Dauphin primed for $142M justice centre

The Dauphin Centre for Justice will have 100 beds for inmates and include supports to help rehabilitate offenders serving sentences at the facility, the province’s justice minister said.

The 2026 provincial budget, which was released on Tuesday, earmarked $7 million for construction work to start this year. The total cost of the project is $142 million.

“We want to make sure people feel safe, and it’s about rebuilding some of that capacity within our justice system, and specifically in corrections,” Justice Minister Matt Wiebe said in a Wednesday interview.

The NDP promised to reopen the facility during the 2023 election campaign, at the time saying it would create 80 jobs once built.

The former Progressive Conservative government under then-premier Brian Pallister closed the more than 100-year-old correctional facility in 2020 over aging infrastructure. The decision was made without consultation from the local community, then-mayor of Dauphin Allen Dowhan said at the time.

“There’s no question that this had a big impact on the city of Dauphin, the Parkland and Westman more generally in terms of the justice services that we were offering,” said Wiebe, the MLA for Concordia.

“Obviously it’s had a big impact on families, on the community. We lost jobs, good-paying jobs when the Dauphin jail was closed and this is about restoring those justice services.”

The facility will include spaces for people on remand, who are in custody awaiting trial or court dates.

“We’re also building out the kind of supports, therapeutic communities for those inmates who want to get on a better track and want to make a change in their life. We want to be able to offer that hand up,” Wiebe said.

“That’s going to make our province a safer place.”

He said the centre will be designed to help offenders “who are trying to turn their life around.”

There will also be an opportunity to expand the number of beds later on, but those details are still in the works, he said.

The province is still mapping out how many jobs will be created after the facility is built, as well as the number of construction jobs, he added.

Dauphin Mayor David Bosiak said the impacts of the project for the community and surrounding area are “huge.”

“There’s going to be a two- or three-year construction window that’s going to be great for hotels and restaurants, and just increased activity in town and for all trades, sub trades and everyone else,” Bosiak said.

Premier Wab Kinew in December told the Sun that he believes the project will take about two years to complete. That timeline was confirmed by a provincial official on Friday.

Bosiak also said he’s hopeful the permanent jobs will replace the positions lost when the original centre shuttered.

“There were about 85 positions, give or take, that left the community. So we think that at least that number will be back,” he said, adding that will have positive ripple effects for Dauphin.

Spouses of the jail’s staff, including teachers and nurses, also departed, and Bosiak said he hopes to see that trend reversed.

“We believe that that will be coming back, and then the spinoff — there’s a hurry-hard right now in town about getting some additional housing units going, and whether that’s multi-family or single-family dwellings, because we’ve been talking to quite a few developers in the last few months trying to get ahead of this.”

He added there will be challenges for the city, since there isn’t a lot of excess accommodation in place.

Bosiak also said there has been a “tremendous extra burden” on the justice system and sheriffs since the closure of the old facility, especially when it comes to transporting people to Dauphin for court dates while they are in remand or in custody in Brandon or The Pas.

“Having a facility in Dauphin again helps this Parkland (and) northern region, and basically provides facilities that were once here back for our local community, but also the surrounding municipalities,” Bosiak said.

When asked if he sees any issues for the city and its residents with a correctional centre returning to the community, Bosiak said he didn’t really have concerns as Dauphin’s old jail was in place for decades without any issues.

Bosiak said he’s interested in how stakeholder engagement will be taken into account, with services available for inmates as opposed to just locking them up, though he wasn’t sure what the facility would be like.

Kamryn Winters, executive director of the Parkland Chamber of Commerce, said the centre for justice will have a “huge benefit” in terms of economic impact.

“I think that just having the justice centre here, it’s strategic, just because we are the Parkland, so it just kind of reinforces us as that regional hub,” Winters said.

“We do have a lot of surrounding communities around Dauphin. It helps us keep everybody close by so families don’t have to travel to Brandon or Winnipeg (or) Stonewall and they can see their families more often.”

It will also be good for Dauphin’s trades sector and people coming to Dauphin for work, she said.

“It will boost small businesses. Perhaps they’re going to be staying in hotels, or in long-term hotel stays. And that’s always great for the Parkland area, is to fill those hotel rooms as well,” Winters said.

“I just see it as a positive thing for our region.”

Ted Dzogan, past-president of the John Howard Society of Brandon, said the odds of successful reintegration are higher when people are able to serve time in their community, surrounded by friends and family.

“This is a win for Dauphin, it’s a win for corrections, period, to have people serve their time close to home and get support,” Dzogan said on Tuesday.

He said at least a third of offenders in Manitoba come from a rural background.

“They’re not going to do super well if they’re reintegrated into a large metropolitan community,” Dzogan said. “That ability to be in your comfort zone and be in the community that you are used to, it’s going to mean a lot for success.”

» alambert@brandonsun.com