FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October
13, 2005
Don’t give away keys
to provincial parole system, OPSEU warns McGuinty
TORONTO – A provincial Liberal
plan to hand responsibility for Ontario’s provincial parole
system to the federal government is a disaster waiting to
happen, according to the Ontario Public Service Employees
Union.
Under the plan, the provincial
government would abolish the Ontario Parole and Early Release
Board (OPERB) and transfer responsibility to Ottawa for
reviewing and approving parole applications from provincial
inmates and supervising parolees in the community.
“This plan is a threat to the
safety of communities across Ontario,” said OPSEU President
Leah Casselman. “Our provincial parole system is there to keep
high-risk inmates off the streets and keep our communities
safe. We have one of the toughest systems in Canada.”
OPERB refuses almost 80 per
cent of parole applications, compared to the National Parole
Board’s refusal rate of only 41 per cent. Ontario inmates on
parole are supervised directly by an Ontario Probation and
Parole officer in one of 125 offices province-wide. By
comparison, Correctional Services Canada operates only 18
parole offices in Ontario and regularly contracts out
community supervision to outside agencies.
It costs $3 million per year to
operate OPERB, equal to less than 0.2 per cent of $1.75
billion annual budget of the Ministry of Community Safety and
Correctional Services. With parole so closely integrated with
the much larger provincial probation system, the government’s
plan would generate virtually no savings from supervision, the
union says.
“The growth of community
sentencing means that provincial inmates are more dangerous
than ever,” said Casselman. “We need to keep a tough parole
system – and one that is accountable directly to the people of
Ontario – to help keep our communities safe.”
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For more information:
Gord Longhi, President, OPSEU
Local 263, (416) 476-4747
Myles Magner, OPSEU Communications, (416) 443-8888 ext. 8777
or (416) 571-1214
