A plan to provide Canadian prison inmates with a bulk order of fruit-flavored condoms was in bad taste and has been canceled, the cabinet minister in charge of prisons in the Canadian prairie province of Manitoba told the Winnipeg Free Press newspaper.

Prison bureaucrats issued a tender for $8,400 -- $6,131 U.S. -- in strawberry, banana and vanilla condoms for 10 jails -- but withdrew the offer when a reporter asked about it, the article in Tuesday's Free Press said.

``Like most Manitobans, when I first heard of this I had some serious questions about this flavor issue. I had to get my head around it,'' Gord Mackintosh, Manitoba's attorney general, was quoted as saying.

Manitoba prisons have distributed condoms to inmates since 1998 to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, but do not encourage ``at-risk behavior,'' Mackintosh was quoted as saying, noting that senior government officials did not know about the flavored-condom order.