Revitalizing Canada's Prison Farms National Campaign

1. Having your organization officially endorse and sign the National Campaign Position Statement
2. Commiting organizational resources to the campaign
3. Writing letters to the Minister of Public Safety, Peter Van Loan and other Members of Parliament, or bysending a letter to a local or national newspaper
   
4. Signing the National Campaign Petition

• Farming provides rehabilitation and therapy through working with and caring for plants and animals
• The 300 inmates working in the farm program learn employment skills and attitudes such as agricultural and food processing knowledge, equipment operation and repair, teamwork, punctuality and reliability
• The program provides nutritious food for the prison system and makes important local donations, such as thousands of dozens of eggs per year to the Partners in Mission Food Bank in Kingston, Ontario.  The cost to taxpayers and the nutritional value and quality of replacement food must be taken into account in assessing the value of the farm program
• Closing the program would make valuable farmland vulnerable to being sold and developed.  As an example, at the Frontenac Institution in Kingston, Ontario, approximately 80% of the 772 acres of land being farmed is class 2 and 3 soils (i.e. prime agricultural lLand).  This farm is within an urban area that is home to over 100,000 people in a region where such high quality farmland is scarce.
• In addition to farmland, there is considerable farm and food system infrastructure located on these farms which would be lost to the prisons, and to the broader local food systems of each prison.  Example include facilities such as abattoirs, feedlots, egg laying barns and grading equipment, dairy barn and milk processing equipment, greenhouses, cold storage and composting.
• As affordable sources of light sweet crude oil are depleted, it will become increasingly difficult to provide food for our population, including inmates. There is debate about how soon that time will come, but when it arrives, it will be too late to start building a more sustainable food system for the prison population. We wonder how public safety will be affected if inmates cannot be properly fed.

• No clear accounting of the prison farm program has been put on the table. The government insists that these farms are “losing money” - $4 million per year is the unsupported figure given. We have heard that revenue, intended for inmate training on the farms, is not being applied to the program; that there is no budget line accounting for the training and security services that the farm training staff provide; and that expenses incurred in other programs are being allocated to the farms. These claims raise numerous questions:  

i)   What is the $4 million loss calculation based
ii)  How much do other CSC training programs cost and lose in comparison to the  farms? 
iii) How much more will it cost taxpayers if the food needs to be purchased from outside? 
iv) If closed, what will be the financial losses to business within the local communities? 
v)  What will be the costs of decommissioning the farms? 

• Despite Minister Van Loan’s claim in parliament on April 28, 2009 that “the prison farms are set up on a model of agriculture that really reflects the way it worked in the days of the old mixed farm in the 1950s”, the farms are diversified, well equipped and highly respected for their productivity. Delegates from Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Hungary, and England have come to tour these prison farms as a model to be emulated, and are investigating opening similar facilities.

• Most concerning is the prospect that these closures may be part of a long-term agenda to shut down all farm and on-site food services and move towards the outsourcing of services, and the privatization of Canada’s prisons based on the U.S. model.

1. Research and analyze the viability and benefits of the prison farm program
2. Conduct a national communications effort to engage Canadian organizations and citizens in this campaign
3. Continue negotiations on preserving and revitalizing the prison farms with Correctional Service of Canada and the Public Safety Minister, Peter Van Loan.  A meeting with the Minister is scheduled for June 8, 2009.
4. Raise funds to carry out promotions activities and continue the campaign as long as necessary

Please email us if your organization would like join this growing coalition which is seeking partnership with sectors and groups such as,

• Labour: Canadian Labour Congress, Union of Solicitor General Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada, National Union of Government Employees, Canadian Union of Public Employees, The Kingston and District Labour Council
• Food Security: Food Secure Canada, Sustain Ontario, Toronto Food Policy Council, Vancouver Food Policy Council, Manitoba Food Charter, Saskatoon Food Policy Council
• Social Justice and Prisoner rights: First Nations, Council of Canadians, Public Interest Research Groups, John Howard Society
• Farm: Canadian Organic Growers, Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario, the federations of agriculture