Ontario’s Opposition Leader Patrick Brown took Premier Kathleen Wynne to task on Thursday over the conditions at the Thunder Bay District Jail.
Brown visited the jail late last year after a guard was taken hostage during a riot that saw prisoners take over the upper level of the 90-year-old MacDougall Street facility.
“I could not believe that such deplorable conditions could exist in Ontario,” Brown said during Question Period, the quote provided in a release issued by the Ontario Conservatives.
“The mayor of Thunder Bay was being generous when he called it a rat hole.”
At the time of the hostage-taking, Brown wrote the premier demanding immediate action on the poor state of the province’s corrections system.
Brown said the system is in crisis, noting 900 staffing-related lockdowns in 2014, a number that has more than tripled since 2009.
“If my first-hand account of what I saw at the Thunder Bay Jail isn’t enough to spur this premier to action, then I would invite the premier to go see it for herself,” Brown said. “Why is the government failing to protect the hard-working men and women who work in our correction system?”
Wynne was in Thunder Bay last month for a cabinet meeting, but sent correctional services minister Yair Naqvi to tour the jail.
