Chatham-Kent-Essex MPP Rick Nicholls is calling out the provincial government after learning they spent more preparing for a potential corrections worker strike than originally announced.
Following a "Freedom of Information" request from the Canadian Press, it's been shown the Ontario Government spent over $44-million preparing for a potential corrections strike.
These expenses include training and renovating spaces in the province's jails, as well as food and beds for corrections managers who would have handled monitoring if a strike took place.
That total is well over the $8.5-million the province had publicly revealed.
"In preparation for a strike, they're going to have to spend money. I get that," says Nicholls, who is also the conservative community safety and correctional services critic. "But why were they not forthright in saying, at the very beginning, 'This is what it cost us.' Now it looks as though they were trying to hide something."
Ontario's corrections workers threatened a strike near the end of 2015. Ahead of the potential labour action, Nicholls says he toured jails in northern Ontario and found large amounts of supplies had already been purchased.
"I thought, my goodness, this seems to be a huge expenditure," says Nicholls. "When you compound that with all the other detention centres throughout the province, to me it didn't make sense that they were only spending $8.5-million."
The Ministry of Correctional Services has stated they had to have contingency plans in place to ensure safety for the institutions and the public. Officials add they made an effort to minimize the impact to taxpayers.
The province reached a new three-year deal with corrections workers on January 9, 2016.
