Province Adding Fifty New Beds At Thorold Facility Through Modular Build
News from the Constituency Office of Niagara West Ford Government MPP Sam Oosterhoff
Posted July 18th, 2025 on Niagara At Large
The Niagara Regional Detention Centre in the Niagara municipality of Thorold, Ontario
THOROLD, Ontario – As part of its plan to protect Ontario and keep communities safe, the Ontario government is investing more than $180 million to increase capacity at correctional facilities across the province, including the Niagara Detention Centre in Thorold.
The expansion in Thorold will lead to fifty new local beds, providing frontline staff the space they need to do their jobs safely.
“This significant investment in public safety – including the plans to increase correctional capacity at the Niagara Detention Centre in Thorold – is another example of how our government is protecting communities and protecting Ontario,” said Sam Oosterhoff, MPP for Niagara West.
“This expansion will help improve public safety in Niagara and provide frontline correctional staff with a safe, secure and modern workplace.”
“Our government is taking decisive action to protect Ontario and keep dangerous and repeat offenders off our streets,” said Hon. Michael Kerzner, Solicitor General.
“By expanding correctional facilities and bringing new beds online faster, we are strengthening our ability to hold criminals accountable and ensure that inmates serve their sentences in secure, modern spaces.”
Sam Oosterhoff, MPP for Niagara West, is joined at the Niagara Detention Centre in Thorold by Hon. Michael Kerzner, Solicitor General; Silvia Gualtieri, Parliamentary Assistant to the Solicitor General; Janet Laverty, Ministry Employee Relations Committee Co-chair, Ontario Public Service Employees Union; Paul Bergman, Executive Vice-President, Bird Construction; Jim Bradley, Chair of the Regional Municipality of Niagara, and Terry Ugulini, Mayor of the City of Thorold, along with frontline correctional workers and members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union
Bird Construction has been awarded the contract to design and build the innovative modular expansion in Thorold, with construction scheduled to begin in 2026. In addition to new beds, the expanded facility will offer enhanced rehabilitation programs, including literacy, job skills and technology training.
“Ontario is modernizing its procurement processes and using innovative construction methods to help speed up the delivery of essential infrastructure,” said Hon. Kinga Surma, Minister of Infrastructure.
“By expanding the Niagara Detention Centre, our government is enhancing the safety, capacity and sustainability of the province’s correctional system. Under the leadership of Premier Ford, we are delivering on our more than $200 billion plan to build the infrastructure our province needs to support strong and safe communities, keep workers on the job and drive economic growth.”
In addition to the new beds at the Niagara Detention Centre, the province-wide investment includes expanded space at the Cecil Facer Youth Centre in Sudbury and Vanier Centre for Women in Milton.
Doug Draper at work in the newsroom, back in the days when there still were newsrooms. file photo
(A Footnote from Doug Draper at Niagara At Large – In the group shot accompanying the above news, you see a number of our Niagara area political representatives and others smiling in front of a prison.
Perhaps I am in the company of one when I say what I am about to say here, but as much as there may be a need for funding to expand this prison and others (which is a sad comment in and of itself), I don’t get what all of the smiling is about.
Prisons are monuments to the failures of the lives locked up inside them and to the failure of society as a whole to provide the supports some people among us need to help keep them from ending up there.
That’s nothing to smile about and there is something rather perverse about some of our elected representatives lining up for a grip and grin in front of a jail, complete with razor wire in the background, as if they were lining up for a photo for the opening of a new sports arena or something else of that nature.
It must have been a slow day for them back at their municipal and provincial offices to show up for a photo shoot like that.)
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