The Manitoba government broke ground Tuesday on the new Dauphin Centre for Justice, a 100-bed facility that will replace a jail that closed in 2020. Premier Wab Kinew, joined by cabinet ministers, Métis and union representatives and local officials, took part in a groundbreaking ceremony at Dauphin Business Park, where the centre will be built. Early site work is expected this fall, with full construction to begin in summer 2027, according to the province. “It’s going to put tons of Manitobans to work, and it’s going to replace the Dauphin jail that was closed by the previous government,” Kinew said at a news conference Tuesday. The province has committed $142 million to the remand and custody centre. Twenty-five of the 100 beds are intended to be therapeutic-community beds offering structured living, culturally grounded supports and intensive release planning. Once fully operational, the centre is expected to replace the 80 local jobs lost when the Dauphin Correctional Centre closed, the province said. Built in 1917, the former jail stood next to the Dauphin courthouse. It was the oldest correctional facility in Manitoba when the Progressive Conservative government closed it in 2020. The PCs said at the time that it no longer met modern correctional needs and had reached the end of its serviceability. An earlier NDP government under then-premier Greg Selinger had planned in 2013 to rebuild the centre with higher capacity, but that never happened. At the time of the closure announcement, then-opposition leader Kinew pledged an NDP government would build a new correctional centre in Dauphin. Justice Minister Matt Wiebe said the closures of the Dauphin jail and the Agassiz Youth Centre in Portage la Prairie left the justice system short of space, and programming was cut. The new centre will allow for more people to be held on remand in the Parkland region, Wiebe said, rather than sheriffs driving to Riding Mountain to exchange people being transferred from Brandon. The centre is designed to combine custody with rehabilitation programming. Kinew said it will bring a “state-of-the-art approach” to working with inmates, aimed at avoiding what he called “gangster university,” where people enter for offences and leave with deeper gang ties. “Let’s make sure that when we’re releasing them back into the community after that time, that they’re going to be prepared to be a productive member of society, that they’re going to be prepared to reintegrate,” Kinew said. The Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union (MGEU), which fought against the 2020 closure, welcomed the announcement. Karl Bulgrin, the union’s corrections component director who has worked 17 years at Milner Ridge Correctional Centre, said the facility is “going to be great for the community.” “It’s going to positively affect our daily operations and all of our other centres,” Bulgrin said at the news conference. With files from CTV’s Danton Unger
