The story of the fight to save Canada’s six prison farms from the Conservative axe has largely been an urban narrative.Farm media in the country have considered it an urban issue, not a farm story. Beyond the National Farmers Union, farm organizations have paid little attention, considering it a sideshow.After all, six farms, 300 inmate workers and small production does not a farm issue make.But behind the facts of the case, there is one small slice of the prison farm debate that should make farmers sit up and take notice.The basic message the Conservative government has been sending out – this is the Conservative government that represents most agricultural ridings – is that work ethic and farm skills taught to inmates on the prison farms are irrelevant in a 21st century economy.Stand back for a moment.In prairie agricultural mythology, Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau never lived down his rhetorical response to a heckler at a Winnipeg rally in 1969 who demanded the prime minister sell his wheat.“Why should I sell your wheat?” shrugged Trudeau, giving the Winnipeg Free Press a great headline and prairie farmers an intergenerational grievance.The fact that Trudeau went on to say that farmers had the Canadian Wheat Board to sell their wheat did nothing to diminish prairie farm rage and the lasting impression of an easterner dissing western agriculture.What if Trudeau or Brian Mulroney or Jean Chrétien had said this about the work skills that can be learned on a modern high-tech dairy farm with superior herd genetics:“In terms of employability skills, the prison farms are set up on a model of agriculture that really reflects the way it worked in the days of the old mixed farm in the 1950s.“Today, capital has replaced labour, which is why virtually none of the inmates who work in the prison farms end up with employable job skills and makes them more likely to reoffend when they re-enter the community.”Work ethic skills are not transferable?Of course, it wasn’t a Liberal but then-Conservative public safety minister Peter Van Loan who said that, in the face of criticism of his plan to close down prison farms.Not a single rural Conservative MP came to the defence of the value of farm-learned skills in the 21st century.They seemed happy to leave the impression that acquiring dairying skills is as relevant as learning how to make buggy whips.It was a Tory law-and-order issue.“This is an exciting new direction for the membership drive for the NFU,” agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said of NFU support for the farms.“Of course, it does require a captive audience since it really does not represent any farmers. While it is busy lobbying for criminals and bad guys, we are out there building a new set of rules and regulations for farmers that will benefit them domestically and in the international marketplace.”It is difficult to imagine farmers not creating a grudge around a Liberal or New Democrat leader dismissing farm-learned skills as so yesterday.It seems to depend on who says it.
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