Okanagan Mayors Advocate for Involuntary Care Facility at Local Jail

Okanagan leaders are pressing B.C. to consider a difficult and divisive idea: using part of the Okanagan Correctional Centre for secure, mandatory mental-health and addictions care.

At a Friday, Sept. 4 media event outside the correctional centre, municipal and Indigenous leaders argued the region needs a stronger option for people with complex mental-health and substance-use challenges who are not getting adequate help through voluntary and community-based systems.

Okanagan leaders press province

The push is backed by a group of Okanagan leaders that includes Kelowna Mayor Tom Dyas, West Kelowna Mayor Gord Milsom, Penticton Mayor Julius Bloomfield, Oliver Mayor Martin Johansen, Osoyoos Indian Band councillor Mary Wilbur and Vernon Mayor Victor Cumming.

They are asking the province to act ahead of the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, where local governments often try to move regional issues onto the provincial agenda.

“The need has been demonstrated, and the need continues to grow on a daily basis, what is missing is action,” Dyas said, according to source reporting from the event. “We are asking for commitments, timelines, and treatment capacity that reflects the scale of the challenge that affects our region and our municipalities, and we believe Okanagan Correctional Centre deserves serious evaluation as part of that solution.”

Why supporters want mandatory care

Supporters say secure mandatory care is needed for people with complex mental-health and substance-use challenges who cannot get adequate help through voluntary and community systems, and who may pose risks to themselves or others.

Bloomfield argued that voluntary treatment does not work for everyone.

“We believe that there has to be some kind of secure care that is available for these folks that need to get stabilization before they can start the recovery process,” he said. “We can’t just stand round and keep talking about it.”

Cumming, in a statement reported from the lobbying effort, said Vernon has been advocating for better access to treatment and care for people facing complex mental-health and substance-use challenges “for years.”

The leaders’ argument is not simply that more care is needed, but that the region needs a secure setting for a group of people they say are falling through existing systems.

Why the jail is central

The Okanagan Correctional Centre is at the heart of the proposal because proponents argue it is under capacity and could be better used for treatment.

Dyas and Bloomfield have also argued that converting part of the existing jail would be cheaper and faster than building a new treatment facility from scratch. Supporters frame that as a practical response to an urgent regional problem: use an existing secure building rather than wait for a new one.

Johansen, while supporting the push to start the conversation, cautioned against treating the idea as a cure-all.

“I don’t see this as a silver bullet that’s going to solve every problem that we have,” he said, “but fundamentally we have people living in our communities, whether it’s down here in the South Okanagan or up through Kelowna, that are just not able to take care of themselves and make the decisions they need to make to provide a better path forward for themselves.”

Province points to existing beds

According to Mission City Record, the B.C. Ministry of Health said the province has more than 2,000 mental-health beds that can treat involuntary patients under the Mental Health Act, including 258 in Interior Health.

Mission City Record also reported the ministry said it is working to identify Interior locations for specialized bed expansion.

“We are committed to expanding the capacity for specialized treatment for people with complex mental health and substance use disorders,” the ministry said in the statement reported by the outlet.

That response leaves the central question unresolved: whether the province sees the Okanagan Correctional Centre as a suitable site, or whether expansion should happen elsewhere in the Interior.

Critics warn of criminalization

The proposal is already drawing sharp criticism.

InfoNews reported that Patricia Bacon of the Okanagan and Kootenay John Howard Society called the idea “very, very short-sighted,” arguing that putting mandatory treatment inside a jail would further criminalize drug use and mental-health challenges.

“It is simple for us to sit around and say they can stop using drugs and we’ll throw them in the Okanagan Correctional Centre, that’ll set it right,” Bacon told InfoNews. “It’s very simple for a very complex problem.”

Bacon also questioned whether mandatory treatment in that setting would work, saying there is a lack of evidence for the approach.

For Okanagan leaders, the correctional centre represents unused capacity and a possible path to faster action. For critics, the same proposal risks turning health crises into correctional ones. The province is now being asked to decide whether the idea belongs in B.C.’s next phase of mental-health and addictions care.

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