Tales From Tarsandia Prison

by Yuya Joe College

Part One – Sneaking a Mandate

The key for G (Groucho Stephens, Canberta's new PM) had been stealthily planning for extremes during his minority years (he hated the term “minority”), outwardly projecting the image of a moderate human being and leader, while secretly conspiring with Talibertan, American and Chinese backers for his eventual takeover and hard right steer.

Groucho got his mandate (that term scared him) and was now busy courting the Chinese yuan, allowing China's largest telecommunications firm to build Canberta's telecommunications networks, over the objections of his US and Australian governmental counterparts. In China, people know their phones are tapped, and adjust accordingly, however Canbertians were such trusting people, they didn't even suspect that something was up. In any case, Grouch wasn't into government, he was into exploiting resources and stealing money, and besides, he believed the Chinese were actually capitalists just like him, and did not give much credence to all that commie crap, with incessant tales of nepotism, torture and unlawful imprisonment of human rights activists.

His Tailbertan advisor / partner Mad McKnight had to lay low for awhile, for too many netizens had been inquiring about ShelfEight and those timely telephone calls during the most recent election. Pierre Poutine was also advised to keep away from the limelight. There would be new tactics for the next election, and additional American firms would be brought in to surreptitiously sway voters, again.

Part Two – Proof in the Pudding

Still, time was crucial, as the crisis had to be built quickly. In early 2012, G's Guv doubled the penalties for herb gardening, from 7 years imprisonment to 14 years. Anyone who believes in God or reason or both knows in their heart and mind that Taliano speaks the truth, while the Talibertans utter diatribes with forked tongues.

Groucho's now proposing a new law that provides for a prison-term of ten years for wearing a mask during a riot, or five years if police declare a peaceful gathering an unlawful assembly. There is already a law that wearing a face mask while committing a crime is illegal, but if Groucho's Guv only put criminals in prison, they would never be able to retire in the luxury they dream of. When MP Rake Bitchyards initially suggested one to two years in prison for wearing a face mask, Grouch was heard to mutter under his breath “where's the money in that?” and the sycophant quickly smartened up. A conscious aide mentioned that a Muslim woman (with face covered) or a Chinese man with a cough (wearing a surgical mask) walking by a demonstration deemed unlawful could then be jailed for five years, G had a good belly laugh over that one, and when another peon suggested that protesters often cover their faces with scarves to protect from teargas and other poisonous emissions from police forces, the PM was heard to utter a single word, “excellent.” Finally, when someone mentioned that a First Nations person with war paint could be imprisoned for this type of public expression, Grouchy just laughed even harder.

Part Three – Masters of the Gulag

G's American overlords at PCA (Prison Corporation of America) had definitely not set up trust funds for himself, his cabinet and inner circle, in Switzerland, Lichtenstein and the Cayman Islands, and the plan was unfolding as desired. A raft of new laws had been created that doubled and tripled prison terms for minor offenses, and a whole range of additional useless laws were enacted to ensure that any environmentalist, marijuana smoker or other nature lover could be easily imprisoned for long stretches.

Anybody opposing the Tarsandia Prison was targeted for imprisonment, yet one problem remained, that being Canberta's extensive and well-run publicly-owned prison system. In 2012 this obstacle was swiftly removed, as some of the largest, most esteemed facilities were quickly shut down without warning or reason, foreshadowing the overcrowding crisis that would spur the construction of PCA mega-prisons. People seemed to have forgotten the disastrous Pentanguishene experiment, and news stories of the USA private prison calamities were rarely reported in the increasingly docile Canbertian press.

Son of Sam (architect of the Penetanguishene fiasco and now an advisor to Grouch) provided his Halloween Report to the Guv, suggesting the scrapping of statutory release, the current system whereby well-behaved prisoners are automatically released after serving two-thirds of their sentence, saving taxpayers a fortune and contributing to prison stability. The newly advised policy was to involve prisoners jumping through hoops to prove how righteous they had now become and would cost hundreds of millions in longer sentences, and tens of thousands of hearings.

Part Four – Lament for a Nation

First these myopic primates closed down the prison farms, where inmates learned to produce their own food, and experienced empathy for animals, something new to many of them. These types of emotions tended to lower recidivism, yet that was anathema to the private prisons lobby secretly funding the Cons Guv. Next they vastly increased prison terms (Bills C-10, C-31 and C-309) and then they closed down the main government prisons, hoping to precipitate the crisis they had been coached on.

Kenny Jayded, Talibertan MP, was the main sponsor of the legislation (C-31) requiring refugee claimants as young as 16 years of age to spend one year in the Canadian prison system, and he was much loved by Grouch, for there were already too many “fereigners” in Taliberta and he was just protecting Talib “culture.”

It was all so very depressing, and outside of Quebec, few were cognizant of the covert Talibertan takeover of Canberta, which had previously been known by another name. The only hope for preserving the soul of the nation lay in Son of Jack, a Mount Royal bilingualist who actually seemed to care for the country and its people.