The budget for a new hospital for inmates in federal facilities is now estimated at $1.3 billion, more than triple the $400 million estimate made public in 2021, according to federal documents and sources.
Financing for the project in New Brunswick was approved by the Treasury Board in December 2024, but the larger amount has not been made public as Ottawa is in a bidding process with construction companies.
Sources familiar with the matter indicate the project survived Ottawa’s spending review ahead of the Nov. 4 federal budget, despite pressure to reduce spending at the Correctional Service of Canada.
The 155-bed facility will offer physical and mental health care in French and English to men and women in the federal prison system. It will be in a new building and will replace an outdated facility with one-third capacity within Dorchester Penitentiary.
The center will be built in the Beauséjour district, represented by Dominic LeBlanc, federal minister responsible for trade between Canada and the United States.
Last year, LeBlanc confirmed that the center’s budget would be higher than initially planned, without giving a precise figure.
LeBlanc only indicated that the budget would be comparable to that of the Confederation Bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, which opened in 1997.
“The scale of this project is very much in that range,” said LeBlanc, who was finance minister at the time.
The $1.3 billion budget for the new center would be 30 percent larger than the $1 billion Confederation Bridge contract, according to sources and federal documents.
Radio-Canada granted confidentiality to federal sources who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
The Correctional Service of Canada plans to complete the project by 2032.
While he was Minister of Public Safety in 2023, LeBlanc was informed that the project’s budget was increasing, according to a briefing note released under the Access to Information Act.
The financial information is redacted, but the memo shows that LeBlanc requested that the entire project be kept, despite increased costs.
“During our first meeting, I raised the revised forecast for a 155-bed facility,” wrote Anne Kelly, commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada. “At that time, [Correctional Service Canada] “It was requested that I not reduce the scope of the project but rather continue with the originally planned facilities.”
According to federal documents, the proposed center “will meet the physical and complex clinical and mental health needs of federal offenders across Canada.”
Located in southeastern New Brunswick, the new center will be built on the grounds of Dorchester Penitentiary and will replace the 53-bed Shepody Healing Centre.
Dr. Louis Thériault, a psychiatrist at the recovery center, has been saying for years that the current facility is not safe for inmates or staff.
Dorchester Penitentiary opened in 1880.
“We have isolation cells that look like dungeons. The windows are poor. And the space is very, very narrow. Of all the treatment centers in the country, within the correctional service, we are in the worst situation,” he said.
