The Mayor of Kamloops says an agreement to house provincial prisoners imposed upon municipalities in 2002, ended up costing the city about $120,000 last year.

Ken Christian says he understands that we should be housing the prisoners from Kamloops, but it’s the one’s that are coming in from elsewhere that he takes an issue with. “This is a craw in my bonnet. This is an agreement that was really imposed upon municipalities in 2002, and what it says is that there is a pot of money that the Solicitor General has and he divides that amongst municipalities based upon the amount of prisoners that they’ve housed over the course of the year.”

“At the end of the year we wind up getting between $9 and $10/hr to house those prisoners and it costs us close to $20/hr to have them. So, in 2019 I had staff look into it in more detail and I think the number was around $120,000 that we spent more than we received.”

Christian says larger municipalities pay for their own policing while smaller communities don’t and he simply wants fairness. “People that commit crime in Kamloops, that’s where they’re going to go. But, what’s happening more and more is we have not only those municipal prisoners, but we also have what I call provincial prisoners. So these would be prisoners that are apprehended in Chase or in Barriere or in Ashcroft and are brought to Kamloops.”

Christian says he has spoken to other area Mayors who are dealing with similar concerns. “Mayor of Penticton, Kelowna, those size cities, they’re experiencing the exact same thing. If you’re the biggest show in the region you’re going to handle everybody’s prisoners. And that’s all well and good except for the fact that bigger size cities like Penticton, Kamloops, Kelowna, pay for their own policing and smaller places don’t. So, all I want is fairness. We have an obligation to society to house prisoners and prisoners need to be housed in better conditions than we are doing it here. Our cells are designed for short term lock-up, they’re not designed for long term stays.”