By Roberta Rosa
A conservative government would move the controversial Gilmour Street parole office away from Elgin Street Public School, says the party’s candidate in Ottawa Centre.
Keith Fountain made the promise during an open house at the parole office earlier this month.
“If I’m elected I will work very hard to move it,” Fountain says. “I don’t think it is safe to have the parole office this close to an elementary school.”
The parole office, which opened in September 2004, is located 80 metres away from the elementary school. Many parents from the school have been lobbying Correctional Service Canada to move the office.
“There is always a risk with the parolees. That risk is simply too high given the proximity of the public school,” Fountain says.
Deputy leader Peter MacKay, who would be directly responsible for parole offices in a Conservative government, also supports the move, Fountain says.
“If a Conservative government is elected, I’m sure this parole office will be moved almost right away.”
But Ana Paquete, district director for the Ottawa District Parole Office, doesn’t see this happening.
“I’m in a 10-year lease now,” Paquete says. “The responsibility is that of Correctional Service Canada and at this time there are no plans to move.”
But some parents are still sure the situation will change.
“The director is a bureaucrat,” says Albert Galpin, who has three children at the school. “The bureaucrats report to the politicians but the politicians don’t report to the bureaucrat. It’s not up to the bureaucrats.”
Christine Kincaid, who also has children at the school, is confident the office will move.
“If they look at the decision now, nobody could admit that it was a good decision. So, if that’s the case they can just make a new decision,” she says.
Correctional Service Canada is not listening to the community, Fountain says.
“Why not just move the parole office two blocks away?” he asks and suggests other government operations could be located in the building.
But Paquete says it is only a small minority of parents who worry about the parole office and many of their concerns are unfounded.
Three-quarters of the people who come to the Gilmour Street office live in Centretown and are therefore already in the community, says Paquete.
Any offender with a court order to avoid places where children hang out are visited at home or work.
“Right from the beginning, we’ve never supervised those offenders here,” she says. “We always supervise those in the community.”
The Gilmour Street site is a good spot for the parole office because it is a central location.
And even the parents who complained haven’t taken their children out of the school, she says.
“Now you have a political candidate who will use it as part of his platform. That’s who you have out there; I don’t see hundreds of people.”