Mr. Speaker, pursuant Standing Order 52 I am requesting an emergency debate on the closure of the prison farm program. Several irreplaceable components of the farm operation are set to be sold and dispersed by June 2010. These include a heritage dairy herd, with prize-winning genetics, at Frontenac Institution, and a prized dairy herd at Westmorland Institution. The auction date for a gold standard herd at Rockwood Institution is also imminent. Once these herds have been dispersed, they can never be re-established.
In short, if these herds are allowed to be sold, it would mean the end of the prison farm program, one of the most successful programs we have had in the country in rehabilitating inmates. I have had the occasion to visit all the nation's prisons farms to meet with correctional officers who have told their stories about how these programs transform these men. The opportunity to work with animals and animal husbandry is something that is extremely effective and the leading edge of rehabilitation, yet the current government is closing the program, a program that it says costs $4 million and yet will provide no costing for it.
At a time when prison costs are soaring and the government is spending literally billions on prisons, it seems backward, in the extreme, to be cutting or axing a program that is desperately needed to help rehabilitate those who are about to re-enter. Given the fact that over 90% of inmates will leave prison and will re-enter, how they rehabilitate is essential.
When I talk to correctional officials, they tell me that working over 30 years in the program they have never seen a single instance of violent recidivism. I have looked into the eyes of men who talk to me about how this program has transformed their lives. I think it is extremely important that the House has a debate before the Conservatives shut down a program that has been this effective for more than 100 years.