A Court of Queen's Bench judge was surprised Monday to hear prisoners in Alberta were shipped to Manitoba jails during the G-8 summit to free up local jail cells for protesters.
"So not only did it cost millions of dollars for this ridiculous meeting," it interrupted prisoners' rehabilitation programs and the lives of prison staff and others in the community, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Sterling Sanderman said Monday. Lawyer Peter Royal raised the issue during testimony about prison programs available at different institutions.
Federal parole officer Kevin Kindrachuk, who was testifying, confirmed that inmates at Alberta's Bowden and Drumheller medium-security prisons had been moved temporarily to Stony Mountain Penitentiary near Winnipeg. He said Drumheller was the most affected prison, making room for prisoners from Calgary's Spy Hill provincial jail during the meeting of G-8 leaders last month at Kananaskis.
Outside the court, Kindrachuk said he did not know how many prisoners had to go to Stony Mountain during the summit, except that it was a "significant number."
In the end there were no large-scale arrests during the G-8.
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