Dictated by Betty Krawczyk from Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Maple Ridge, BC.
This is too much to be borne I think, as I stare down at the little dry tough hamburger patty on my plate in the dining hall at Alouette Correctional Centre for Women, with a few frozen vegetables and half a bowl of watery soup this dinner offering is listed on the evening menu as a salisbury steak dinner. Salisbury steak? A scant hamburger patty, so tough, women bend plastic knives striving to cut the loathsome little things into bite size pieces. Salisbury steak? This is such a blatant egregious lie it insults every prisoner in here. I really can't understand how this privatized food service (Compass) gets by with it. Or maybe I do.
The Campbell government has obviously contracted out prison food to the lowest possible bidder. One, I understand, that feeds us prisoners on $1.60 per day. That's $1.60 for all three meals. And then again I understand, the manager gets a bonus for coming under budget. So how does one come under budget on $1.60 per day per prisoner? By serving a dry, freezer burned hamburger patty and calling it a salisbury steak. Ha!
But why am I surprised? This is the way Gordon Campbell and his government operate on all things. People worried about the environment? Call in Arnold Schwarzenegger. The glamourous Hollywood hype will obscure the fact that Campbell didn't consult Dr. David Suzuki or others who actually know something about the environment. But by calling a dry, freezer burned hamburger patty a salisbury steak, Gordon Campbell can continue to sponsor coal fired plants, destroy our public forests which serve magnificently as carbon sinks, and continue to exterminate urban green spaces like Eagleridge Bluffs.
Calling this "green policy" is like calling a pitiful little hamburger patty a salisbury steak.
Saints preserve us!
