The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Can Ontario Build Its Way Out of Jail Overcrowding?

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Why is Ontario turning to prison expansion after years of chronic jail overcrowding, and what do internal documents reveal about the true cost and impact of that plan? As researchers question whether building more cells will actually ease the strain, we look at what the province is betting on, with analysis from Mackenzie Plumb, a PhD candidate in criminology at the University of Ottawa, and Lee Chapelle, president of Canadian Prison Consulting. Then, how far should government go in regulating sex offenders after a judge ruled key parts of Ontario's registry unconstitutional? As the premier signals plans to make parts of the registry public, employment lawyer and workplace investigator Abigail Knubley weighs the legal risks and consequences.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Nam Kiwanuka, host and producer of mistreated, a podcast on women's health. There just hasn't been a lot of money put into researching women's health issues. If women are in pain, it's hysteria, it's an emotional issue. And this is what you see consistently. Women's health is not taken seriously. How did we get here? Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to check out the video version of the show on the TVO Today YouTube channel. Hope to see you then. Ontario's jails are overcrowded, and it's getting worse. In 2023, the Canadian press reported jails were operating, on average, at 113% capacity.

Today, according to global news, they're now at 130%. But the government has a plan. Researchers uncovered it via Freedom of Information documents. They say it includes billions of dollars and $6,000. 1,000 new jail beds by 2050. And earlier this month, the Premier confirmed it's a go. You know, I'm not building four seasons, hotels for criminals that should be in jail. We'll continue adding, you know, cells to keep the bad people in jail where they belong, behind bars. But critics say Ontario has different problems, clogged courts, delayed trials,

and not enough prevention. So, is building more jails the answer, or just treating the symptom? And later, a Hamilton judge recently ruled the province's sex offender registry is unconstitutional. But Premier Doug Ford backs it and says he wants to protect the community. So is it the best way to keep Ontario's safe? Welcome to the rundown. Ontario's jails have been overcapacity for years and the provincial government wants to build its way out of the crisis. researchers recently got access to internal documents that detail the cost and scope of the plan. From Ottawa, Mackenzie Plum is a PhD candidate in the criminology department at the University of Ottawa.

And in Toronto, Lee Chappelle is the president of Canadian Prison Consulting. I want to thank both of you for joining us on the line. McKenzie, I want to start with you. It was your research that brought the province's prison expansion to light. help us understand what prompted you to investigate Ontario's prison system in the first place. Yeah, so the four governments plan to massively expand Ontario's provincial jail system by more than 50% by 2050 was outlined in Solicitor General Michael Kersner's March 2025 transition binder. So this was not previously disclosed to the public.

I obtained it just last month through Freedom of Information Request. as part of my PhD research that examines prison construction trends in Ontario prior to and since Confederation. I want to read a statement. We reached out to the Ministry of Solicitor General for comment, and they sent us back this statement. It reads, our government is making historic investments of $3 billion to modernize correctional infrastructure and expand capacity to keep criminals behind bars. Across the province, we are adding nearly 1,400 new beds and correction facilities and hiring 33. 100 new staff to ensure dangerous criminals are never released due to a lack of space in adult correctional institutions. These investments address longstanding gaps in corrections facilities created by 10 years under the liberals who close institutions in decimated capacity.

We continue to explore new ways to bring more capacity to our corrections facilities faster, and we'll be unveiling additional expansions in the coming months. Mackenzie, actually, I'm going to come back to you first. Do you have any response to that? Of course. I think the investment is historic. It's unprecedented. It's going to be very expensive.

And just to comment briefly on the comment of the liberals, the liberals opened more beds than they closed, and during the same time that this statement is discussing, as well as the Ford government themselves have closed beds during their time, including the intermittent centers at London and Toronto, which they then had to reopen. Lee, you are no stranger to TVO's current affairs programming. You have been on the agenda numerous times to discuss corrections,

but you have a particular insight that most people don't. You have been on the inside, and you continue to work with people who are going in for the first time. So help us understand a little bit about how, bad of a problem overcrowding is right now in our prison system? It's severe, Jan. And if I may, I'd like to walk back to that topic, just for a moment, the statement that was put out by a soldier in regards to the liberals, this is not a partisan problem, although certainly through the rhetoric, the conservatives have a different.

stance. But if you want to walk this back to where we became in trouble with overcrowding and a lot of issues was under the Harris government, if the Samson, Rob Samson was at that time the minister. And in 2000, we went super jail model, which was American style and the Toronto South, the Central East Correctional Center, the Central North Correctional Center. Central North was privatized for five years. It didn't work. But at the same time, torrentic health beds were shut down. Medium security institutions were closed, such as Guelph.

Birch Rapids was a minimum that they were running at that point. So that was, that is erroneous, the statement. It certainly isn't factual. The facts are, we have about 8,500 beds. bed space for in Ontario present. We're running at a couple thousand above that. That leads to triple bunking for the bulk of the offenders. So you're talking about a very small cell double bunk and somebody on the floor sleeping with their head beside the toilet.

This has also caused a great deal of strain in the environment on the range. on the ranges, on the open shared areas, phone times, in combination to the overcrowding, which that does cause more, I tend to call them domestic issues among the dates, but it's certainly a driver of violence and of conflict. So you mentioned the overcrowding, three to a bunk. You talk about sort of not having, essentially when we talk about domestic resources within the jail system, one would look at that and say, well, perhaps we need more prisons.

Is that the answer, McKenzie? I would say undoubtedly there is a crowding issue. I would never deny that. However, I would say that building new jails and expanding existing ones years down the line will not address crowding in this system. today, as even the newest facilities that were built to address crowding in the recent past, like the Southwest Detention Center in Windsor and the Toronto South Detention Center were over capacity shortly after they opened in 2014.

The 300-plus bed Thunder Bay Correctional Complex was announced in 2017, and nine years later, it's still not open. and the Ford government continues to think that building and filling these new and bigger jails, years from now, is going to address crowding today. I think if the government really wants to alleviate crowding in Ontario's provincial jails, they need to fix the broken bail system that results in many people being sent to pretrial attention. According to Statistics Canada, more than 80% of people held in Ontario's provincial jails are awaiting their day in court.

for context in 1985, 86, roughly a quarter of people held in Ontario's provincial jails were in pretrial detention. 2001 to 2002, they accounted for more than half and have ever since in Ontario. So midfords jail, not bail frenzy, those denied bail and on pretrial are accounting for 85.9% of people in our deals right now. So we have a bail crisis, but I don't think it can reasonably framed as one that's too lenient. So Lee, I want to come back to whether prisons and beds are actually the solution here. Do we need more prisons or do we need more beds? Does that make this situation a little bit better? To address overcrowding. So as it stands, looking at that plan and the finite amount or however much they didn't know, denoted to that,

I would be supportive of potentially one new jail, which is far better equipped resource-wise that would alleviate the strain. We've had growing population numbers in Ontario, growing. So, I mean, I can see that, but half of the money that they're proposing and only one institution that would be well thought out, that could be constructive, purposeful, rehabilitation in mind, mental health, because our forensic mental health beds are non-existent, if it were to take into consideration all of those things and alleviate the string, great. and then the balance of the money needs to be put into the community. Provincial corrections doesn't have halfway houses. So many individuals end up getting out from a provincial jail with nowhere to go and no structure. And so it doesn't, it's not hard to see what they're creating is people coming in and out, getting out, coming back, getting out, coming back.

One thing I don't want to ignore is on the rundown, we have talked a lot about public safety being a top concern for Ontarians and Canadians. And I am curious, Mackenzie, do more prisons keep us safe? I think everyone wants to live in communities that feel safer. I just know that the evidence tells us that this is best achieved through investments in infrastructure and supports upstream from jail to prevent. criminalized harms to the extent that is possible. There are many ways we could enhance community well-being and safety with the funds the government wants to blow on building and filling new and bigger provincial jails in towns and cities across Ontario. Just for an example, if the province adds another 5,670 jail beds over the next however long as they plan to do, the bill for construction

alone will be at least $6.8 billion. And the cost to operate them is over $2,000,000,000,000,000, per day. With this $6.8 billion, it'll cost to build these new jail spaces. The province could instead build close to $25,000 permanent and supportive housing spaces at $275,000, $27,000 per unit for people seeking homes, drugs, treatment, recovery, support, and mental health care. Similarly, the annual cost to operate these beds could cover the costs of running over 15,000 permanent and supportive housing spaces. So these are, unlike imprisonment, proven to reduce lawbreaking and transform lives, while significantly cutting costs associated with paramedic calls, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations, as well as policing, court hearings, and imprisonment. Obviously, this is just one alternative is not a catch-all solution, but at a time when many people living in the province are concerned about the impacts of crowded jails, as well as the flow of unhoused people from the streets and encampments to and from prisons, the unment mental health needs that are contributing to criminalization and incarceration, and unmet physical health needs that resulting in public drug use, arrests, and jailing. Permanent and supportive housing offers a way out of the site. of building and building new jail spaces, only to build and fill more, all while turning lives

around and making us safer. I just think there is a better way than jail, not bail, and it's one that's grounded in evidence and a shared obligation to care for people who have been made vulnerable by the excesses of capitalism and the vast inequalities it creates. Lee, I'll get you to respond there, McKenzie. Listen, a number of ways that, you know, we can move this money into a different direction to help make people feel safe. But what could the government spend money on

instead of building more prisons? Yeah, well, you know, return on investment with the plan that they presently have is not appealing, I don't think, and shouldn't be, to any Canadian who's footing the bill for these plans. I work with a lot of first-time offenders, and they tend to be on bail for years, to sentencing.

There are, and I'll concede the point that there's post-pandemic, there's been increased mental health issues. In Toronto, there's been more blatant crime than I've seen, and it's not just picking an incident or two and blowing that out of proportion. My barber shared out with Sherway Gardens two weeks ago. he caught himself in the midst of three masked attackers with guns stealing a vehicle from a couple women. There are people, TTC, there is concern, there is a fear in Toronto. But again, if we can put resources towards the community, there are instances where we do need to lock people up there, for whatever reasons, whatever brought them to that point.

but they're dangerous, they're violent. And ideally, when they go inside, they'll be able to have the resources to work towards getting better. 95% of everybody who is incarcerated in Canada today will eventually be released at one point or another. So, again, on a return on investment perspective, more community resources are required most definitely. I want to switch gears a little bit.

Another story that's grabbing the headlines. has been about inmates getting out of jail before their sentence has been served. Global News reported that 157 inmates had been accidentally released from provincial custody between 2021 and 2025. Lee, help me understand this. How does something like this happen? Well, there's a number of factors. You know, and I'll tell you, when I began doing time in 1986 through 2020, that that was the sort of thing that you'd go to sweep with dreams about that you'd be mistakenly released the next day. It would happen really, really sporadically, like occasionally.

I think this is a result of staff burnout. the lack of attention to detail, institutions that have 1,200 people in them. So what I noted in my last day, which was in the Central East Correctional Center, and it was a considerable difference from the 80s, 90s, was that there was a, the oversight within the prison had been almost removed.

When it came to cells, you're designated for a cell. You're supposed to be in that cell. Blocks are done when we're locked up, all that stuff. But during my very last one, people were choosing to sleep where they wanted. Nobody was calling them on it. So I think it's a culmination of a number of things, not dotting their eyes, not crossing their keys.

and burnout and I think also probably on an odd occasion, I wouldn't take away the possibility of a payoff. Certainly some correctional officers have been arrested for things along those lines, and there are some who I think would be open to that. Mackenzie, Lee, we are going to have to leave it there. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. Well, thank you so much for having me.

Under provincial law, sex offenders are placed on a registry and required to update their information annually in some cases for life. Now, a Hamilton judge has ruled key provisions of that law are unconstitutional. But the Premier wants to go further and make parts of the registry public. Abigail Nubbley is an employment lawyer and workplace investigator and she joins me in studio. How are you doing? Good. How are you? I'm doing well. Before we begin, I just want to let our viewers know that we are going to be spending some time talking about a very sensitive topic, which is the Sex Offender Registry.

So we want to advise our viewers to take care of themselves while watching. All right, before we get into the article that you wrote about Sex Offender Registries, tell us why Ontario's Registry is actually named Christopher's Law. Yeah, so Christopher's Law is named after an 11-year-old boy named Christopher. It was implemented in 2001, and so Christopher was killed by a convicted sex offender. that's why the law is named after him. Essentially, Christopher's law requires convicted sex offenders when they get released to report to police and give some basic information like their employment, their name, their address. And depending on their crime, they have to do that for either 10 years or the rest of their life. So it's Ontario's private system. Private. So this is, and who would

have this information? So the police would have that information. And it's essentially for them to be able to do investigations more easily, essentially. All right. As we know, the sex offender registry has made headlines over the last couple of months because the Premier announced plans that he wants to make parts of the Sex Offender Registry Public. We did reach out to the Ministry of the Solicitor General for Comment, and they did provide us with this statement. And it reads, families deserve to know if dangerous criminals convicted of sexual crimes against children are living in their community. That is why, as part of the Keeping Criminals Behind Bars Act, our government,

made it clear that we will explore options to make certain information from the Ontario sex offender and sex trafficker registry publicly accessible. Consultations are ongoing and we are engaging directly with law enforcement partners, legal stakeholders, and subject matter experts to develop a responsible and effective approach that increases transparency while maintaining public safety and investigative integrity. What are your thoughts on that? So there's a couple things when I hear that. First of all, they're saying the reason is public safety, but there's no real data to support that public registries increase public safety.

And so that would be my first instinct on that. And then as well, there's some potential negative side effects of a public registry as well, which we can get into further. But essentially, I mean, when you put someone on a public list and you tell everyone in their community and stigmatize them, it makes it really hard for someone to get a stable job to find any sort of housing to get involved in their community at all. And those are all anchors to society. And when you take those anchors away, you don't actually increase safety. You might do the opposite because someone has less to lose when they don't have those things

tying them to society. Well, dig into a little bit of that. I do want to know, and I don't know if we have this information, but do we know what information the government wants to make public? No, we don't know yet. We know that they're going to make some of it public or they want to make some of the public, but they haven't been clear about what parts they're going to do that with. All right. So you looked at data on public sex offender registries and their effectiveness. What did you find?

Yeah. So basically, I mean, I think to start in the beginning, and before I get into it, I want to reiterate again that sexual offenses are a very serious crime, and by no means am I trying to minimize that or dispute that. The goal, I think, is reducing recidivism and increasing public safety. So I think to understand kind of the whole picture, it's helpful to know that sexual offenses already have a pretty low recidivism rate. So there was a study from the early 2000s of meta-analysis, which basically looked at a whole bunch of different studies and saw that about 75% of sexual offenders did not reoffend within 20 years of being released. So about 25% did.

And then there's more recent data from 2022 that also shows that number has decreased to 7%. So we're not dealing with a group of people who are inevitably going to reoffend, but I also don't want to minimize that 7% because it's a very serious crime and it means that it does happen. So then I think the question should be, would a public registry reduce that 7% even further? And there's no data to show that that's the case. So in the United States, there's a few jurisdictions which have implemented public registries. And there have been studies to look at whether they did reduce recidivism, rate, and there was no statistically significant difference. So there's no data kind of showing that it does, or demonstrating that it does reduce recidivism rates for sexual offenders.

Then with that, let's look on the other side. What measures are effective at lowering reoffending rates? Yeah, so there's a couple of things. And, I mean, we know from the early 2000s to now there has been a pretty significant decrease to the 7%. But there's not one thing that's caused that. A lot of the experts say it's really just a bunch of of different factors working together. So in general, our criminology knowledge has grown a lot in the past two decades. So we just understand things better. We also understand therapies and specialized therapies and treatment programs better. So we've developed those things, which can help people in an individualized kind of approach. And also, there are ways to use Ontario's private registry

in specialized ways as well, in like individualized ways. So Ontario doesn't currently do this, but Manitoba has a system where there's a committee and if a sex offender is being released and the police believe that they are potentially high risk to reoffend, they can refer them to that committee. The committee will then look at a bunch of factors like what were the age of that offender's victims. What is their psychological history? Did they partake in any sort of treatment programs? And so they'll look at all that and they'll decide whether they believe the person's a high

risk to reoffend. And if they do, then there's a bunch of people. of different individualized options they can take, like, for example, ongoing kind of surveillance of the person, and also notification requirements as well. So if they think that it's truly necessary to notify a community, they can do that all the way up to notifying all of Manitoba. But that is, like, the most drastic measure of notification that they would take. And there's a bunch of different lower levels before that. Okay. I want to switch gears a little bit here, because I want to talk about a judge in Hamilton.

A rule that Ontario sex offender registry was unconstitutional. What makes it unconstitutional? Yeah, so this ruling is quite recent. Basically, the judge looked at two parts of Christopher's law and found that... So the first part is that if you commit a sex offense, you are automatically on the private registry. And the second part is that if you get convicted of multiple sex offenses,

you are on that registry for life. So he found both of those parts to be overbroad, and to general, basically painting everyone with broad brush, not taking into consideration the individual circumstances of particular people and treating low and high-risk offenders the same way. Okay. Premier Ford said that he would use the notwithstanding clause to make sure that the changes he plans can't be overturned via a charter challenge. What do you think of that? Yeah, so I think given the fact that there's no data to support really that public registries reduce recidivism rates, that using the notwithstanding clause would be, well, it's not needed and would also be like quite a drastic

approach considering it would result in a charter violation. That's the purpose for using the notwithstanding clause. And like I alluded to before, I think there's other other things we can do better that wouldn't require the notwithstanding clause and that wouldn't have some of the drawbacks of a public registry, which, you know, do separate and stigmatize people from society and prevent reintegration. What's the fear? You talked a little bit about it of having a public registry. Are we going to see people sort of take the law into their own hands? It's interesting you say that because Manitoba on their website where they talk about their committee,

they have in big, bold letters, the purpose of any notification is not for public vigilanteism. So it is a concern, of course, that has clearly been raised in that province that does sometimes do notifications. So I think that it's not something we can ever count out. I think that more realistically, probably, what will more commonly happen is people will struggle to find jobs, struggle to find housing, and then that will kind of push them to a place where maybe they have to re-offend, and maybe they have to steal something or get into illicit substances, and it pushes them to a place where they have been forced to kind of do those other things that they might not have had to do if they had a stable income and had community ties.

I have to imagine there are viewers and listeners right now who are probably having to do. a hard time holding space for people and having sympathy. And I will admit myself, too, for a group of people when we talk about sex offenders. And I'm hoping you can help us understand. What do you hope to contribute to the public's understanding on this issue? Yeah. So I think reiterating again that, you know, this is not to minimize the seriousness of a sexual offense. I have the goal of reducing recidivism and increasing public safety just like the government does.

I just think that we have different perspectives on how. how we go about that. And if the government is saying that, you know, a public registry would increase safety, I think it's fair to challenge that if there's no real data to back that up, because if that is really the goal, we want to do the things that will actually result in safety and reduce recidivism. Abigail, we are going to leave it there. I really appreciate your time and your insights on this one.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'm Jan. Thanks for watching The Rundown. We'd love to know what you think. So send us your suggestions and feedback at tvio. slash rundown feedback. Until then, I will see you tomorrow. And make sure to tune in an hour earlier at 7 p.m. to catch the latest installment of TVO Today Live. My friend and colleague Steve Paken

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