Ford’s support for new jail will cost us dearly

The numbers don’t add up to savings, writes Justin Piché.

During the 2018 provincial election campaign, then-Progressive Conservative candidate for premier Doug Ford promised to “find efficiencies” to reduce the cost of government in Ontario. When asked how, he answered, “We’re going to find four cents on the dollar.”

In a province where approximately seven out of 10 prisoners are legally innocent and awaiting their day in court, more often than not as a result of being charged with non-violent offences, even greater savings can be had by divesting from jails and prisons and reinvesting in less costly, more effective diversion and decarceration measures. By safely diminishing its reliance on incarceration, particularly with a focus on protecting residents from big government by respecting the presumption of innocence, Ontario would have plenty of room to enhance conditions and outcomes of confinement for the fewer people who’d remain behind bars, while meeting its fiscal targets.

And it could do so without resorting to privatization of any sort ( because experience elsewhere has shown that privatization has the effect of creating an incentive — i.e., corporate profits — for more imprisonment). Yet, despite the promise to “stop the (Liberal) gravy train” at Queen’s Park, according to a recent email obtained from the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, Ford is proceeding with the previous government’s ill-conceived and wasteful plan to replace the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre (OCDC) with a new and bigger jail. Should its construction, “anticipated to start in 2020, working towards operation within the next six years,” be allowed to take place, Ford’s time in office will be marked by an exploding human-caging budget alongside damaging cuts to critical sectors such as education and social services “for the people” that will undermine our collective well-being and safety. Here are the numbers.

According to Infrastructure Ontario, Ottawa’s new and bigger jail will cost between $500 million and $1 billion to design, build, finance and maintain over the life of a 30-year public-private partnership. That’s an infrastructure bill of $45,662 to $91,324 every day or $16.7 million to $33.3 million every year for the next three decades.

The proposed jail has 140 more beds, making it nearly 25 per cent bigger than the current one on Innes Road. According to Statistics Canada, in 2016-17 it cost an average of $235 a day or $85,775 a year to imprison one person in an Ontario facility.

Based on these numbers, it can cost $137,475 a day or $50.2 million a year to operate the 585bed OCDC when it’s filled to capacity. Should the new and bigger 725-bed jail get filled to the rafters, it’ll cost around $170,375 a day or $62.2 million a year to operate.

“Promise made, promise kept” is a frequent mantra for Ontario’s new premier, but when it comes to imprisonment in Ottawa, the numbers just don’t add up. By building a new jail, the cost to imprison one person in Ottawa, when accounting for both infrastructure and operational costs, will go from an average of $235 to a minimum of $298 (plus-26.8 per cent) or a maximum $361 (plus-53.6 per cent) a day. The new jail will see us shelling out approximately $216,037 a day or $78.9 million a year at the low end to $261,699 a day or $95.5 million a year at the high end. Far from a four-per-cent cut, we’re talking about a provincial imprisonment budget increase ranging from 57.1 per cent to 90.4 per cent in Ottawa.

In this scenario, Ford will more than badly miss his targets for savings, while “the people” he represents will lose — unless “the people” are jail designers, builders, mortgage lenders, maintenance companies and the additional administrators and staff hired to work in Eastern Ontario’s latest vintage super-jail.

Ford may retort that this move reflects his commitment to keeping people accused or convicted of violent acts behind bars. There’s certainly a large constituency of people who’d agree with this sentiment. However, one doesn’t need a bigger jail to achieve this objective. The province can still say #NOPE (No Ottawa Prison Expansion), while consulting with residents to find better, cheaper alternatives to prevent violence.