The province of Ontario has closed the Brookside Youth Centre in Cobourg, putting more than 100 employees out of work.
The secure custody facility for males shut its doors on Friday. According to Peterborough-Northumberland Progressive Conservative MPP David Piccini, the facility — which included 14 buildings on 70 acres of land on King Street West — was “heavily underutilized” with fewer youths incarcerated.
The 2019-2020 budget for the centre was approximately $9.6 million for the 16-bed facility, one of six secure facilities operated by the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services.
Brookside initially opened in the 1930s as a training school for girls and switched to a boys’ school in 1948. Since 1985 the facility has been a youth-only secure custody and detention centre.
“In 2012 and 2014 the auditor general was very scathing in the real realities that we just don’t have the youth to warrant the number of facilities across the province of Ontario and specifically Brookside,” Piccini said in an interview.
“Specifically Brookside — as a large facility — it was heavily underutilized.”
Piccini says vital prevention, diversion and community-based programs such as Rebound are helping to contribute to an 81 per cent reduction of youths admitted to custody and detention since 2004-05 — approximately 8,500 fewer admissions, prompting less use of facilities such as Brookside.
“It’s the right decision when we have five youth in a facility — the average is approximately eight on a year-over-year basis,” he said.
“But that’s a good thing — youth aren’t behind bars and are getting the support at a young age. It’s an accumulation of programs over successive governments.”
OPSEU Local 337 president Peter Harding in a statement issued on Facebook says the closure impacts more than 100 union jobs.
He said the facility as of closing was staffed to operate a 12-bed unit and there were five youths in custody on Friday due to COVID-19 precautions. The youths — ranging in age from 12 to 20 — were transferred out of the facility on Friday evening.
Harding, a youth services officer, says the previous Liberal government held a number of studies and had planned to build three small facilities in the Greater Toronto Area to replace the Roy McMurtry Youth Centre, which would be repurposed to house adult female inmates from jails.
He said Brookside Youth Centre was to feature a new 16-bed single facility built on a small portion of the existing property while the rest of the property would be sold to pay for the facility and reduce operating and maintenance costs.
“The current Conservative provincial government cancelled all those plans early in their mandate,” he said. “With the closure of Brookside, the majority of youth that commit crimes that would result in an adult sentence of two years or more from our catchment area will be housed at Roy McMurtry Youth Centre in Brampton and a small number possibly at a privately run facility in Ottawa.
“The province currently has zero mental health beds for young offenders so they are housed in the same units with all young offenders. Brookside workers attempted to create a mental health unit but the province said ‘no.'”
Harding says staff continue to be paid while the union negotiates exit/transfer options. He said OPSEU would release more details on Tuesday.
Piccini says he campaigned in 2018 on a promise to look at the future of Brookside after hearing concerns from constituents. In August 2020, the Town of Cobourg passed a notice of motion to the government of Ontario to consider alternate uses for the site while expressing interest in the property.
Piccini says he advocated for the province to find ways to better use the property.
“With the caveat that we look after the workers,” he said. “All workers who want to stay employed with the government of Ontario will.”
Piccini is inviting the public to submit land-use ideas via his website.
“That’s 70 acres not generating tax revenue for the Town of Cobourg,” he said. “It can be far better utilized to support housing — we have a housing crisis right now; to support attainable housing, to support community benefits. There’s so many things we can do with that property.”
“Incarceration — at least at that site — is something of the past. Let’s come together and imagine the future,” he added.
Comments