Public Accounts committee  What we're going to be doing, in specific institutions across the country, is have centralized intake units that will specialize in doing the assessments, the planning, and initiating the interventions for aboriginal offenders. This way, rather than spread our resources across 43

Public Accounts committee  If you go back to what you described as my “bring-and-brag” report, we recognize very clearly that there are gaps. We're working to encourage more elders to come into the system. We're working to ensure that our aboriginal liaison officers...in our management action plan you'll s

Public Accounts committee  Please don't interpret anything I'm saying to mean that we are.

Public Accounts committee  The senior deputy commissioner, Anne Kelly, is responsible for aboriginal initiatives in—

Public Accounts committee  Again, the short answer is yes. Our whole strategy going forward with aboriginal offenders is to have them start their programs at the time of intake, as soon as they come in the door.

Public Accounts committee  I think it was primarily because the focus was on trying to address a long list of program needs for offenders while they were incarcerated, as opposed to identifying the main program, the key program, and activating that as soon as possible. There is no question that there was

Public Accounts committee  —CSC, yes.

Public Accounts committee  The short answer is yes. Were there things that the Auditor General pointed out that we've added? The answer is yes.

Public Accounts committee  What I can talk about there is our engagement with elders. We have about 140 elders who are working in the institutions, working with indigenous offenders across the country. Some offenders access the services; others do not. One of the challenges we have is keeping elders, par

Public Accounts committee  No problem.

Public Accounts committee  Thanks for the question, and thanks for your observation. There is no question that we did examine that. Did we provide enough? The answer is no, we did not. There are several reasons we could probably go into. One, of course, is the increased number of individuals coming into t

Public Accounts committee  Yes, we were planning on implementing it, but the Auditor General pointed out to us that we probably should have implemented it earlier or needed to move on it more quickly, and we've accepted that recommendation.

Public Accounts committee  It's primarily in the Prairies, and I think it's about 18% of the aboriginal offenders, compared to 8% of the general population. It's just a little over double, which is problematic for us.

Public Accounts committee  Part of it stems from things that have developed earlier in these individuals' encounters with the criminal justice system. Particularly going through youth centres and provincial systems, they become associated with gangs, and that obviously carries over. This is one of the th

Public Accounts committee  Very much so.