So, with that in mind, let’s talk about Bell and its profiteering on the backs of Ontario’s prison population.

First, a dose of reality: our prisons are Dickensian hellholes. Solitary confinement is torture. Rehabilitation is an increasing myth in Ontario’s jails. In short, our correctional system should be considered a national shame.

Last month, in a damning decision, the Ontario Superior Court ruled that conditions at the Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) were “inhumane and fail to comport with basic standards of human decency.” Inmates were often confined to a small cell for as long as seven days, without access to showers, phones, fresh air or family visits. But that is not even the worst of it. Clothing and bedding were often stained with urine, faeces or blood, and there were bedbug infestations and other unsanitary conditions that led to untreatable infections.

“Unacceptable,” “shocking,” “deplorable,” “harsh,” “oppressive,” “degrading,” “disheartening,” “appalling,” “Dickensian,” “regressive” and “inexcusable” are all words that our courts have used to describe the TSDC.

In its December decision, the Ontario Superior Court found that the conditions at the TSDC were a “deliberate policy choice to treat offenders in an inhumane fashion at the cost of harm to the sentencing process rather than devote appropriate resources to the operation of the institution. Put simply, the Ministry has clearly chosen to save money rather than heed judicial concerns about the lack of humane treatment of inmates.”