Saskatchewan closing Buffalo Narrows jail

As a cost-saving measure, a jail in northern Saskatchewan will close, the province announced Wednesday.

Inmates from the Buffalo Narrows Community Correctional Centre will be transferred to other facilities around the province, the government said Wednesday.

The facility has capacity for 18 inmates.

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Tell noted that projects related to corrections facilities, in North Battleford and Prince Albert, were maintained.

"There was no good choice," Tell said. "We had to make a choice with respect to housing our offenders."

It's a big blow to the community.- Bob Bymoen

Tell said there are a number of places offenders can go, emphasizing the space in Buffalo Narrows was for minimum security inmates.

"We'll make room for them [in community training residences]," Tell said, adding that decisions on who will go where will be left to officials in the ministry.

"We do try, as best we can, to keep the offenders as close to their families as possible," she said. "But we have to manage it and we have to go where we have space."

'Big blow to the community': Union leader says

Bob Bymoen, head of the union that represents workers in corrections, said the SGEU was "surprised and saddened" by the move.

"We know that's a big hit to that community and to our members that life up there and work in that community" Bymoen said. "The government's made their decision and we'll have to try and work within it."

Bymoen said there are about 15 people affected by the closure. Some of them are part-time workers.

He added that the community will also feel the loss, economically, of people who would travel to Buffalo Narrows to visit people in the correctional facility.

"It's a big blow to the community," he said. "There's no way to sugarcoat what's going on up there."

He said the union is sending people to Buffalo Narrows to talk to them about the consequences of the closure.

The closure is expected to save the province $661,000 in the current fiscal year (which started April 1) and $1 million a year after that.

Buffalo Narrows is about 400 kilometres northwest of Prince Albert.