A riot that left one man dead and several others injured at Saskatchewan Penitentiary was the result of unmet requests from inmates for more food, one inmate’s mother says.

“He said they’re not getting enough food,” Amelia Bloomfield told CTV News over the phone from her home in Cumberland House, Sask. “A lot of people are hungry, not just him.”

Bloomfield says her 27-year-old son called her from the prison in Prince Albert just after 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. The medium security unit had just been put on lockdown.

Her son told her “something was going down” because he saw people painting over cameras and putting up barricades.

“He said this wouldn’t have happened if they had just listened to what the inmates wanted,” Bloomfield said. “All they asked for was a little more portion of food.”

Her son works in the prison’s kitchen. The kitchen staff were striking at the time of the riot because inmates’ requests for larger food portions were not being met, she said.

About 200 inmates were involved in the riot, which saw prisoners set fires, smash windows and pull heat registers off walls. Nine inmates were injured in total, including 43-year-old Jason Leonard Bird, who later died in hospital.

Bird was one of three inmates found injured after the riot.

The other six injured inmates were hurt by a shotgun blast, according to officials. Their injuries were non-life-threatening and officials say the shot was necessary to keep inmates from charging.

Canada’s prisoners’ ombudsman Howard Sapers said Saskatchewan Penitentiary generated more complaints — 413 — last year than any other federal facility in the country and that 93 per cent of complaints in the prairie region came from the Prince Albert prison.

The complaints were made about things including food, health care, family visits and access to parole hearings.

Sapers, the Correctional Investigator of Canada, has sent a team from his office to investigate Wednesday’s riot alongside the RCMP, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, and Correctional Service Canada.

His office will not only be looking into the riot, but also the issue of food, he said. There have been several recent changes to food services and the “national diet” in federal institutions with the introduction of a new menu.

“Portion sizes are far more controlled than they have ever been. Things like fresh milk have been taken out of the diet and replaced with powder milk,” he said.

Sapers’ office takes complaints about food very seriously and it’s seen an increase of food-related complaints across the country, he said.

“Food is nothing to be dismissed as trivial in institutions. Food really does speak to some very fundamental principles of both human dignity, but also safe operations,” Sapers said. “If people are hungry it tends to get in the way of a lot of other things.”

His team will try to look at the entire context of the riot and the situation in Saskatchewan Penitentiary.

“What we have found in our experience is that the trigger hardly explains everything that happened,” Sapers said. “It doesn’t explain how things got to the point where they became that explosive and it certainly doesn’t explain the rapid escalation and the violence that ensued.”

James Bloomfield, prairie region president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, said there are rumours that Wednesday’s melee started with inmates who worked in the kitchen and talk about portion sizes, but nothing has been confirmed.

He said the prison is currently housing more than 900 inmates. According to the Correctional Service of Canada’s website, the facility has a capacity of 785.

Sapers said facilities across the Prairies tend to be the most overcrowded. He’s raised concerns about the issue for years as it relates to the scarcity of resources, inmates being forced to double-bunk, and competition for employment and program placement.”

The office of Public Safety Ministry Ralph Goodale sent a statement Friday saying Correctional Service Canada is reviewing the incident.

“Minister Goodale was continuously briefed about the riot at Saskatchewan Penitentiary throughout the incident,” the statement read. “His thoughts are with the family and friends of the inmate who passed away after the incident, and with those who suffered injuries.”

Don Head, Correctional Service Canada commissioner, was at Saskatchewan Penitentiary Friday.

Two areas of the prison were still on lockdown.

--- with files from The Canadian Press