The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Halifax - The Nova Scotia government is closing a controversial youth jail at the centre of allegations of decades of physical and sexual abuse of inmates. Justice Minister Michael Baker announced Tuesday the Shelburne Youth Centre on Nova Scotia's south shore, will close April 1. There are only two youths living in the facility that once housed 120 and that now has a normal capacity of 24. The facility costs about $2.8 million a year to operate and employs about 30 people, who have been offered transfers to other youth jails. Ottawa - Indian and Northern Affairs has failed to track spending or resolve disputes linked to native land claims worth more than $1.2 billion, says the auditor general. "We expected that the department would have kept Parliament informed of its spending on each of these two claims," Sheila Fraser says of the Nunavut and Gwich'in claims in the North. An agreement for the Inuit of the eastern Arctic created Nunavut and included $1.1 billion to be paid out between 1990 and 2007. The Gwich'in in the Northwest Territories struck a deal with Ottawa to receive $141 million between 1992 and 2007. Ottawa - The government ignored federal contracting policies in rushing to spend $101 million on two jets for the prime minister and other VIPs, says the auditor general in her report tabled Tuesday.
