I'd like to thank the committee for allowing us to speak here today.
I'm a sixth-generation farmer, president of the Frontenac Cattlemen's Association, a director of the National Farmers Union, and an agribusiness supervisor for these prison farms.
I've worked on both sites in Kingston. I supervised the dairy operation for a number of years. I currently supervise the abattoir. It's the only abattoir between Toronto and Montreal that wholesales meat into the community. There are other small abattoirs where you can take an animal if you're a farmer, have it processed, and take it back to your freezer, but you cannot sell it into the community, and we do that.
We also train inmates. We train 14 to 16 or sometimes 18 inmates in the abattoir, and any inmates who complete that process and want a job in that field are able to find one. They might not all want to follow through or they may go to another area, but there are jobs out there for them. We have tracked them ourselves. We have just currently toured a large meat plant north of Toronto, Holly Park Meat Packers, and they're employing two of the inmates we trained. There are notices on meat shops and butcher shops in Kingston--I know of four--looking for meat cutters, so once these inmates complete this program, there are going to be jobs there for them if they want to pursue them.
We provide a service at the abattoir for about 350 area farmers. They can take their animals there. They can have them processed for themselves, or the operator will purchase that animal and distribute that meat into the community. There's quite a local food movement in the Kingston area. Without that abattoir, the local food movement is dead. There will be no local meat for the area. It can come from the United States or western Canada or wherever, but it will not be local. There are 150 businesses that rely on that abattoir to provide them with meat.
I suggest that an agricultural advisory committee be formed to help make these decisions. There's a citizen advisory committee, so why not have an agricultural one? I believe there are people who made this decision who do not understand agriculture. Maybe they're not interested in it, but they certainly do not understand it. We could help them with that. When the announcement was made, it was a great slap in the face for farmers to find out that agriculture is no longer important in today's society. As I said, I'm a sixth-generation farmer, and there are others out there in the same area.
On the news two night ago, we learned the Canadian government has just donated $120 million to Afghanistan to build a dam for irrigation purposes, while they say they're coming up $4 million short here. If that's the case, I would think they could come up with the $4 million we need, if that's the correct number.
There are some members of this committee who are in favour of closing these farms. I think they actually know better, and I would urge them to take the actions required to stand up and save these prison farms. They are very important. Wherever I travel in Ontario, I run into an inmate I have trained over the years. That person will come up and greet me like a neighbour because he's so happy that we were able to work together while he was serving his sentence.
Unless you actually go there and tour and see what's going on, you have no understanding of the situation and how they work in agriculture, working with animals and even growing plants. Many of these inmates, if they so wish, have their own garden plots. They can grow vegetables so that they do not have to use the cafeteria or purchase vegetables through the institutional stores, which is a saving, and they actually donate surplus vegetables to the food banks.
I would also like to urge the current minister to tour these sites.
In closing, I just urge the total committee to do the right thing and save these prison farms before it's too late.
Thank you.