Public Safety committee  Very few of our inmates who are released from prisons get any jobs in the agricultural sector--

Public Safety committee  We don't have the statistics that break it down relative to the employment aspect that you asked about in terms of specifics on where the jobs went. There are a number of areas that we are looking at to replace in different levels of programs. If you just give me half a minute--

Public Safety committee  I can refer you to what we have in terms of offender job placements. These are placements for people who go through the CORCAN employment group. I'll use figures from 2008-09. Of 2,560 areas where job placements took place, 476 offenders got jobs in construction trades, 367 in general labour types of trades, and 14 in agricultural and horticultural areas.

Public Safety committee  I really am not sure if I understand your question. Sorry.

Public Safety committee  As I mentioned, we don't have that broken down, but again I go back--

Public Safety committee  I believe what I did say to you is that the skills that are learned in any job are applicable to any other type of job, and I think that goes without saying. Those are the things we talked about: teamwork, punctuality, reliability, dependability. There is no question of that in my mind.

Public Safety committee  Well, it's the mandate of the Correctional Services of Canada and it includes all programs, which is to manage and administer the sentences that are imposed by the courts and to aid inmates in their reintegration and rehabilitative process.

Public Safety committee  As I said in my opening comments, there is no question that working on a farm does contribute to valuable skills, such as reliability, punctuality, and teamwork—elements associated with working in any sort of level of environment. However, the difficulty is very clear, that for those people who leave our facilities to seek employment, the agricultural sector is not a viable, realistic market right now.

Public Safety committee  There's no question that skills learned in any position relative to punctuality, teamwork, the things that I mentioned there, are important in an inmate's progress towards rehabilitation. There's no question of that. However, to me, our perspective is that learning those skills in a job that is more likely to give you employment at the end would be quite reasonable.

Public Safety committee  Just the one.

Public Safety committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I have with me Liette Dumas-Sluyter, acting assistant commissioner of corporate services; Pushkar Godbole, director general of technical services and facilities; and John Sargent, the chief executive officer of CORCAN.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll just start off here, and Ms. Zilkowsky may fill in a few gaps. There are several aboriginal programs that have been developed, which involve levels of culture and spirituality, but which also include a component of understanding and empathizing with the victim. They are aimed at really trying to get at a comprehensive understanding of the elements and impacts associated with the victims.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I have a comment, Mr. Marston. I would echo what was pointed out before. If you had 25 researchers in a room here and asked for a definition of systemic discrimination, you'd probably get quite a range of answers. Perhaps I could try to give you a real example. If you ask me the question, are there a number of aboriginal inmates being admitted to maximum security more so than non-aboriginal, I would say to you, yes, absolutely.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As Mr. Demers pointed out, we will be giving you a lot more detailed information. In very much general terms, the rate of violent offending among aboriginal men and aboriginal women is much higher than those of non-aboriginal people. Although murder rates tend to stay the same, the number of those who serve time, say, for the more schedule 1, prolific, violent types of offences is significantly higher.

Justice committee  The only comment is that, as you know, we're on the receiving end, obviously, of the legislation as things pick up, and have appeared before the committee before in terms of the potential impacts this would have in a correctional frame. We're very pleased to have been able to have done that earlier.