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And it could do so without resorting to privatization of any sort (because experience elsewhere has shown that privatization has the effect of creating an incentive – i.e. corporate profits – for more imprisonment).

Yet, despite the promise to “stop the (Liberal) gravy train” at Queen’s Park, according to a recent email obtained from the ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, Ford is proceeding with the previous government’s ill-conceived and wasteful plan to replace the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre (OCDC) with a new and bigger jail. Should its construction, “anticipated to start in 2020, working towards operation within the next six years,” be allowed to take place, Ford’s time in office will be marked by an exploding human-caging budget alongside damaging cuts to critical sectors such as education and social services “for the people” that’ll undermine our collective well-being and safety.

Here are the numbers.

According to Infrastructure Ontario, Ottawa’s new and bigger jail will cost between $500 million and $1 billion to design, build, finance and maintain over the life of a 30-year public-private-partnership. That’s an infrastructure bill of $45,662 to $91,324 every day, or $16.7 million to $33.3 million every year for the next three decades.

The proposed jail has 140 more beds, nearly 25 per cent bigger than the current one on Innes Road. According to Statistics Canada, in 2016/2017 it cost an average of $235 a day or $85,775 a year, to imprison one person in an Ontario facility.