The weather was miserable, windy, wet and cold outside the North Bay jail this morning, but Mike Bisallion, an OPSEU Region 6 Executive Board Member and local corrections officer, says the conditions inside the jail aren’t much better.
Bisallion welcomed OPSEU president Warren “Smokey” Thomas for a tour of the North Bay Facility this morning.
“We are always honoured when Smokey comes here, he has been such a dedicated leader for our union and for the labour movement in general, so I’m thrilled to have him here in my own workplace, my own local,” said Bisallion.
While he is proud to have Smokey here, he is far less proud of the conditions inside the jail that he works in.
“What he is going to see is an understaffed jail, that’s very old, that needs an awful lot of work,” said Bisallion outside the jail this morning during a freezing rain storm.
“He will see an infrastructure that I think is broken down.”
The OPSEU president arrived in North Bay on Tuesday where he met with Canadore officials about labour concerns there as well as to meet with officials concerning the cuts at the hospital.
Thomas says communities in the North have to keep a close eye on a plan, he believes is in the works, to build a pair of super jails and eliminate small jails like the one in North Bay.
“When the government talks about modernization, I’ve got some intelligence out of Queen’s Park that their goal is to build one super jail in the Northwest and one super jail in the Northeast which would be a real tragedy, it would be a crime within itself,” said Thomas holding an umbrella to avoid the freezing rain.
“These small jails serve communities, you have got geographical distances up here that must be taken into account so I’m looking forward to Yasir Naqvi, Deb Matthews and Kathleen Wynne putting money where there mouth is because they sure did a lot of talking during bargaining, but now it’s time for them to pony up and do the right thing.”
Bissallion estimates the North Bay jail needs close to one million dollars in funding to get the conditions back to where they should be.
Corrections workers in Ontario averted a strike early in the new year and will still be heading to arbitration to get their new contract finalized with the province.
Whatever happens, Thomas remains skeptical.
“I don’t want to fear monger but I know what they are like, these Liberals, they lie, they make all kinds of promises and don’t deliver and I think we are seeing it right now in Corrections,” he said bluntly.
“My message to the government is, if you don’t fix Corrections and you don’t take all the steps that you promised to take during bargaining, with stuff in the collective agreement and commitments made to communities, it will only get worse, it won’t get better.”
OPSEU represents more than 50 guards and probation officers locally.
