Does N.B. need a new $32-million jail? Province won't release records explaining decision

The New Brunswick government is withholding records that could explain its decision to spend $32 million building a new jail in the Fredericton region, a facility that two criminologists say won't make the city any safer.

The province announced plans to build a 109-bed jail last December, setting aside $2.5 million in the 2022-23 capital budget to plan and design the new building, and acquire the land where it will be built.

Construction is expected to begin in 2023-24.

In a news release announcing the project, then-public safety minister Ted Flemming said the system is "stretched" to capacity and that "crimes requiring incarceration have been trending up, including trafficking, production and distribution of controlled substances."

CBC News filed an access to information request to the Department of Justice and Public Safety, asking for records that detail the need for a new correctional centre, including records that discuss the business case for a new jail.

The request also asked for records detailing capacity issues within the current system.

But the department is withholding all of those records, including briefing materials about the proposed new jail, arguing they could reveal "advice, opinions, proposals or recommendations developed by or for the public body or a Minister of the Crown."

CBC has filed an appeal with the Ombud's office, which handles access to information appeals in the province.

It's the latest example of the government refusing to provide records that would show how it reached major decisions, and what kind of data it relied upon in the process.

Last month, Premier Blaine Higgs told CBC that he doesn't think it's realistic for him to write down details of all of the discussions he has with people, even if those discussions are key to understanding how decisions are made.

A week later, the premier also acknowledged he said "data my ass" when former education minister Dominic Cardy presented what Higgs considered to be "irrelevant" numbers on French second-language education.

In his resignation letter, Cardy said Higgs yelled the phrase at a senior civil servant because he didn't like what the figures showed.

While speaking to reporters about crime on Tuesday, Public Safety Minister Kris Austin suggested anecdotes he's hearing about crime carry more weight than crime data.

"The problem we're having with the data is the data is not accurately relaying what we're seeing on the ground, and what we know. What we're hearing from municipal police forces, from RCMP, from mayors, from councillors, from residents."