Mr. Speaker, the government has called for the closure of all six Canadian prison farms.
All six prison farms, including Rockwood Institution in Manitoba, which I recently visited, have been functioning farms for many decades, providing food to prisons and communities. The prison farm operations provide rehabilitation and training for prisoners through working with and caring for plants and animals. The work ethic and rehabilitation benefit of waking up at 6 a.m. and working outdoors is a discipline Canadians can appreciate. Closing these farms would mean a loss of the infrastructure and would make it too expensive to reopen them in the future.
It seems the government is willing to close these Canadian prison farm operations across Canada when clearly, the work and rehabilitative benefit to prisoners of the farm operations is actually a positive thing and its own Conservative supporters think we should have even more prison farms, not less.