Jail opponents say they aren’t giving up the combat.
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Printed Nov 14, 2024 • Final up to date 5 hours in the past • 4 minute learn
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Ontario Solicitor Common Michael Kerzner, left, with space MPP Steve Clark and North Grenville Mayor Nancy Peckford on the announcement of $21.8 in provincial funding for enlargement of the district’s wastewater plant on Thursday. Photograph by JULIE OLIVER /POSTMEDIA
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A controversial 235-bed jail to be inbuilt Kemptville has moved ahead after the Province of Ontario introduced as much as $21.8 million to improve the city’s wastewater therapy plant.
Increasing the 30-year-old plant is “an essential step of our plan to get this jail built,” Solicitor Common Michael Kerzner advised reporters in Kemptville on Thursday. “Absolutely we are moving ahead.”
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Kerzner didn’t decide to a timeline for constructing the jail.
First introduced in August 2020 as a measure to alleviate overcrowding on the 50-year-old Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, the jail was initially projected to be full by 2027, constructed on a 72-hectare website as soon as utilized by the previous Kemptville Agricultural Faculty On the time, the price of the challenge was pegged at $200 million.
However the challenge gave the impression to be in limbo, with little details about progress coming from the province, which had pledged to “fully pay for the necessary infrastructure, including servicing the land for water and sewer, and any related road upgrades that would be required” — with out offering any numbers.
For jail opponents, there are quite a few the explanation why the positioning is a nasty place for a jail. The location is prime agricultural land and 60 kilometres away from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, regardless of stipulations that candidate areas be at most 40-45 kilometres away. Opponents additionally cited surroundings issues concerning the website and argued that Kemptville could be on the hook to pay the extra prices of policing and infrastructure, together with updating the wastewater therapy plant.
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Authorized manoeuvres have delayed the challenge. Jail opponents introduced ahead an utility for judicial assessment of the province’s determination in August 2022, however that was rejected by the Ontario Courtroom of Justice in February, with the three-judge panel saying purposes to assessment Ontario authorities selections have to be filed inside 30 days and the residents had waited too lengthy.
An enchantment was later dismissed.
The provincial funding introduced Thursday will cowl about one-third of the price of increasing the therapy plan. The tender for the challenge’s first section was already awarded, in April, stated Nancy Peckford, the mayor of North Grenville, which incorporates Kemptville.
The city has been rising, and development accelerated through the COVID-19 pandemic, Peckford stated. The municipality was adamant that the province wanted to pay its manner if it was going to faucet into Kemptville’s infrastructure to construct the jail. The wastewater therapy plant was in want of enlargement, with or with out the provincial funding, she stated.
Peckford stated she acknowledged that not everybody was in favour of the jail. Based mostly on her conversations with residents, 20 per cent oppose the jail, 20 per cent are “absolutely enthusiastic” concerning the potential for jobs, and the remaining are in between, she stated.
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“But the reality is that our job, my job as mayor in this community, is to ensure that, from a fiscal perspective and a quality of life perspective, that we are doing everything in our power to ensure the fiscal health of our municipality and to make strategic investments in quality of life,” she stated.
Jail opponents say they aren’t giving up the combat.
“For us, it’s still not a done deal as to whether the jail actually gets built,” stated Justin Piché, a College fo Ottawa criminology professor.
“It’s likely there will be a provincial election. Until there are shovels in the ground, there are ways to push back,” he stated. “The opposition has been going on for four years. They’re four years behind schedule.”
Thursday’s announcement was not surprising, stated Victor Lachance, a member of the Coalition In opposition to the Proposed Jail. Nonetheless, the $21.8 million is not going to pay for sustaining Kemptville infrastructure, he stated.
“When they announced this, a big part of their reason was that they were placing no burden whatsoever on the taxpayer because they own the land,” Lachance stated. “Well, it is placing a burden on taxpayers — the ongoing maintenance, the policing costs, the additional use of the hospital, paving over prime agricultural farmland. It’s not good news for anybody. It’s certainly not good news for the taxpayers of North Grenville.”
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The $21.8 million introduced Thursday may have been used to purchase land nearer to Ottawa, Piché stated. He additionally argued there have been different higher options to constructing extra jails, together with social housing and mental-health and drug therapy in the neighborhood.
“At the end of the day, we know there are more effective, less costly was to address violence and prevent it,” Piché stated. “They’re going the expensive route.”
The jail is a part of a province-wide plan to modernize correctional providers, including 200 jobs to native communities, Kerzner stated.
In Japanese Ontario, that plan consists of the Japanese Ontario Correctional Advanced in Kemptville and the Brockville Correctional Advanced in addition to an enlargement of the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Therapy Centre to incorporate a girls’s therapy unit. The Quinte Detention Centre may also be expanded so as to add inmate programming and capability for girls.
“Our message today is simple: We are not going to stop. We will not apologize, and we will never lose focus on prioritizing our public safety,” Kerzner stated.
“This is not going to change at the end of the day. We’re worked with the mayor and the council, and we will continue to do so, but the priority of this government is to ensure that we have public safety in the four corners of Ontario.”
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