Edmonton – After years of delays and a $580-million price tag, the new Edmonton Remand Centre is finally set to open next month.
The chairman of Alberta Union of Provincial Employees Local 003, which represents correctional officers at the remand centre, said he was told the opening is set for April 13.
Before that happens, the union will meet with the Solicitor General’s office to talk about any outstanding concerns, he said.
“We’ve really pushed hard for ensuring that this is going to be a smooth transition,” said Clarke McChesney, who represents 2,800 union members. “We’ve got some great officers and we’ve done great training … I just think some of the safety issues will need to be looked at.”
The massive facility, at 184th Avenue and 127th Street, will replace the current remand centre, an aging structure often criticized for overcrowding.
With a capacity of 1,952 beds, the new centre has the potential to hold more than twice the inmate population the current facility can handle. Built in 1979 to hold just 388 inmates, the downtown centre usually has closer to 750 behind bars.
McChesney said some of the union’s concerns result from the “sheer enormity” of the new centre, which sits on a 16-hectare site.
One of the features of the new facility is a “direct supervision” model that gives guards and inmates more one-on-one time. The province is championing the model, saying it gives inmates more and better access to services.
“A lot of research has shown the direct supervision models are generally safer than an indirect supervision environment, basically because the staff and inmates develop a better relationship. It’s not as adversarial,” said Alberta Justice and Solicitor General spokesman Jason Maloney.
McChesney said there’s still angst among the guards who will eventually staff the centre.
“This kind of concept lends itself to more one-on-one contact with the offenders and I’m hoping that gets the desired result,” he said.
Maloney said inmates will be transferred to the new facility over the course of several days when the centre is opened. He declined to speak more specifically about the logistics of the move, citing security concerns.
The facility has seven living units, called “pods,” with the space to build three more if necessary, which would increase the centre’s capacity to 2,816.
It also has five times more mental health beds for women than the current remand centre has – 60 beds compared with the current 12. Men’s mental health beds have nearly doubled, from 36 in the current centre to 68 in the new facility.
Inmates at the new facility will no longer have in-person visitors, another new feature. Instead, visitors will have to travel to Centre 170, at 104th Avenue and 170th Street. The centre will be run by the Elizabeth Fry Society of Edmonton, which will be responsible for facilitating the video chats.
When the new Edmonton Remand Centre project was first announced in 2006 by then-premier Ralph Klein, the province had set aside $308 million with plans to open the facility by 2011. But by the time ground broke on the project in fall 2007, that cost had more than doubled, ballooning to $620 million. Alberta Infrastructure now says the final cost will be $580 million.
Delays for the centre’s opening also spiralled, putting it at least two years behind schedule. The province blamed the delays on unanticipated problems with the site and the magnitude of the project.
“It is the largest facility of it’s type in North America,” said Roxanne Nanuan.
The province is offering the public the chance to see inside the facility during open houses this weekend and early next week.
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