Prison union seeks action as COVID-19 reaches five cases at Bordeaux jail

With at least five reported cases of COVID-19 at Bordeaux jail, a union representing prison guards in Quebec is calling on the provincial government to provide more tests and personal protective equipment to prevent the outbreak from spreading.

La Presse has reported that four guards and one inmate had tested positive at Bordeaux, Quebec’s largest provincial jail, with 1,100 inmates. Three other inmates had symptoms of COVID -19.

“Since the crisis started, we have been working with the minister of public security to put measures in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus,” Mathieu Lavoie, president of the Syndicat des agents de la paix en services correctionnels du Québec (SAPSCQ), said in a statement Saturday.

The union represents more than 2,800 peace officers in 18 correctional facilities across Quebec.

Nine correctional officers have tested positive in Quebec prisons and several others have been placed in quarantine in the last week for having symptoms or having been in contact with symptomatic individuals, he said.

“We have been asking the government for a long time to allow prison nurses to test for COVID -19,” he said.

Prison guards run significant risks because they work in a closed environment where it is difficult or impossible to practice social distancing.

A union representing guards at the Joliette Institution, a federal penitentiary for women north of Montreal, revealed two weeks ago that 33 guards had tested positive for the virus.

On April 20, an inmate at Joliette who contracted COVID-19 filed a proposed class-action lawsuit over Correctional Service Canada’s handling of the pandemic at its prisons in Quebec.

Reports suggest the coronavirus has also spread to the Federal Training Centre in Laval, a medium/minimum-security prison facility on Lévesque Blvd. E. in the St-françois district.