What we’re doing:
- REPORT (2024): “Prison Farms Exposed: Revelations from Access to Information”
- REPORT (2022): “Bloody Bad Business: Report on the Joyceville Institution Abattoir” (second edition)
- REPORT (2021): “Bloody Bad Business: Report on the Joyceville Institution Abattoir” (first edition)
- REPORT (2021): “Canada’s proposed prison farm program: Why it won’t work and what would work better”
- PROPOSAL (2017): “A Proposal to Evolve Our Prison Farms”
- LEGAL EDUCATION BOOKLET: “Cultivating Justice: Transforming Canada’s Prison Farms” w/Osgoode Hall Law School
- LEGAL REVIEW: How Canada’s prison farms may violate human rights and trade laws w/Queen’s Business Law Clinic
- MEDIA: Publishing articles and sharing records and photos with journalists
- SURVEYS: Collecting feedback from hundreds of prisoners since 2018
- ADVOCACY: Over 23,000 postcards mailed to the Minister of Public Safety by 130 volunteers
- PETITIONS: Nine petitions with nearly 70,000 signatures sponsored by four Members of Parliament
- POLITICS: Over 20 exchanges in Parliament resulting from research and advocacy by Evolve Our Prison Farms
- ACCESS TO INFORMATION: Over 140 requests filed since 2018 and 43,000 pages released to date
In a nutshell:
In 2016, the Canadian government launched public consultations into the possibility of opening prison farms. Evolve Our Prison Farms emerged as part of that process, submitting a proposal for non-profit plant-based agriculture.
In 2018, the Canadian government announced that the prison farms would be commercial goat dairy. After six years of investigation, Evolve Our Prison Farms obtained documentation revealing the government’s plan for the prison farms to supply goat milk for the Chinese infant formula market.
In 2018 and 2019, the Canadian government twice failed to launch the prison goat farm. By 2023, over $50 million had been spent on the attempt, and on the addition of a small herd of dairy cows. The cows have been kept in temporary housing from 2019-2024 while a dairy barn was designed and constructed for them. Efforts to obtain goats and begin barn construction continued through 2020 and 2021.
In 2021, following Evolve’s academic Prison Farm Report and 50,000 signature petition, the Correctional Service of Canada quietly announced the temporary pause of its goat milk plans, noting that the goat operation “will resume” once their financial situation stabilizes.
In 2022, the Correctional Service of Canada issued a contract for construction of a $10.48 million barn for the small cow herd.
In November 2024, after two years and eight months of construction, the cow barn was completed and a dairy research program began in partnership with McGill University. The milk from the prison dairy research program is being sold to the public through Dairy Farmers of Ontario.
By mid-construction, in October 2023, the cost of the 60-cow barn had reached $16.69 million. The cost to full completion is not yet known.
The contract for the cow barn included the roadways, site services, and manure lagoon for the “future goat barn.”
As of 2024, the construction of the goat barn remains “tender ready.”
All of this, and more, is fully documented by Evolve Our Prison Farms.
57 Foster Street, P.O. Box 2012
Perth, Ontario, Canada, K7H 1R9