…..fact or fiction…

Every public service job comes with knee pads…virtual knee pads, and that goes for everyone from the Queen on down. Fortunately, she never has to be reminded of what duty and service means. Would that were the case for all our civil servants.

According to Minister Ralph Goodale’s recent mandate letter to the new commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada “protects Canadian communities through appropriate custodial measures, effective rehabilitation and safe reintegration of people serving a federal sentence. Your responsibility to Canadians is to ensure that when offenders return to their communities, they are well prepared to lead safe, productive, law-abiding lives.”

The man has got to be kidding! Is the minister so far removed from reality to not know what’s going on in his own department? Or, is he simply feeding us approved jibber-jabber.

Look at the Correctional Service of Canada website…..www.csc-scc.gc.ca. One would think it’s heaven-sent to save society from itself rather than hell-bent on preserving a failed “prison industry.”

The breadth and depth of moral and ethical corruption in our prison industry earns it a place on Michael Moore’s “to-do list.” We’re sticking it to the federal system here, but the same applies to its provincial counterparts.

As one seasoned inmate put it, “In spite of the decades of work by organizations and activist individuals to persuade or force Correctional Service of Canada to adhere to its own rules, policies, procedures…..and the law……nothing ever, ever, ever, ever changes.”

What is truly discouraging is the degree to which Canadians choose to look the other way, in spite of the danger on their doorsteps posed by CSC practices.