WARNING: This article addresses suicide and mental health. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger or in need of urgent support, call 911. The CMHA also provides crisis response services across the region, including a 24/7 helpline at 807-346-8282 or toll free at 1-866-888-8988, or text 988 for immediate mental health help.
THUNDER BAY — There have been 34 documented suicides among province’s correctional workers since 2010. Shawn Bradshaw thinks the actual number is significantly higher.
“In reality, it’s one of those things that goes underreported because of the stigma around it,” said Bradshaw, who represents workers at the Thunder Bay Correctional Centre as president of OPSEU Local 708.
A recent deputy coroner’s report outlines the high suicide rate among correctional workers, showing a spike in the last five years. Seventeen workers died by suicide in the 10-year period from 2010-2019. The same number died in half as many years between 2020 and 2024.
There is a recognized risk of harm to correctional officers, the report states, particularly in the face of the verbally or physically violent behaviours they are exposed to on the job.
The report makes 28 recommendations, including increasing mental health benefits.
This is an issue that needs to be addressed, Bradshaw said, and “now it seems the coroner agrees with us.”
“Currently, a lot of that is capped at a very low number, and those who are struggling run out of benefits before they can truly get the help they need,” Bradshaw said.
The benefits available to correctional officers are not enough to cover what is necessary for someone who is in crisis, said Adam Cygler, who represents up to 9,000 correctional workers province-wide.
“We’ve been pushing for improved mental health supports, improved mental health training and improved access to supports,” Cygler said.
These supports are just as important for correctional workers as for other public safety employees, like police, he said, who have “either a much higher dollar value threshold or an unlimited dollar value threshold.”
Correctional workers also don’t have coverage for inpatient mental health treatment programs, Cygler said.
The union wants to see an investment into the employees’ health at both work and at home.
“If things are left untreated and unaddressed, because our members aren’t able to access those sort of services when an injury is on the lower end of the scale, when things get really bad, they’re in this place where they can’t go get the help that they need,” Cygler said.
Cygler said he and his colleagues are advocating for preventative, proactive work on the front end that can either delay a problem or make for an easier recovery.
“We want it to be that members can easily go and access mental health supports in the same way that if you tweaked your ankle or tweaked your knee, you might go and see physio. You’re not just kind of letting it fester until you need a very serious medical operation like a knee replacement or a hip replacement or something like that.”
The report also includes recommendations on increasing mental health training for staff, before they start a placement and throughout their careers.
Training can help with early identification but Bradshaw says the small amount of training available is focused more on the mental health of inmates and not staff.
“We don’t need some optional training that, you know, 100 or 200 people can attend. We need mandatory training for everybody, which they’re going to tell you is rolling out in the fall and it is after 10 years of fighting to get it.
“What’s needed is making sure that people have the adequate supports to deal with the psychological hazards in the workplace.”
