The federal government will spend almost $80 million to expand Fraser Valley prisons over the next three years, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews announced Monday.
At an Abbotsford news conference, Toews said the larger facilities will create space for hundreds of new inmates.
“Our government is proud to be on the right side of this issue – the side of law-abiding citizens, the side of victims who want justice, and the side that understands the cost of a safe and secure society is an investment worth making,” Toews said.
“The expansion of institutions in the Fraser Valley not only reaffirms our government’s commitment to British Columbia, but helps ensure that criminals serve sentences that better reflect the severity of their crimes.”
This $77.5-million expansion includes the construction of new 96-bed units at each of maximum-security Kent Institution in Agassiz and medium-security Matsqui Institution and the Pacific Institution, both in Abbotsford. As well, minimum-security Ferndale in Mission will get a new 50-bed living unit and the women’s Fraser Valley Institution in Abbotsford will get 24 new spaces.
Toews said the 362-space expansion should be completed sometime in the fiscal year 2013-2014. “Action has a cost and that is a cost that Canadians are willing to pay because cost to society is much more, not just in dollars,” he told reporters.
“The cost of fear, the cost of physical and property damage, the cost of threats, intimidation and spirit in communities from coast-to-coast.”
But Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh said the federal government is pouring unprecedented levels of cash into prison construction, while ignoring crime prevention, at-risk youth and rehabilitation programs to help convicts change.
“Ironically you have the largest infrastructure program in the history of the country constructing prisons,” Dosanjh, Vancouver South, said Monday. “Jails are bursting at the seams. Under this government, there are thousands more prisoners incarcerated over the years while the crime rate has been going down consistently.”
He said the Conservative government has taken away the discretion of judges to hand out appropriate sentences for some non-violent drug offences, forcing many more offenders to prison.
“They are falling down on crime prevention. They are falling down on programs for at-risk youth, they are falling down on programs to rehabilitate offenders,” Dosanjh said.
Conservative Abbotsford MP Ed Fast disagreed, saying new legislation eliminating the routine crediting of double-time for pre-trial custody has meant offenders are serving more appropriate sentences.
“In the previous system, a violent criminal sentenced to nine years in prison could potentially be on our streets in as little as three years if he or she spent two years awaiting trial. This possibility is not acceptable to Canadians,” Fast said. “We are acting to ensure that criminals pay their debt – their full debt – to society.”
Gord Robertson, regional president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, welcomed the expansion announcement, saying it should help with volatility in B.C. institutions because of over-crowding and increasing gangster populations.
“With increasing numbers, there is always increased tensions. Double-bunking is always a dangerous situation, so I mean if we can keep it so we are not double-bunked in most of the institutions, that is obviously a best-case scenario,” he said. “We have seen a new breed of prisoner that is less respectful and you know what they are like on the street, well they are the same inside.”
kbolan@vancouversun.com
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