A prisoner at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay is entering the second week of a hunger strike Monday over what inmates say are unsanitary conditions and poor medical treatment.

Harley Guindon, of Oshawa, is the last of about 30 prisoners who stopped eating last week to protest conditions in the jail.

Guindon, 31, said in a telephone interview Monday that he’s not ready to end his strike yet.

“I know that I’ve got a couple more days in me,” he said. “I hit the floor yesterday. I got light-headed. I tried to stand up and hit the floor.”

Guindon said he’s being punished for airing prisoner concerns on Facebook.

“Don’t I have the right to freedom of speech?,” he said.

Chris Butsch, president of Local 368 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, said he supports the prisoners’ complaints about sanitation and medical care, but disagrees with their method of protest.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services confirmed there was a “meal refusal” but didn’t comment further.

Guindon, the son of Satan’s Choice Motorcycle Club founder Bernie Guindon, has a lengthy record for drug offences.

“For the record, the hunger strike wasn’t my idea,” posted Guindon, who’s 6-foot-1 and weighed 250 pounds when arrested two years ago for a home invasion. “I’m a big guy, believe me, I love to eat.”

“We have rusty cell vents blowing air that is not sanitary,” Guindon wrote. “We also have an air intake vent that hasn’t worked in years. Our lungs are being poisoned with every breath we take. I feel it’s criminal. Are we not entitled to clean air because we are inmates?”

While guards and inmates clashed last week, they do agree on what they consider poor sanitation conditions at the jail.

“Mould is a common problem because of lack of ventilation,” Butsch said in an interview.

He said the union raised that concern with management years ago.

“Air quality has always been a concern, for offenders and for staff,” he said.

Dust collects on ventilation, Butsch said.

He said the union has advocated for two more cleaners to be hired, since there’s just four cleaners for the 10-acre facility.

He also agreed with inmates about what they consider a lack of medical staff inside the jail.

The facility has cut back the number of doctors from two to one, for the 1,000 to 1,200 inmates, he said.

Nick Rizzuto said his son Joe Rizzuto, 31, also of Woodbridge, was pepper-sprayed and fired upon with what he thought were rubber bullets early on in the protest.

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“He said, ‘Dad, all I saw was red lasers,’ ” Rizzuto said. “. . . ‘It was like a war zone in there.’ ”

Nick Rizzuto said he was allowed to briefly meet with his son Monday. His son, who’s a plumber, is in custody awaiting trial on a conspiracy charge, Rizzuto said.

Rizzuto said he is not related to the late Vito Rizzuto of Montreal, considered by authorities to be Canada’s most powerful Mafia boss.