The Correctional Service of Canada will build maximum-security cellblocks inside medium-security prisons in Ontario and Manitoba, a move some observers say is a government scheme to create superprisons while avoiding public scrutiny and controversy.
"They tell you they're not going to build a super regional complex, but it's already here; it's going to happen," said Jason Godin, Ontario president of the union that represents correctional officers. "They wanted to appease the critics and say, 'We're not building a super jail.'"
A 2007 report for the Harper government included a proposal to build mega-prisons, which would house more than 2,000 inmates at all security levels at one site.
But the Harper government has consistently denied it has any plans to build mega-prisons.
"By taking this approach, they're essentially doing what appears to be a compromise regional complex setup without having to ask the community whether or not they want these kind of multi-security-level institutions," said Prof. Justin Piche, a sociologist at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador who studies prison expansion.
Piche said adding units to an existing complex bypasses the local consultation process.
The correctional service is in the midst of a $1.7-billion building boom to accommodate a prison population ballooning because of law and order legislation that includes mandatory minimum sentences for more crimes and the cancellation of extra credit for time spent awaiting trial.
The prison population is expected to swell by more than 30 per cent in the next three to four years.
More than 2,500 new cells will be built at existing prisons over the next few years.
According to Lori Pothier, a spokeswoman for the service at its national headquarters in Ottawa: "Maximumsecurity units at select medium-security institutions will provide [the Correctional Service of Canada] with the flexibility it needs to better manage a complex and diverse offender population. [The service] will use the units to accommodate offenders with a highersecurity requirement, should the need arise."
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