I recently had the unique opportunity to visit three federal prisons in British Columbia, accompanied by lifelong prisoner rights advocate and my friend, Senator Kim Pate. Our first visit was to William Head Institution, a minimum-security prison for men located just outside of Victoria. When I arrived at the prison, I felt it looked much different than what I had pictured. Throughout the prison there were very few walls, minimal barbed wire fencing and I did not see many uniformed guards. Instead, I saw communities of houses where the men cook and clean for themselves.