A lot of solid work has come out of the U.S. in the last few decades that effectively describes the U.S. prison-industrial complex as the ongoing legacy of slavery. While Canada did indeed have slavery (contrary to official myth) and slavery in Canada is part of the history of prisons in this country, it’s also necessary to situate the emergence of the Canadian penitentiary system as part of the project of British colonial expansion.

Canada likes to present itself as, historically, a safe haven for Black people escaping slavery in the United States. However, the institution of slavery existed here until 1833 and was followed by an era of Jim Crow like segregation. There have been centuries of overrepresentation of Black people in state run institutions of confinement. Whitesupremacy, as an institution in Canada, was shaped by the enslavement of Black people. In the almost two centuries since the abolition of slavery, Black people have been consistently criminalized, policed, and harmed by the state and civil society. Although making the easy connection between a prison that used to literally be a plantation is harder to do north of the American border, there is no doubt that slavery and criminalization of Black people has shaped the institution of prison in Canada.

Following Canadian Confederation in 1867, colonization and settlement continued to rapidly spread west of Ontario. Along with the establishment of the North-West Mounted Police and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, penitentiaries were constructed to extend Canadian law and assert colonial jurisdiction in the west.

Stony Mountain