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House Hansard - 65

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 5, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 65 - May/5/22
Mr. Scott Reid (Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, CPC)
  • May/5/22 6:49:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this evening I am returning to a question I asked respecting the Correctional Service of Canada prison farms located at the Joyceville and Collins Bay institutions. On April 8, I asked the following question of the Minister of Public Safety: ...even though no contract has yet been signed to use the milk from its proposed 2,200-goat prison farm, the government continues to build dairy facilities at the Joyceville and Collins Bay institutions. Given the absence of a contract, it is strange the government continues to act and to spend as if it still plans to use prison labour to produce goat milk for export. The minister responded by saying the following inter alia: ...the Correctional Service of Canada has indeed awarded a contract in Joyceville.... Of course, we will make sure that this contract complies with all of Canada's international obligations. Now, this response surprised me, as I doubt that it is possible in practice to have an industrial farm producing an export product with prison labour that successfully conforms to the strict requirements of international law. It is certainly impossible to do so while actually producing a positive revenue stream or profit from that facility. With these thoughts in mind, on April 29, I asked in the House to see the contract. The parliamentary secretary helpfully provided me with that contract or, more correctly, with the offer for tender for the contract earlier this week, so I thank her. It is a $10-million contract for, according to the tender offer, “a large purpose built dairy cattle barn including office spaces, a manure holding tank, livestock holding areas, parlours, nurseries, refrigerated milk storage...to accommodate a milking herd of approximately seventy...cows.” In her response in the House to my April 29 question, the parliamentary secretary also made the following refreshingly clear statement: “while Correctional Service was considering goat milk production, it is no longer under consideration. Correctional Service Canada does not intend to do any goat milk production.” Now, that is clear and definitive, and my human rights concerns would have been set at ease, were it not for the following fact. Right after I was provided with that answer, one of my constituents asked Correctional Service Canada's media relations team to confirm the answer, and on May 3, my constituent received a response that currently they don't have any goats, that there are no plans under way and that, as previously mentioned, they will reassess the situation at a later date. Now, this is a good deal less definitive and it leaves the door open for CSC to return to a plan that it clearly does not want to abandon: to use prison labour in a commercial dairy operation. I want to believe the parliamentary secretary, and I hope that her statement, the definitive one, will be CSC's policy moving forward, but I think what is needed is something additional: a clear policy statement from cabinet or in the form of an order from the minister that it is impermissible for Correctional Service Canada to reassess the situation, informing the agency that it is government policy that the industrial goat operation is officially and permanently dead. Finally, and this is the question, given the parliamentary secretary's comment and the commitment that the goat operation is no longer under consideration, could she explain why the current construction of the cow dairy facility includes the roadway and utilities for the future goat farm that remains in the engineering plans and why the current construction includes a manure lagoon sized for 2,200 goats?
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