Wednesday, June 5, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916
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The BCGEU held a rally in support of staff in front of Prince George Regional Correction Centre on Tuesday.
Union holds rally to protest jail guards’ working conditions Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca A B.C. Government and Service Employee’s Union representative was in Prince George on Tuesday as part of a province-wide tour to raise awareness about declining working conditions in B.C. jails. Dean Purdy, chair of the BCGEU’s correctional and sheriff services component met with guards outside Prince George Regional Correctional Centre where a rally was held to protest the situation. He said attacks on guards have been on the rise over the last five years and, at 124 incidents, reached an all-time high among the B.C.’s 10 provincial jails in 2018. Fourteen of them occurred at PGRCC, according to Purdy. In part, he pins the trouble on a change in 2002 to allow double-
bunking in jail cells without a requisite increase in the number of guards. Where a guard was typically responsible for 20 inmates in a living unit, each must now keep an eye on 40 at PGRCC, Purdy said. Double-bunking has also led to overcrowding. “It’s like too many chickens in the chicken coop. They start pecking at each other instead of the ground,” Purdy said. “There isn’t enough square footage. They’re bumping into each other, there are only so many phones, there are only so many seats for eating, there are only so many showers.” He said about 60 per cent of the inmate population has mental health and addictions issues, which has only worsened matters. “It’s not only for the safety of the correctional officer, it’s about the
safety of the inmates because the inmate-on-inmate violence has also gone up,” Purdy said. Recruiting and retaining guards has also become an issue according to Purdy, who said many are off work due to post-traumatic stress disorder while others soon move on to better-paying jobs, often as police officers. “RCMP, municipal police forces, they scoop them up,” Purdy said. He said raising wages or the length of the work week would help. Jail guards in B.C. work a 35-hour week and Purdy said raising it to 40 hours while leaving the hourly pay untouched would increase income. Jail guards top out at just under $70,000 per year, he said. Purdy said he has been encouraged by what he has heard from Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth and ministry representative
Canfor to close Vavenby sawmill, sell timber rights for $60 million Derrick PENNER Vancouver Sun Canfor Corp. will close its sawmill in Vavenby, eliminating about 170 jobs, and sell its timber rights to Interfor Corp. for $60 million, the companies announced late Monday. It’s the second major shutdown announced in the past month from an industry facing shrinking timber supplies due to the mountain
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pine beetle infestation, forest fires and poor market conditions that are compounding losses. “Due to the current and longterm log supply constraints we face in the Vavenby region, along with the high cost of fibre, we have made the very difficult decision to permanently close the sawmill and sell the associated forest tenure,” Canfor CEO Don Kayne said in a news release.
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While some of Monday’s national report into missing and murdered Indigenous women stakes new ground, especially in relation to the federal justice system, many of the recommendations echo ideas from similar inquiries undertaken in B.C. over the past decade. Nearly 100 recommendations stemmed from the 2012 missing women inquiry led by former Justice Wally Oppal and the
Highway of Tears symposium in Prince George in 2006, all of them aimed at improving safety and raising awareness of the terrible plight of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. “I think B.C. has set a precedent in what inquiries are about, and how we’ve already had those recommendations on the go,” said Brenda Wilson, a 25year advocate in the Highway of Tears issue. — see HIGHWAY,page 3
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She also said the vast majority of incidents occur in segregation units, often with two or three officers present on a unit at the time of an incident. “This demonstrates that ratios do not change inmate behaviour or prevent violence,” she said. “Instead, new approaches, that are rooted in classification and case management such as implementing Right Living Units and Complex Needs Units for individuals who have challenging behaviours and/or a history of violence are helping to creating real change for staff and the individuals in their care.” WorkSafeBC, meanwhile, has initiated a provincial corrections inspectional initiative for 2019. “We don’t announce the specific locations of these inspections before they occur,” WorkSafeBC spokesperson Erica Simpson said.
Missing women inquiry report looked to Highway of Tears symposium
“Today’s decision is not a reflection on our employees, our contractors or the local communities of Vavenby and Clearwater.” The closure will deliver an economic blow to the entire North Thompson region, according to Clearwater’s mayor. Vavenby is about a 20-minute drive east of Clearwater and Wells Gray Park in the Interior. — see, SAWMILL, page 3
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on the issue. “We like what we’re hearing. They have been very receptive to some of our suggestions around changing up the model of how we house inmates and moving existing staff around to get more corrections officers into the living units, because that’s where everything happens,” Purdy said. In a statement, BC Corrections spokesperson Alicia Bertrand said guard safety is a top priority. “Absolutely nothing matters more to us than having staff go home safe at the end of their shifts. That’s why BC Corrections has made an unprecedented effort over the past three years to introduce new and innovative classification and case management approaches, as part of the overall risk assessment process, that we expect to have a significant impact on preventing violence.”
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