Canada’s Connection to Prison Labour
Though our trip focused on the prison labour system in Alabama, a large portion of our time over the summer was spent examining ties between the US prison labour system, and goods sold in Canada. Our research indicated that the Canadian supply chain has many likely linkages to prison-made goods from the US, particularly in the automotive and food sectors.
When we looked into the auto industry, we noticed that many auto parts manufacturers are based in the southern US, with Alabama leading in auto parts exports in 2023. Since many companies in Alabama use prison labour, this pointed us to a potential issue. The auto industry relies on a complex supply chain, with parts often crossing the Canada-US border multiple times before final assembly—making it hard to track the origin of each part. However, some parts are only made in specific factories. If one of those factories uses prison labour, then any car sold in Canada that includes that part was likely produced using prison labour.
The food industry is another sector with many potential linkages to prison labour. In 2023, the US exported $32 billion in agricultural goods to Canada, which highlights the prominent agricultural trading relationship between the nations. The food industry is difficult to trace, due to the structure of the modern food supply chain. Raw products produced using prison labour can be intermingled with other products and heavily processed before becoming a product for final purchase by consumers. Corn is a great example: corn might be harvested by incarcerated workers, and then processed into corn syrup, which is then used to make products like candy or beverages. Still, we were able to find links to food produced using prison labour at several major grocery stores and restaurants in Canada.
In addition to these primary industries, we found potential links to prison-made goods in the Canadian supply chain in home furnishing, pet stores, children’s products, and lumber companies, to name a few. Given the trade relationship between the US and Canada, it’s likely that prison-made products are a part of the daily lives of Canadian consumers—without them even knowing.