Check this out from this morning's Globe and Mail:
In a firefighting career that took him to tinderboxes from Kandahar to Kingston, Ont., Tony Noakes Jr. had never witnessed a firetrap quite like Iqaluit's overcrowded prison.
Last Friday, Nunavut's fire chief brought those grave concerns to the RCMP, alleging possible criminal negligence. His employer, the Nunavut government, apparently didn't appreciate the gesture.
On Tuesday, he was fired.
He believes he was dismissed for doing his job too well.
"I had no choice but to go to the RCMP," said Mr. Noakes, who served in the military for 18 years, the last three as a fire marshal, before taking Nunavut's top firefighting job one year ago. "I couldn't sleep at night with the lingering thought that lives were at risk. It was life and death."
The ministry he worked under, Community and Government Services, did not return calls for comment on Wednesday.
Mr. Noakes's dismissal shed a new and troubling light on the notorious Baffin Correctional Centre, where 102 inmates are crammed into a rickety facility built for 48 prisoners. Many sleep on the floor.
"I did have to do inspections of the Taliban jail facility when I was in Kandahar," said Mr. Noakes as he was packing up his Iqaluit apartment. "And I must say, if I were a prisoner I would much rather be there than here."
Within Nunavut's capital, the Baffin Correctional Centre has long been a source of acrimonious debate, both inside and outside the Legislative Assembly.
"It's overcrowded, it's dilapidated, there are parts of the building hanging from the ceiling," said Justice Minister Keith Petersen during an assembly vote in December during which he unsuccessfully sought $300,000 to study replacing the jail. "It has the potential to lead to violence because you have so many offenders in there."
But not until Mr. Noakes's allegations came to light did it become apparent just how dangerous the jail is. His inspectors photographed and detailed a long list of code violations, including:
-lighting fixtures hanging by wires
-out-of-date boilers
-obstructed exits
-improper storage of combustibles
-corroded sprinklers
-heavy use of temporary plywood walls
"With those walls, if there was a fire, the inmates would not be able to escape adequately, because the spread would be 10 times as much as it would be if it were a proper wall," Mr. Noakes said.
While his complaint to the RCMP focused on code violations, he also questioned the prison's jury-rigged design. He said partitions don't reach the ceiling, making it easy for inmates to hop into neighbouring rooms.
"It's a recipe for disaster," he said. "We had a fire last weekend where some prisoners lit some paper on fire. Had it evolved into a larger scope, we would probably have lost 50 or 60 people."
During his year-long tenure, Mr. Noakes said his reports of fire code violations at government facilities throughout the territory, including hospitals and public housing, were routinely ignored.
But the problems at the Baffin Correctional Centre, he said, were too grave to toss into the bureaucratic abyss.
Steve McVarnock, the RCMP's top officer in the territory, confirmed on Wednesday that he had read the complaint and assigned a senior officer to investigate. "The theme of concerns seems to be criminal negligence," he said. "We want to look at this very quickly."
Late Wednesday, Mr. Noakes was looking forward to returning to his wife and two children in Lyndhurst, Ont., even though he's worried about how the family will pay the bills. Because he was on his last day of probation, he's not entitled to any severance.
Even so, he's steadfast in his belief that he did the right thing. "I'm not really concerned how this will affect my future job opportunities," he said. "If I have to get a job driving truck or something, I'll do that. I had a moral and ethical obligation to make sure things were known."
WFDS
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