Ottawa jail replaces top manager, 'effective immediately'

The superintendent at the embattled Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre has been replaced by her deputy "effective immediately," according to the province's minister of community safety and correctional services.

• Report: Overcrowding, staff shortages, food issues at OCDC
• ​Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre cuts security corners due to staff shortage: union
• Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre staff optimistic after province, OPSEU strike deal​

Yasir Naqvi confirmed in a statement on Friday that deputy superintendent Mike Wood has been named acting superintendent at the jail, replacing former superintendent Maureen Harvey.

Harvey, said Naqvi, is "no longer with the Ontario public service."

Conditions at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre had come under fire in a 2015 community advisory committee report that found the jail often served substandard food, and had both overcrowding of inmates and staff shortages.

Naqvi called for a task force to investigate overcrowding at the jail after learning about the practice at the jail of using showers as cells.

Earlier this week an inmate died after an apparent cardiac arrest. He had been sharing a cell in the facility's health unit with two other inmates.

Naqvi said Wood has more than three decades of corrections experience.

"We have every confidence that Mike and his team will continue to run the institution in a safe and secure manner," said Naqvi in the statement.