Labrador lockup, facilities unacceptable: Kennedy

Controversial facilities for inmates in central Labrador failed to impress the provincial justice minister during a tour on Wednesday.

"It's not the kind of things were looking at in terms of what's required," Jerome Kennedy said following a tour of a secure mental health room in the hospital in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Kennedy, who was appointed Newfoundland and Labrador's justice minister in late October, also visited the lockup at the RCMP, which has been a target of criticism for more than a year.

Because there is only one secure mental health room in the region, the RCMP often must keep patients who are threatening to kill themselves at the police lockup.

Two Inuit women have been kept naked there, with the RCMP issuing an apology in one case.

In October, lack of space kept a 14-year-old boy in the lockup for 10 days.

The boy was denied access to a shower and to visits from his parents for eight days.

"Everyone is agreed that there is a need for facilities," Kennedy said.

"What we have to look at [is] whether or not there is need, for example, for a remand facility or a separate facility for female offenders [and] for youth."

Kennedy also met with Innu, Inuit and Métis leaders.

Tony Andersen, the acting president of Nunatsiavut, the Inuit self-government, said people still want to know why a Nain woman was held naked in a cell for three days last year.

"Maybe we haven't lost faith in the justice system but there's very little confidence from Nunatsiavut, in Inuit communities," he said.

Kennedy did not say what the province has in mind for Labrador facilities. He said he would soon respond to a report filed earlier this year by Citizen's Representative Barry Fleming, who recommended separate facilities for women and youth held in the corrections system.