The dairy cattle at Frontenac Institution could be gone as early as mid-June, says an MP who came to Kingston yesterday to fight the closing of federal prison farms.
"When that herd is sold off, that will be a stake driven through the heart of the prison farm system," said Mark Holland, the Liberal critic for public safety.
Holland and fellow Liberal MP Wayne Easter, the party's agriculture critic, rallied about 60 supporters of the Save Our Prison Coalition at a downtown hotel last night before heading off to City Hall to address council.
Easter, a former solicitor-general responsible for federal prisons, told councillors that the Conservative government wants to shut down the farms because they claim they provide no employable skills to inmates and that they cost about $4 million a year.
"In both cases, the government hasn't provided the evidence to back up those allegations. In fact, I believe those allegations to be untrue," Easter said.
He said they toured Frontenac yesterday morning and were impressed by the egg and dairy operations. The prison's dairy production, he noted, is in the top 20% for efficiency in Ontario and it supplies food for prisons in Ontario and Quebec.
But the biggest benefit, Easter said, is how it builds life skills among prisoners.
"They'll stick out their chest with pride and talk about how they're working with this animal and that animal and how they delivered a calf," he said. "That's rehabilitation for people. I've talked to lifers. You can see it in their eyes, in their body language, that working with animals has made them a person again."
Easter said the herd at Frontenac, which may be sold for around $300,000, is also valuable to Canadian agriculture.
"When you look at that herd you know it's a herd to be proud of as a Canadian. You don't want to lose those genetics," he said.
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