Frontline Farmers by Annette Aurélie Desmarais

Author:Annette Aurélie Desmarais
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
Published: 2019-11-08T19:46:16+00:00

7

Saving Our Prison Farms

Cows, Community

and Civil Disobedience

Asha Nelson and Meghan Entz

Interviews with Dianne Dowling, Aric McBay, Andrew McCann, Jeff Peters and Peter Smith

On February 25, 2009, an article in the Kingston’s local Whig-Standard newspaper reported the Conservative government’s decision to end the Federal Prison Farm Program that at one time operated six farms in five provinces (Tripp 2009). Following the announcement, members of the NFU Local 316 that represents farmers and associate members in the counties of Frontenac and Lennox-Addington and the city of Kingston, alongside other concerned Kingston residents, immediately began engaging in oppositional efforts, sending letters and petitions to Parliamentarians, enlisting support from local and national organizations and holding a weekly vigil outside of Collins Bay Institution. Former and current inmates also advocated to keep the farm program by writing letters to the government and sharing letters in public meetings. These early efforts led to the formation of Save Our Prison Farms (SOPF), a coalition that brought together organizations such as the NFU, the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul, Urban Agriculture Kingston and the Frontenac Federation of Agriculture. Over the campaign period, others, including the John Howard Society, the Canadian and Ontario Federations of Agriculture (CFA and OFA), the Kingston Police Board and several Members of Parliament (MPs), including Jack Layton and Justin Trudeau, also pledged their support to reinstate the prison farms. Though the coalition began as an effort to oppose the prison farm closures across Canada, it grew into a movement that cut across political and social divides, a movement that gained strength as it engaged in a sustained, decade-long effort that eventually created enough political pressure to reopen two of the prison farms.

Two federal penitentiaries, Frontenac and Pittsburgh Institutions located in Kingston, operated farms in which minimum security prisoners would work in a variety of positions from tending to dairy cows to running agricultural machinery. At the time of the closure, Frontenac Institution, located on prime farm land near downtown Kingston, was the largest urban farm in all of Canada, spanning 900 acres (Reeve 2013: 2). The farm included a prize-winning dairy herd of over 150 cows, about 8,000 chickens producing eggs, as well as fruit and vegetable production. Pittsburgh Institution, just outside Kingston, included a provincially inspected abattoir, processing beef for around 300 small local farms in addition to growing fruits and vegetables on its 1,200 acres of farmland (Reeve 2013: 2).

In this chapter, Dianne Dowling, a current director of the NFU local 316, Andrew McCann, a SOPF organizer and food activist, Aric McBay, an author, farmer and SOPF organizer, Peter Smith, an active NFU local member, and Jeff Peters, a beef farmer and co-director of the Pen Farm Herd Co-op, tell the story of how local farmers and community members came together to oppose the closing of the prison farms. The campaign was broader, opposing the Conservative government’s “tough on crime” policies, while at the same time advocating for rehabilitation through interaction with the land, animals and community, local food

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