Canada’s federal prison system has become so expensive it can no longer be sustained in its current form, according to an internal Correctional Service memo that warns of soaring fixed costs and thousands of empty cells across the country.Blacklock's Reporter says the three-page Access To Information document states bluntly that the existing prison portfolio is “not sustainable,” with daily incarceration costs now averaging a record $436 per inmate even as inmate populations fall well below capacity.“The current portfolio is not sustainable,” said the censored Sept. 16 briefing note to the commissioner, which outlined a long-term strategy to overhaul federal correctional infrastructure without identifying which institutions, if any, might close.Rather than naming specific prisons for disposal, the memo said the strategy calls for a broad review of underperforming assets and a gradual shift toward lower-cost, more flexible facilities over the next decade.“This strategy provides strategic direction to guide investment decisions and management of the Correctional Service’s real property assets over the next ten years,” the document said. It described a plan to modernize and rationalize the system by reducing high-cost, low-performing institutions and retaining facilities that deliver better value..According to the memo, the Correctional Service aims to move toward multi-use prisons that can adapt to changing operational needs while shrinking an infrastructure footprint built for a much larger inmate population.Official figures show the federal system has 16,382 cells, while the average inmate population sits below 12,400. At the same time, roughly 11,000 prison guards are employed nationwide. Annual spending by the Correctional Service exceeds $3.2 billion.A 2025 report, Corrections And Conditional Release Statistical Overview, pegged the average annual cost of keeping an inmate in federal custody at $159,115 — or $436 per day — a 32% increase since 2019.Senior officials have acknowledged that much of the budget cannot easily be reduced. Tony Matson, an assistant commissioner, told the Senate national finance committee in 2023 that a large share of correctional spending is fixed..“We have a large component of our funding that is fixed in nature,” Matson said, noting that population changes and inflation still drive significant cost increases.Concerns about overcapacity and staffing are not new. A 2019 annual report from the Correctional Investigator described Canada’s federal prisons as “among the highest resourced correctional systems in the world,” with nearly four in ten institutions employing more full-time staff than they house inmates.“In some institutions the number of correctional officers alone exceeds the number of inmates,” the report said.The Correctional Service currently operates 39 prisons, 14 community correctional centres, five mental health centres and four indigenous healing lodges, with facilities spread across British Columbia, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.The internal memo suggests that without significant restructuring, the cost of maintaining this vast network of prisons — many operating far below capacity — will continue to rise, placing growing pressure on federal finances.
