Relocate Manitoba women's facility.

The 113-year-old Women's Facility at the Portage Correctional Centre will be relocated, the Manitoba government announced, acting on the recommendations of an independent committee which recommends:

* relocating the corrections centre to the Rural Municipality of Headingley which will be closer to the courts, legal counsel, most offenders' families and other supports needed by inmates;

* fast-tracking the design phase to determine how the new facility will be used for treatment, training, family space and cultural supports;

* acting on the committee's recommendation to establish a healing lodge and issuing a request for proposals that will promote Aboriginal management and operation of this service; and

* enhancing transitional housing for women once they have completed their sentences.

The committee members include: Lucille Bruce, the executive director of the Native Women's Transition Centre, former Brandon Police Service chief Dick Scott and Gladys Cook, a well-known elder who has worked extensively with women at the Portage jail.

This report reiterates the recommendations of the Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission of 2001 which "calls for a new correctional facility for women that provides them with adequate treatment, training and cultural and spiritual supports, and provides the greatest possible number of opportunities for community integration."

A tender for the design will be issued this year with completion of the corrections centre planned in 2009.

Inmates at the facility are either awaiting trial or serving sentences of less than two years. Current members of the staff at the Portage jail will continue to be employed in the new facility.