New provider subject of prior complaints
REGINA — The multinational catering company hired by the Saskatchewan government to provide meals at eight provincial correctional centres has been the subject of serious complaints about food quality elsewhere in the country.
The provincial government is standing by its decision to hire Compass Group Canada, however.
Nobody from the Ministry of Justice was made available for an interview, but a government spokesperson wrote in an email that the ministry has “done its due diligence” and is “confident in Compass’ ability to deliver on the contract.”
In 2009, the University of Winnipeg cancelled its contract with Compass subsidiary Chartwells, after constant student complaints of substandard fare led to the food being blasted in a Maclean’s University Rankings article.
The university’s then-president, Lloyd Axworthy, was quoted in the Globe and Mail saying, “We were at the very bottom. We were being hung in effigy by students. Even the poutine was bad.”
In media reports from 2011, Peterborough Regional Health Centre spokesman Johnathan Bennett said Compass Group investigated after a gold-painted nail was found in hospital soup.
That investigation revealed the nail originated from pre-packaged soup ingredients from an outside supplier, and Bennett said, “As far as we know it’s an isolated incident and a one off, clearly pretty off putting.”
The head of corporate communications for Compass Group Canada, Lori Ann Horrigan, described her company as “experts in the provision of prison food.”
Horrigan said “the health and safety of our associates and those we serve is paramount,” and those who will work in the prisons will go through “rigorous security checks” and safety training.
According to its website, Compass Group Canada has more than 29,000 employees, collecting revenues of $1.9 billion last year.
Its parent company employs 500,000 people worldwide and had revenues of £17.1 billion (around $34.8 billion Cdn) last year.
Compass supplies food to hospitals, schools, colleges, universities and consumer retail outlets, and provides hospital cleaning services.
According to the provincial government, the group has more than 35 years of experience in Saskatchewan and “significant experience” providing food to correctional facilities in Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia.
Former inmate Tom Pizzey, who said he was at the Calgary Correctional Centre when food services switched from a local company over to Compass, said not only did the amount of food “decrease overnight,” so did the quality.
Pizzey said breakfast devolved from three slices of toast with peanut butter and jam, fresh milk and coffee to one slice without spreads, some powdered milk and half a cup of joe.
Lunch went from hamburgers and fries with ketchup and mustard to a cold slice of bologna, a piece of bread and no condiments, Pizzey said.
While he acknowledged few people have sympathy for inmates and the food they are served, he said “this will end up costing society more.”
“Right now inside, you can get hot lunches like pasta or lasagna, then, all of a sudden, they’re going to turn around and there will be no more hot meals. Inmates are going to say, ‘Are we going to tolerate this, or are we going to revolt?’ ” he said.
Catherine Latimer, executive director of the John Howard Society’s national branch, said she wonders how exactly inmates will be fed — and their nutritional needs met — on the $3.82 per meal in the Saskatchewan contract.
“Saskatchewan’s provincial jails are very crowded and very tense places, so anything that’s destabilizing or changing can cause real problems,” she said.
She cited a recent case in Ontario’s Millhaven Institution, a federal penitentiary, in which the powers that be switched from real to powdered milk.
That change “caused a disturbance,” she said.
“The guys were pepper sprayed, they wouldn’t leave the gym. Things on the outside that seem like something you could swallow and put up with are actually really serious issues on the inside.”
Complaints about Compass have not been limited to its food service operations.
Although it admitted no legal liability, Compass’ parent company, U.K.-based Compass Group PLC, paid up to £40 million ($81 million Cdn to settle two lawsuits that alleged it bribed UN officials for contracts to supply peacekeepers with rations, though Horrigan said that case did not affect operations in this country.
In an investigation into a deadly 2008 Clostridium difficile outbreak at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital in B.C., that province’s Centre for Disease Control found, among a number of other contributing factors, that “there were insufficient numbers of cleaning staff to meet the basic daily needs of the facility and they were not adequately trained in appropriate cleaning procedures for a health care facility.”
The report went on to note staff “were not able to meet the increased demand for environmental cleaning that is required to control an outbreak of CDI.” Compass held the housekeeping contract for the hospital at the time.
The company has also been at the centre of battles with unions across Canada and the globe.
In 2014 at Trent University, when it took over food operations there, the company’s demands for workers included wage cuts, reductions of full-time staff and eliminating benefits.