Madam Speaker, I am returning to a question that I raised and that had an unsatisfactory answer by the Minister of Public Safety, who is responsible for Corrections Canada, relating to the prison farm proposals for Joyceville and Collins Bay.
CORCAN, Corrections Canada, has indicated an intention to establish a for-profit prison farm, with initial plans to establish a 12,000-goat commercial operation to produce baby formula for export. The parliamentary secretary assures us that this has been taken off the table and that only cattle would be present. I am not sure she is correct about that, by the way, but the issue of it being a for-profit operation has not been dealt with by the government.
The prison farm was defended by the minister in his response to my initial question on two grounds: first, that it builds employment skills for inmates, and second, that it builds humane life skills and characteristics among inmates. Both of these are incorrect. The first of them is contradicted by CORCAN itself.
I am looking at the French version of a document in which the CEO of CORCAN was making a presentation at an international conference. It states, and this is my English translation, that they could not establish any link between offender participation in working in prison farms and obtaining employment upon release. The original in French is as follows.
They were unable to demonstrate a direct link between offender involvement while incarcerated and obtaining employment upon release.
That is from the document put out by CORCAN.
With regard to the soft skills or human skills that, the claim is made, are developed for the prisoners, contradiction comes from prisoners themselves. Inmates believe that a clear and unambiguous not-for-profit model would make the farms a much more humane place.
I thought it might be helpful to read from a survey that was circulated to inmates in 2021 by a group called Evolve Our Prison Farms, and to read some of the responses.
Prisoners were asked, “Do you believe CORCAN's new prison farms have the best interests of inmates in mind?” Over 90% who responded said no. The second question was, “Would you like to see the prison farms (a) proceed as they are; (b) shut down; (c) transition to a not-for-profit purpose?” Eighty per cent favoured that option.
The comments are very revealing about the so-called humanity of what we see in this training and employment model. I am quoting from one of the forms. It says, “Private businesses should not benefit from inmates' labour. These kinds of things will only lead to the privatizing of prisons for profit. Inmates would be forced to work in unsuitable conditions instead of truly getting a chance to rehabilitate.”
Here is a second one: “I don't believe that CORCAN Industries per se has the best interests of inmates in mind. It is nothing more than slave labour. Shutting down CORCAN will also shut down federally sponsored slavery.”
Here is a third response, from a third inmate: “They presently are a slave labour force for one company or another, nothing to do with caring or rehabilitation.”
I will stop there.