My name is Bill Flanagan and I'm the Dean of Law at Queen's University.
I'd like to thank the committee for permitting me to speak to you today.
At Queen's law faculty, we have a correctional law clinic that has operated for well over 30 years. For many years, our students have participated in this program, advising inmates and working in the prisons on prison appeals and disciplinary matters. So at the law school, we have a very large interest in the local prison population, and a long-standing relationship with the federal penitentiaries.
I didn't know a great deal about the prison farm issue until last December, when I attended a Save Our Prison Farms coalition town hall meeting in Kingston. It was a remarkable meeting. It was a unique coalition of farmers, correctional staff, local residents, students, seniors, aboriginal leaders, and church groups, all of whom spoke passionately about their commitment to saving our prison farms.
I found the meeting personally very moving and it inspired me to want to visit our prison farm at the Frontenac Institution. I contacted CORCAN and asked if I would be allowed to visit the facility.
At the time, I was told that due to the ongoing public controversy surrounding the prison farms, public visits to the farms had been curtailed. I contacted Peter Milliken's office and requested his assistance in approaching CORCAN to see if I could tour the facility. It was only after his office intervened that I was finally permitted a tour of the prison farm.
When I was able to tour the farm, I was deeply impressed by what I saw. I had the chance to talk with the correctional staff and several inmates, all of whom spoke with great passion about the value of the farm in helping inmates to learn life skills and work skills that helped them reintegrate into society upon their release.
I know that the government takes the position that these programs are not cost-effective because few inmates find work in the agricultural sector upon their release, but I am not persuaded by the government's rationale. To me, it is clear that the government policy is being driven primarily by ideology and has little to do with cost-effectiveness.
We know that for many years crime rates have been steadily declining in Canada; however, with the government's law and order agenda and a growing range of mandatory sentences, prison populations are projected to increase in Canada by over 10% in the next few years.
As reported in yesterday's news, notwithstanding huge federal deficits, the budget for Corrections Canada is projected to rise by 27% in the next two years, to over $3 billion and a 25% increase in the number of employees, so I would submit that the government is not shutting down these farms to save money. On the contrary, the government is prepared to needlessly throw millions of dollars more into our prisons.
Why, then, in the face of such public opposition and clear evidence of the utility of these programs, is the government determined to close the prison farms? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that we have a government bent on punishment and increasingly indifferent to rehabilitation. We have a government that wants to get tough on crime and tough on prisoners because they think this will garner them votes. I can assure you that there are no votes for this in Kingston and the Islands.
[Applause]
Instead, there is an extraordinary coalition of highly motivated citizens, many of whom you see here today, who are repelled by the government's contempt for farming as a rehabilitative program for inmates and are repelled by the government indifference to the well-being of these inmates.
We do not want to lose our prison farm in the heart of Kingston and have it replaced by a “super prison” built to house an ever-growing prison population. The people of Kingston have long lived with prisons in our midst, and we want these facilities to be places that provide fair treatment to offenders and ample opportunity to develop the skills that will help them re-enter society and not reoffend.
Prison farms play an important role in a humane criminal justice system. I ask you to listen to the many diverse voices of those of us who care deeply about this issue and save our prison farms.
Thank you.