TORONTO — Correctional officers working at the new Toronto
Intermittent Centre on Horner Avenue are warning that the lack of standard
operating procedures at the jail will lead to serious injuries or deaths.
The warning comes after an offender at the facility suffered a near-fatal
overdose this past weekend.
Dan Sidsworth, elected chair of the province’s 6,000
correctional officers, said that the facility should never have been allowed
to open until official procedures were in place to allow for the safe
operation of the jail.
“Every correctional facility is different, and each must
have specific procedures in place to ensure the safety of the staff and the
offenders,” Sidsworth said. “It is incomprehensible to allow a jail to
operate without precise rules and procedures for the staff to follow.”
Sidsworth said that a meeting will be held with officials
from the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services to address
the problem, but says that staff and offenders are living on borrowed time.
“There have already been serious incidents, and it is
inevitable that something worse will happen unless safe procedures are in
place,” Sidsworth said. “The Ministry can’t drag its feet any longer.”
OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas says he will hold
Corrections Minister Madeleine Meilleur directly responsible if one of his
members is injured at the jail.
“You can’t buy a power tool without a thick manual
explaining how to operate it safely,” Thomas said. “It is totally
irresponsible for the Ministry to operate a jail without the same type of
safety manual. It endangers the staff, the offenders and ultimately the
public.”
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