Canada’s Prison Farms Exposed

In 2018, the Correctional Service of Canada announced that it would be launching a new prison farm pilot project at two penitentiaries in Kingston, Ontario. The stated purpose was to provide incarcerated men with training and transferrable skills, and the “opportunity to work with livestock.” The program was promoted to the public as a good-news story focused on images of prisoners milking cows and bottle-feeding baby calves. Through a multi-year investigation, Evolve Our Prison Farms has uncovered over 45,000 pages of government records revealing the facts behind the façade of Canada’s prison farm program. Evolve has published a new comprehensive report exposing the political underbelly of Canada’s prison farms, and how the meat and dairy industries have commandeered and commercialized prison labour in Canada. This presentation explores the story as revealed in government records, pieced together in Prison Farms Exposed: Revelations from Access to Information.