MPP to Premier: 'Prison bars don’t keep out the virus'

Mike Schreiner, the Leader of the Ontario Green Party is calling for Premier Doug Ford to address the mass prison COVID-19 outbreaks in the province.

"Mass prison outbreaks are a public health and a community safety threat," states Schreiner, the MPP for Guelph, who advises 15 of Ontario’s 25 jails are in outbreak status, with 2,000 inmates in medical isolation. 

"Prison bars don’t keep out the virus. In fact, the conditions behind bars make the risk of infection even worse, Schreiner observes. "The situation is out of control, but the government is nowhere in sight on the issue."

Monday, the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit reported the COVID-19 outbreak at the North Bay Jail had reached 105 cases.

According to the Ministry of the Solicitor General, approximately 30 per cent of the North Bay Jail staff is in isolation at home due to the COVID-19 outbreak at the facility.  

See related: North Bay Jail COVID outbreak tops 100

See also: North Bay Jail remains open despite another COVID-19 outbreak

In July 2021, officials declared a separate 43-person outbreak over at the North Bay Jail. That outbreak forced officials to close the facility and re-route a number of inmates to other facilities in the province.  

Meanwhile, Schreiner and the Ontario Greens are calling for the Ford government to reduce prisoner and staff exposure to COVID-19 by:

• Reducing the number of people inside prisons and detention centres through rapid decarceration and non-custodial options (i.e. bail, conditional sentences, diversion programs etc.)
• Ramping up community-entry supports including emergency housing
• Providing prisoners and staff with adequate PPE including high-quality masks to prevent airborne spread
• Ensuring that all prisoners are educated on prevention (including that COVID-19 is airborne), symptoms, treatment, and vaccinations;
• Regularly testing staff and prisoners, and ensuring that testing and isolating is done in a humane way, in accordance with human rights standards and not in solitary confinement
• Ensuring that prisoners are given access to fresh air spaces with safe physical distancing.

Schreiner acknowledges, in the first wave of the pandemic, the Ford government did what was right to protect prisoners, reducing inmate populations by 30 per cent to limit spread in confined settings, but says now, with the far more transmissible Omicron variant, the government is silent.

The situation has reached the point the North Bay Jail will transfer inmates due to staffing concerns.

"The Ministry is coordinating the transfer of a portion of the current North Bay Jail inmate population to help mitigate the current staff absences and maintain the safety and security of those inmates that will remain at the facility," Andrew Morrison, media relations, Ministry of the Solicitor General told BayToday.

According to Morrison, transferring inmates from the North Bay facility will help prevent the risk of infection and create additional capacity to manage close contact isolation requirements.

"Any COVID-19 positive inmates transferred from North Bay Jail to other provincial correctional facilities will be placed on droplet and contact precautions and isolated from the rest of the inmate population while they receive appropriate medical care."

With files from Chris Dawson