Nova Scotia has become the first province to stop holding immigration detainees in its jails on behalf of the federal government.
Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson Rebecca Purdy says the province ended the practice Aug. 8.
Other provinces, including British Columbia and Alberta, have said they too would stop holding immigration detainees. However, both of those provinces have agreed to temporarily continue housing high-risk detainees in jails, but are not accepting new inmates.
“Nova Scotia, like other provinces, has determined that provincial correctional facilities are not the appropriate place for individuals who are being held solely under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,” Nova Scotia’s Department of Justice said in a statement.
“As a result, we notified Canada Border Services Agency last year that our province would not renew the agreement to hold detainees on their behalf.”
Nova Scotia’s decision has been saluted by immigrant-rights activists, who have said detainees – who are not currently charged with crimes in Canada – often face solitary confinement and lockdowns in provincial jails.
Ms. Purdy said the agency considers a number of factors for detaining migrants.
“Immigration detention requires several elements, including that an individual be inadmissible to Canada and either poses a flight risk … and a danger to the public, due to a past criminal history involving violence or otherwise violent behaviour,” she said in an e-mail.
“Canada Border Services Agency uses immigration detention as a measure of last resort and only after all available and suitable alternatives have been considered.”
The agency runs its own immigration detention centres in Laval, Que., Toronto, and Surrey, B.C., and had entered into arrangements with all provinces for holding immigration detainees in regions outside those three centres.
Saskatchewan is slated to end its agreement with the agency on Sept. 30, while Manitoba and Ontario are set to terminate their deals next year. The agency does not have formal agreements with Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland and Labrador but works with them on a case-by-case basis, Ms. Purdy said.
Canada’s border services agency has cut the number of detained migrants in provincial jails by more than half within six years, she said, from 2,043 in 2016-17 to 931 in 2022-23.
About three-quarters of the migrants held in provincial correctional facilities are inadmissible into Canada for reasons of serious criminality, she said. “This means the person has been convicted of an offence in Canada or abroad, such as sexual offences, violence, weapons or drug trafficking,” she said.
“Over the past 10 years, there have been at least 441 people in provincial correctional facilities with links to organized crime in the Americas and Asia,” she said. “These individuals were found to be inadmissible to Canada and Canada Border Services Agency assessed that they would continue to carry out activities related to organized crime and possibly disappear to avoid removal.”