SASKATOON Cultural lodges are set to be built at Saskatoon Correctional Centre, Prince Albert Correctional Centre, Regina Correctional Centre and Kilburn Youth Hall, a Saskatchewan government spokesperson told CTV News. “The services include lodge ceremonies, pipe ceremonies, one-on-one elder counselling, smudging, traditional feasts, tipi teachings, medicine wheel teachings, traditional parenting, sharing circles, drumming, singing, beading, drum making and, when possible, gathering traditional medicines,” said Ministry of Justice spokesperson Margherita Vittorelli. These services facilitate lifestyle choices that help reduce recidivism, she said. Each cultural lodge is anticipated to cost $230,000 and the province expects to break ground in early spring. People with Indigenous or Metis ancestry accounted for 75 per cent of the adult jail population during the 2019-20 fiscal year, according to the province. That figure was 85 per cent for youth in custody.
A letter of support for the Saskatchewan prisoners’ hunger strike
Solidarity on behalf of the
Carillon
As we continue to reckon with the effects of rising COVID-19 cases in homes, hospitals, businesses and our university – and realizing how flawed the response to these cases has been – we cannot forget about those whose health and safety is most dependent on the government’s response. Some of the most vulnerable to new cases of COVID-19 are incarcerated people, who cannot move freely or isolate themselves beyond the terms set by law enforcement and government policy. If we want to know how the Saskatchewan government is truly responding to keep us healthy, people experiencing the pandemic inside prisons are a crucial indicator – and simply put, it is doing a shameful job.
The NDP is calling on the minister of corrections and policing to resign over the Saskatchewan government's handling of COVID-19 outbreaks in provincial correctional facilities.
Posted: Dec 21, 2020 11:50 AM CT | Last Updated: December 21, 2020
Chief Mark Arcand wants to know where jails fit into Saskatchewan s vaccination strategy.(Don Somers/CBC)
A prominent First Nations leader in Saskatoon says it s time to talk about where people behind bars fit into the province s COVID-19 vaccination plan.
Mark Arcand is chief of the Saskatoon Tribal Council. It provides a range of services inside and outside the Saskatoon Correctional Centre, the provincial jail with the highest number of active COVID cases 78 as of Dec. 18. The majority of people in the jail are First Nations. It has to be a high priority and the government has to realize that because they need a quality of life, too, Arcand said in an interview.