Ontario has taken the next formal step toward a new correctional project in the Brockville area, launching a Request for Qualifications for teams to build the Brockville Correctional Complex and expand the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre. The project is being delivered with Infrastructure Ontario and is now officially at the RFQ stage.
The site is in the Township of Elizabethtown-Kitley, bordering Brockville. According to Infrastructure Ontario, both the new complex and the expansion will be built on the current St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre site. Together, they are planned to provide 295 beds.
The breakdown is more specific than the headline number suggests. Infrastructure Ontario says the new Brockville Correctional Complex would include 270 new male beds with maximum, medium, minimum and specialized-care classifications. The St. Lawrence Valley expansion would add 25 new female beds through an expansion of the existing Secure Treatment Unit. That female unit is planned as a separate structure connected by a bridge to the existing facility.
The province is treating the Brockville-area project as part of a bigger correctional-capacity push. Ontario’s official release says the Brockville project is part of a plan to add 1,436 new correctional beds across the province by 2032. Infrastructure Ontario’s project page also shows that the RFQ is only the current procurement stage, with later steps still to come, including bidder shortlisting, a Request for Proposals, selection of a winning bidder, and construction. No public opening date is listed yet on the project page.
The province has also tied the project to local employment. A government release summary says the added capacity in Brockville is expected to support the hiring of more than 400 additional correctional staff, including correctional officers, nurses and support staff. The same release summary says the combined project is expected to be about 322,000 square feet and delivered using a design-bid-build model.
At the same event, Premier Doug Ford used the announcement to push a wider justice message beyond the Brockville build itself. Coverage from the press conference says Ford raised the idea of livestreaming bail hearings and also urged the federal government to legalize pepper spray for self-defence. Those comments may draw separate political attention, but they were not the core infrastructure announcement of the day.
Why this matters locally
A project at this stage still has a long road ahead. But once a file reaches RFQ, it becomes more than a political promise. It enters a defined contractor-selection process, and that usually matters more than broad talking points at a press conference. In Brockville’s case, the project also carries a jobs angle because the province is linking it to hundreds of future correctional and support roles.
There is also a regional-service angle. The Brockville complex and the St. Lawrence Valley expansion are being planned together, with shared staff facilities, recreation space, health services, visitor areas, admitting and discharge functions, and new public and staff entrances. That suggests the province is designing the site as a larger integrated correctional hub rather than a simple one-building replacement.
What is still unknown
Several major details are still missing from the public record. Ontario has not yet published a construction start date, completion date, or opening timeline on the Infrastructure Ontario project page. The final cost was also not set out in the source material reviewed here. What is public so far is the bed count, site, procurement stage, delivery model and basic project features.
Sources
- Ontario Newsroom release summary, March 16, 2026.
- Infrastructure Ontario project page for Brockville Correctional Complex and St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre.
