Ontario's Premier Accountability Dashboard · Queen's Park Watch
Shawn Bradshaw
OPSEU Local 708
Shawn Bradshaw is the president of OPSEU Local 708, the union local representing correctional staff at Thunder Bay's corrections facilities. He has warned about rising overcrowding and chronic understaffing, conditions reflected in OPSEU data showing inmate-on-inmate assaults rose to 167 in 2024 from 90 in 2021.
Connected Scandals
Days after a coroner's inquest into the death of Kevin Mamakwa — a 27-year-old from Kingfisher Lake First Nation who died by suicide in the Thunder Bay District Jail — concluded with 22 recommendations and the jail being called a "death trap," Premier Doug Ford disparaged the province's own new ~$1.2-billion Thunder Bay Correctional Complex as a "fancy-dancey jail," comparing it to "the Four Seasons hotel" and refusing to commit to closing the century-old jail where nine people have died since 2002.
As president of OPSEU Local 708, Bradshaw warned about overcrowding, violence, and chronic understaffing at Thunder Bay corrections facilities, where inmate-on-inmate assaults rose to 167 in 2024 from 90 in 2021.