What's holding up a new prison in St. John's? It comes down to money
John Abbott promises a replacement for HMP will happen, but the path forward remains unclear
On the Newfoundland and Labrador government's website, the province's new penitentiary — at this point still little more than a promise — is slated for completion by 2024-25.
A replacement for the long-maligned Her Majesty's Penitentiary, a 164-year-old relic on the shores of Quidi Vidi Lake in St. John's, will happen, vowed John Abbott — but when and at what cost is yet to be revealed.
With the end of 2023 in sight and not a single brick laid, the current public timeline is beginning to look like a pipe dream.
"With my staff and others, we've been reviewing the future of the penitentiary, what it can look like, what it should look like, what it could cost, what we can afford," said Abbott, minister of transportation and infrastructure, in an interview Thursday.
"And then we will be in a position, I think over the next couple of weeks, to announce publicly where we are."
A replacement for HMP was promised in 2019, with construction then scheduled to be completed in 2022. In 2019, the provincial government announced it would set aside $200 million for the project. An access-to-information request in March 2022 revealed the government's "affordability ceiling" was $325 million.
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As inmates, lawyers and advocates pleaded for help with scorching summer heat, rodent-infestations and critical staff shortages, there has been no physical progress on building a prison replacement that even the government itself has repeatedly acknowledged is long overdue and desperately needed.
The sole consortium that put in a bid submitted its finalized plan, including the cost and design, earlier this year, Abbott said.
In answers to followup questions from CBC News, a departmental spokesperson confirmed the plan was actually submitted earlier. The technician submission was given to government a year ago this month. The financial plan was provided in December 2022.
Abbott, who was shuffled from the Department of Children, Seniors and Social Development to his current portfolio in June, said the project is hung up, in part, because of money.
"What we are struggling with — I guess is the best word to use — is the actual capital cost for the facility, and we want to make sure we got the costing done [right] because once we start this, we can't go back," said Abbott.
"That's what I've been asked to look at and we are going through that and trying to finalize that, as I said, over the next couple of weeks."
So how much is too much for a new prison?
Abbott wouldn't say what the proposed cost is but denied the figure being north of $500 million, which was suggested by the Tories during the spring sitting of the legislature.
The provincial government budgeted $7 million this year toward "advancing" the penitentiary. However, Abbott said there hasn't been any advancement thus far.
"We now have to make a final decision, put our oar in water as it were on this, make that final decision and then go forward," he said.
"Of all the things I think we need in this province, I would rate that as No. 1, certainly from this portfolio."
Prisons don't buy votes
George Sheppard, prison advocate and administrator of a Facebook group dedicated to issues at HMP, said there's yet to be enough political capital invested in a replacement.
He hopes Abbott sticks to his word.
"Since when is, 'We're going to build a new penitentiary for the well-being of inmates,' going to sell on any campaign trail?" Sheppard said in an interview Friday from his home on the Burin Peninsula.
"Should it be a factor going forward? No, because it should have already been accomplished and completed long ago."
Sheppard harkens back to an announcement from then justice minister Darin King in 2013. Similar promises, similarly broken.
Since that time has come, Sheppard said, many infrastructure projects have taken shape, pointing to the $10.3-million contract for a roundabout at Galway.
HMP, which Sheppard likens to The Shawshank Redemption, still stands.
"We still have families who go into HMP to visit their loved ones and they're trying to rebuild relationships. They're trying to hold on to relationships, and there's a desperation by families who feel helpless, by inmates who feel unheard," he said.
"There's no clear shoreline and there's nobody there to toss out a life preserver."
Abbott acknowledges the politics of prisons, and what factor that may have played in decisions of the past.
This time, he insists, it will be different.
"I think we're well past that. I think there is a unanimous, certainly within government, unanimous support for moving forward."
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