Host: Ontario's jails have been over capacity for years and the provincial government wants to build its way out of the crisis. Researchers recently got access to internal documents that detail the cost and the scope of the plan. From Ottawa, Mackenzie Plumb is a PhD candidate in the criminology department at the University of Ottawa and in Toronto, Lee Chapelle is the president of Canadian Prison Consulting. I want to thank both of you for joining us on the line. Mackenzie, I want to start with you. It was your research that brought the province's prison expansion to light. Help us understand what prompted you to investigate Ontario's prison system in the first place.

Mackenzie Plumb: Yeah, so the Ford government's plan to massively expand Ontario's provincial jail system by more than 50% by 2050 was outlined in Solicitor General Michael Kerzner's March 2025 transition binder. So this was not previously disclosed to the public. I obtained it just last month through a freedom of information request as part of my PhD research that examines prison construction trends in Ontario prior to and since Confederation. What did you find? Well, according to the transition binder, the ministry's three-phase plan aims to increase Ontario's provincial jail capacity by up to 5,670 beds. So for context, the current jail bed count is around 10,000. Under the first phase, the Ford government has already announced prison building and expansion plans that will add well over 1,000 beds while costing Ontario taxpayers 3 billion for construction alone. The second phase of jail expansion includes 1,500 more spaces for imprisoned people to be built from 2033 to 2041. While the third phase includes 2,000 to 3,000 more jail beds by 2050.

Host: All right, I want to read a statement. We reached out to the Minister of Solicitor General for comment and they sent us back this statement. It reads, "Our government is making historic investments of $3 billion to modernize correctional infrastructure and expand capacity to keep criminals behind bars. Across the province, we are adding nearly 1,400 new beds in correctional facilities and hiring 3,300 new staff to ensure dangerous criminals are never released due to a lack of space in adult correctional institutions. These investments address long-standing gaps in corrections facilities created by 10 years under the Liberals who closed institutions and decimated capacity. We continue to explore new ways to bring more capacity to our corrections facilities faster and will be unveiling additional expansions in the coming months." Mackenzie, I actually I'm going to come back to you first. Do you have any response to that?

Mackenzie Plumb: Of course. I think the investment is is historic. It's it's unprecedented. It's going to be very expensive and just to comment briefly on the comment of the Liberals. The Liberals opened more beds than they closed and during the same time that the statement is discussing as well as the the Ford government themselves have closed beds during their time including the intermediate centers at London and Toronto which they then had to reopen.

Host: Lee, you are no stranger to TVO's current affairs programming. You have been on the agenda numerous times to discuss corrections but you have a particular insight that most people don't. You have been on the inside and you continue to work with people who are going in for the first time. So help us understand a little bit about how bad of a problem overcrowding is right now in our prison system.

Lee Chapelle: It's severe, and if I may, I'd like to walk back to that topic just for a moment. The statement that was put out by SolGen in regards to the Liberals, this is not a partisan problem although certainly through the rhetoric, the Conservatives have a different stance. But if you want to walk this back to where where we became in trouble with overcrowding and a lot of issues was under the Harris government with the Samson Rob Samson was at that time the minister and in 2000, we went super jail model which was the American style and the Toronto South, the Central East Correctional Center, the Central North Correctional Center. Central North was privatized for 5 years. It didn't work. But at the same time, Toronto East Health Beds were shut down. Medium security institutions were closed and such as Guelph. Birch Rapids was a minimum that they were running at that point. So that that was that is erroneous. The statement it certainly is infactual. The facts are we have about 8,500 beds bed space for in Ontario presently. We're running at a couple of thousand above that. That leads to triple bunking for the bulk of the offenders. So you're talking about a very small cell, double bunk and somebody on the floor sleeping with their head beside the toilet. This has also caused a great deal of strain in the environment on the ranges, on the open shared areas, phone times in in combination to the overcrowding which which does cause more I tend to call them domestic issues among but it's certainly a driver of violence and of conflict.

Host: So you mentioned the overcrowding, three to a bunk. You talk about sort of not having essentially when we're talking about domestic issues, resources within the jail system. One would look at that and say, "Well, perhaps we need more prisons." Is that the answer, Mackenzie?

Mackenzie Plumb: I would say undoubtedly there is a there is a crowding issue. I would never deny that. However, I would say that building new jails and expanding existing ones years down the line will not address crowding in the system today as even the newest facilities that were built to address crowding in the recent past like the Southwest Detention Center in Windsor and the Toronto South Detention Center were over capacity shortly after they opened in 2014. The 300 plus bed Thunder Bay Correctional Complex was announced in 2017 and 9 years later, it's still not open and the Ford government continues to think that building and filling these new and bigger jails years from now is going to address crowding today. I think if the government really wants to alleviate crowding in Ontario's provincial jails, they need to fix the broken bail system that results in many people being sent to pre-trial detention. According to Statistics Canada, more than 80% of people held in Ontario's provincial jails are awaiting their day in court. For context, in 1985-86, roughly a quarter of people held in Ontario's provincial jails were in pre-trial detention. 2001-2002, they accounted for more than half and and have ever since in Ontario. So mid Ford's jail not bail frenzy, those denied bail and on pre-trial are accounting for 85.9% of people in our jails right now. So we have a bail crisis but I don't think it can reasonably framed framed as one that's too lenient.

Host: So Lee, I want to come back to whether prisons and beds are actually the solution here. Do we need more prisons or do we need more beds? Does that make the situation a little bit better?

Lee Chapelle: To address overcrowding. So as it stands, looking at that plan and the finite amount or however much they didn't denote to that, I I would be supportive of potentially one new jail which is far better equipped resource wise that would alleviate the strain. We've had growing population numbers in Ontario, growing. So I mean I could see that but I but half of the money that they're proposing and only one institution that would be well thought out that could be constructive, purposeful, rehabilitation in mind, mental health because our forensic mental health beds are nonexistent. If if it were to take into consideration all of those things and alleviate the strain, great. And then the balance of the money needs to be put into the community. Provincial corrections doesn't have halfway houses. So many individuals end up getting out from a provincial jail with nowhere to go and no structure. And so it doesn't it's not hard to see what they're creating is people coming in and out getting out, coming back, getting out, coming back.

Host: One thing I don't want to ignore is on on The Rundown, we have talked a lot about public safety being a top concern for Ontarians and Canadians. And I am curious, Mackenzie, do more prisons keep us safe?

Mackenzie Plumb: I think everyone wants to live in communities that feel safer. I just know that the evidence tells that tells us that this is best achieved through investments in infrastructure and supports upstream from jail to prevent criminalized harms to the extent that is possible. There are many ways we could enhance community well-being and safety with the funds the government wants to blow on building and filling new and bigger provincial jails in towns and cities across Ontario. Just for an example, if the province adds another 5,670 jail beds over the next however long as they plan to do, the bill for construction alone will be at least 6.8 billion. And the cost to operate them is over 2 million per day. With this 6.8 billion, it'll cost to build these new jail spaces, the province could instead build close to 25,000 permanent and supportive housing spaces at 275,000 per unit for people seeking homes, drugs treatment, recovery support, and mental health care. Similarly, the annual cost to operate these beds could cost could cover the costs of running over 15,000 permanent and supportive housing spaces. So, these are, unlike imprisonment, proven to reduce lawbreaking and transform lives while significantly cutting costs associated with paramedic calls, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations, as well as policing, court hearings, and imprisonment. Obviously, this is just one this one alternative is not a catch-all solution, but at a time when many people living in the province are concerned about the impacts of crowded jails, as well as the flow of unhoused people from the streets and encampments to and from prisons, the unmet mental health needs that are contributing to criminalization and incarceration, and unmet health physical health needs that resulting in public drug use, arrests, and jailing, permanent and supportive housing offers a way out of the cycle of building and filling new jail spaces only to build and fill more. All while turning lives around and making us safer. I just think there is a better way than jail not bail, and it's one that's grounded in evidence and a shared obligation to care for people who have been made vulnerable by the excesses of capitalism and the vast inequalities it creates.

Host: Lee, I'll get you to respond there. McKenzie listed a number of ways that, you know, we can move this money into a different direction to help, you know, make people feel safe. But what could the government spend money on instead of building more prisons?

Lee Chapelle: Yeah, well, you know, return on investment with the plan that they presently have is not a not [clears throat] doing, I don't think, and shouldn't be to any Canadian who's footing the bill for for these plans. I I work with a lot of first-time offenders, and they tend to be on bail for years prior to sentencing. There are, and I'll I'll concede the point that there's post-pandemic, there's been increased mental health issues. In Toronto, there's been more blatant crime that I've seen, and and and it's not just uh picking an incident or two and and um blowing that out of proportion. My barber shared how at Sherway Gardens 2 weeks ago, he was in the mid caught himself in the midst of three masked attackers with guns stealing a vehicle from a couple women. There are people TTC, there are there is concern. There is a fear in Toronto, but again, I I if we can put resources towards the community, there are instances where we do need to lock people up there for whatever reasons, whatever brought them to that point, but they're dangerous, they're violent, and ideally when they go inside, they'll be able to have the resources to work towards getting better. 95% of everybody who's incarcerated in Canada today will eventually be released at one point or another. So again, on a return on investment perspective, more community resources are required, most definitely.

Host: I want to switch gears a little bit. Another story that's grabbing the headlines has been about inmates getting out of jail before their sentence has been served. Global News reported that 157 inmates had been accidentally released from provincial custody between 2021 and 2025. Lee, help me understand this. How does something like this happen?

Lee Chapelle: Well, there's a number of factors, you know, and I'll tell you when I when I began doing time in 1986 through 2020, that that was the sort of thing that you'd go to sleep with dreams about that you'd be mistakenly released the next day. It would happen really really uh um sporadically, like occasionally. I think this is a result of um of staff burnout. Um uh the lack of attention to detail. Um the institutions that have 1,200 people in them, uh there are, you know, so what I noted in my last stay, which was in the Central East Correctional Centre, and it was a considerable difference from the '80s, '90s, was that there was a the oversight within the prison had been almost removed. When it came to cells, you're designated for a cell, you're supposed to be in that cell. Locks are done when we're locked up, all that stuff. But during my stint, my very last one, people were choosing to sleep where they wanted, nobody was calling them on it. So, it it it I think it's a combination of of a number of things, not dotting your eyes, not crossing your tees. And burnout and and and I think also probably on an altercation, I I wouldn't take away the possibility of a chaos. Certainly some correctional officers have been arrested for for things along those lines, and there are some who I think would be open to that.

Host: McKenzie, I want to circle back to your freedom of information request. The province recently changed the rules around how people and researchers and journalists will be getting information through FOI requests. How do you continue to pursue the work that you do, and uh will that stop you from doing what you do?

Mackenzie Plumb: Yes, so under these new freedom of information rules the government just introduced, so it's minister records such as the transition binder that I received that included the province's secret jail expansion plans will unlikely be able to be obtained by journalists, researchers, and other members of the public moving forward. When the Ford government blocks access to to records concerning the the inner workings associated with their jail jail expansion efforts, we it makes me ask myself, who are they protecting? I would argue these rules are not protecting Ontarians. Um I think if if any any government of any political stripe wants to undertake new initiatives of any kind that the details should be publicly disclosed so that they can be scrutinized for the merits and consequences by the people the politicians are claiming to represent. Anything less is undemocratic. The public has a right to know what the provincial government is up to with their tax dollars. That's even aside from the research aspect. The the new rules have already impacted some of my research um looking into specifically correspondence related to a jail in Kemptville that is being planned. So, we we already know how the Ford government tends to operate. Just take the Greenbelt scandal as an example. It's hard to see how this move contributes to a supposed plan to protect Ontario in my opinion.

Host: McKenzie, Lee, we're going to have to leave it there. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today.

Mackenzie Plumb: Well, thank you so much for having me.