal crime, therefore will be incarcerated at a federal institution elsewhere," Angus said.
"It’s quite right the federal government should help pay for the construction of a new remand facility because they receive – for the lack of a better word – the benefit of the facility."
