Union and commerce chamber fight Fort Smith jail closure

The Union of Northern Workers and Thebacha Chamber of Commerce say closing the men’s jail in Fort Smith would be “a big blow” to the community.

Releasing its draft budget last month, cabinet proposed closing the men’s unit of the Fort Smith Correctional Complex. Employees had already been notified of the plan.

Finance minister Caroline Wawzonek said the jail is, on average, only half full and has more employees than inmates. Closing the facility would save the government $2.7 million, she said.

Union vice-president Melvin Larocque said in an email to Cabin Radio that he believes centralizing correctional services is “a terrible ‘solution’ to financial problems.”

“Having smaller facilities that focus on specialized programming helps improve success rates for rehabilitation,” he wrote.

“Keep people in smaller communities, keep them closer to support of family or friends. When you lower the chances that people will reoffend, you save more money overall when it comes to social services, court costs, etc.”

Chris Westwell, president of the Thebacha Chamber of Commerce, is also opposed to the jail closure. He said the facility and associated jobs provide “trickledown economic benefits” to Fort Smith.

“Every job in a small community makes a huge difference,” he said.

“The closure of an entire facility and basically mothballing it opens up many challenges.”

The proposed jail closure is part of the GNWT’s new plan to find $150 million annually from a combination of reduced spending and increased revenues. The latest budget falls roughly $50 million short of that target.

In total, the budget proposes $48.4 million in cuts, including eliminating 91 public-sector positions, 58 of which are currently staffed.

In the legislature last week, justice minister RJ Simpson said 15 full-time positions and 17 relief positions at the Fort Smith jail would be affected. He said the justice department was also cutting a senior management position in Yellowknife.

Simpson said Fort Smith jail employees would “have first dibs” on vacant jobs at corrections centres in Hay River and Yellowknife. He said the government had paused hiring until after the budget is passed to ensure those positions remain open to affected employees.

“We have committed to do everything we can to ensure there are opportunities for these individuals in other GNWT positions,” he said.

‘Dehumanizing and incredibly damaging’

Westwell said the territory’s proposal to close the Fort Smith jail is confusing given the budget projects an operating surplus, which the NWT government largely plans to spend on capital projects.

He said it’s “tough to swallow” that dozens of people face losing their livelihoods due to a fiscal management policy.

“It’s dehumanizing and incredibly damaging,” he said.

Westwell said he was told the government had initially proposed closing Fort Smith’s health centre, which community leaders opposed. He said he believes that was a bargaining tactic.

“Unfortunately, our community is in a position where it’s become hard to trust our territorial government,” he said. “This isn’t the first time that they’ve come in the last decade to try to or have massively reduced services and positions and tinkered with institutions and facilities.”

Westwell said he is working with the union and leaders to fight the proposed jail closure.

Instead of cutting jobs, the union has suggested the territory save money by minimizing spending on contracting out services, such as hiring agency nurses. It has also recommended reducing “the top-heavy senior management” and sending them to work on the “understaffed front lines.”

‘A red herring’

Wawzonek said the territorial government plans to look into how the Fort Smith corrections facility could be repurposed into a wellness centre, which she called “a really exciting opportunity.”

Larocque, however, said that was “a bit of a red herring” without a concrete commitment.

“It’s been vaguely floated as a possibility that they would ‘look into’ but, given how much time and money it would cost to make a detention facility into a wellness centre, we’re not very optimistic,” he wrote. “It doesn’t address job losses and it makes no promises.”

Westwell said the wellness centre proposal had “muddied the water.” He said he has been told if the facility were turned into a wellness centre, it would be run by a third party rather than the NWT government.

In the legislature, Simpson said the territorial government was not “getting back into the business of operating treatment centres” but planned to work with communities on opportunities to establish wellness centres, aftercare centres and on-the-land healing. He said leadership in Fort Smith was “receptive” to turning the jail into a wellness centre.

“I would say that leadership in every single region in the territory has been more than receptive about wanting wellness centres,” he said.

Why not Hay River or Yellowknife?

In response to questions from MLAs about the proposed jail closure, Simpson said it was “not an easy decision.”

“This has weighed heavily and continues to weigh heavily on me and my cabinet colleagues,” he said.

Simpson said the number of inmates in the NWT has dropped every year since 2020. There are currently around 80 to 90 inmates across the territory’s correctional facilities, he said, or around 44 percent of their total capacity. He said the Fort Smith jail currently has no inmates.

“It’s hard to justify spending public funds housing offenders in facilities that are mostly empty and so we want to make better use of those funds,” he said. “We understand the impact this … would have on the community and we want to do what we can to mitigate that impact.”

The minister attributed the drop in inmates to changes to the criminal code – and Supreme Court of Canada decisions regarding bail and remanding inmates – that led to fewer people being incarcerated while they wait to be convicted or sentenced.

Deputy minister Charlene Doolittle said the decrease was also associated with an increase in social supports. She said a senior management group was looking into why inmate numbers have continued to fall in the NWT.

Simpson said the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre in Hay River is piloting a therapeutic model where people living at the jail are residents rather than inmates, which he described as the “closest thing to a government-run wellness centre” in the NWT.

“It is something unique that we do not want to get rid of at this point given it is an initiative that is in line with our goal of addressing the effects of trauma,” he said, explaining why Fort Smith’s men’s jail was chosen over the Hay River facility for closure.

Simpson said territorial officials had also looked at other options, such as closing down parts of the North Slave Correctional Complex or youth facility in Yellowknife, as well as the women’s jail in Fort Smith. The $23.6-million women’s correctional centre opened in 2019.

“We could shut down a few more correctional facilities if members really wanted to, but that’s not what we’re doing. We understand that’s a massive impact we don’t want to have on communities,” Simpson said.

“And we could keep it open and keep spending that money, or we can try and save that money and put it towards our other efforts.”