Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke MP Cheryl Gallant has
responded to complaints about the federal government’s phasing out of prison
farms by saying she will work with Valley farmers to place convicts with prison
farm experience on area farms as labourers.
However, her comments in a news release last week
flabbergasted Renfrew County Chapter of the National Farmers Union (NFU) president
Dave Mackay. “I not sure where she got that idea,” he said, calling her proposal
“bizarre.”
“It would be absurd to expect us to take convicts on
our farms,” he said. “That’s crazy. We aren’t capable of that. We don’t have
the training … we’re not corrections officers.”
In her release, Gallant said “the NFU has identified
the issue of prison farms as a priority for its organization,” so she will work
on the matter with members of the Renfrew County NFU. “I am always available to
work with local farm organizations on issues they deem important to them.”
Gallant said that “an honest day of hard work on a
farm may be just what is required to straighten out offenders from the big
cities who get mixed up with gangs and the wrong crowd and turn to a life of
drugs and stealing.”
Mackay agrees with the value of hard work, noting
that is why the NFU is lobbying Correctional Services, which operates federal
prisons, not to shut down its prison farms.
“We think the program is important,” he said. “It
teaches them (prisoners) some sort of life skills.”
He said many prisoners have never had a job and
getting them up at 5:30 a.m. to labour on a prison farm is a good way to encourage
them to be responsible and productive.
They may not end up being farmers, but at least they
learn how to work, he added. “It seems to me that one of the problems with
prison is that they have nothing to do.”
However, that doesn’t mean convicts should be
shipped to farms outside the prisons, he said.
Mackay said the NFU is also worried the phasing out
of prison farms will result in the selling off of prime farm land for housing.
“Most politicians don’t see the value in farming,” he lamented.
Gallant pointed out that one of Correctional
Services principal concerns is the need to rehabilitate criminal offenders back
into society with marketable skills. However, it has been found that almost
none of the convicts spending time on the prison farms are finding employment
in the agricultural sector, she said.
In order for the prison farms to remain open to
provide marketable skills to convicts who have paid their debt to society,
employment opportunities must be available, she added.
“A job is the best deterrent from returning to a
life of crime,” said Gallant. “It may be that farm owners are unaware of the
availability of trained farm workers from our penal system. With the closest
prison farm to Renfrew County near Kingston,
there may be an opportunity to match these individuals here in Eastern Ontario.”
Gallant pointed out that today’s agricultural
producer is required to have many skills to run a successful farm operation. In
addition to being able to operate and maintain heavy machinery and equipment,
he or she must be skilled in animal husbandry, part veterinarian, part
mechanic, part book keeper, part weatherman, and horticulturalist, all with an
ethic of hard work, she said.
“If someone, particularly a young person, learned
half those skills that make a successful farmer, they would be a better
citizen.
“If members of the local farming community are
interested in matching ex-convicts, trained on a prison farm, with local farms
providing room and board and employment as they transition from their previous
location, I would be pleased to assist them in approaching Correctional
Services Canada with this proposal,” concluded Gallant.
“I think she’s just trying to put the ball back in
our court,” said Mackay.
“It’s hard enough to keep ourselves in operation …
without having to take on duties from Correctional Services.”