Nearly 300 recruits to be trained as corrections officers on P.E.I.

A partnership between Holland College's Atlantic Police Academy and the Correctional Service of Canada will see about 300 recruits trained on P.E.I.

'We want to be known as a centre of excellent training and they're going to bring excellent training here'

Isabella Zavarise · CBC News · Posted: Feb 27, 2019 5:12 PM EST | Last Updated: February 27, 2019

Approximately 300 recruits will be trained from June 2019 to August 2020. (Sarah MacMillan/CBC)

A partnership between Holland College's Atlantic Police Academy and the Correctional Service of Canada will see about 300 recruits on P.E.I. trained under the CSC's correctional training program.

In a statement to CBC News, the CSC said due to an increase in recruitment demands for correctional officers, it needed to provide more correctional training programs and find alternative training locations.

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Forrest Spencer, executive director of the Atlantic Police Academy, said this is the first partnership the academy has had with the federal organization.

He said three cadet training programs of 32 students will train at the academy simultaneously with staff from the CSC providing the training.

"Because of the amount of facilities that we have, it really isn't going to cause a great deal of issues with respect to timing," he said.

'Lasting impact'

Spencer said this partnership will benefit not only students, but the community as well.

"We want to be known as a centre of excellent training and they're going to bring excellent training here," he said.

"These people, when they talk about where they did their training, they're going to talk about coming to Summerside, P.E.I. and Holland College and Slemon Park and having done their corrections training so I think it's going to have a real … lasting impact on those students and on the Island."

Forrest Spencer, the executive director of the Atlantic Police Academy, says this is the first partnership the academy has had with the federal organization. (Sarah MacMillan/CBC)

The CSC said 12 English-language correctional training programs will occur over an 18-month period.

Spencer said infrastructure upgrades and renovations will also be completed in order to create a national satellite training academy at Slemon Park.

"We're going to try to replicate the facilities in a way that when they practise, they're going to practise in an environment where they might work," he said.

Training to begin in June

Spencer said once the training is complete, the facility will be used by students at the academy for their own training and will be open to other police services.

The province is loaning Slemon Park Corporation — a Crown corporation — $995,000 to pay for the building renovations.

In an email to CBC News, the province said the loan will be repaid over two years at an interest rate of three per cent.

Training begins this June and will go until August of 2020.