For sure. We've seen a change in the drugs that are in our communities. Not only are drugs like crack, cocaine and cannabis and the rest moving into the communities, which are then used by people, but they've gone now to prescription drugs, Tylenol 3 and so forth. They're taking from our elders. They're going to our elders' homes, breaking into the elders' homes and taking those pills.
You used to hear stories of people having parties, and everybody brought 12 or 24 beers. Today they come in with bags of pills and throw them into a bowl, and they all just grab from there. Those are prescription pills. They are not drugs of some sort being made. Those are causing great harm, and those same people who are breaking in are going to jail. They're picked up later. They find out who it is. They're out the next day. Then they're threatening the elders now, and the elders are too scared to become a witness, too scared to tell on them. It's causing us harm because justice, maybe a long time ago, was going and visiting that young person's house and telling him that he'd better not go to the elder's house again or else we'd take care of him. Those days are gone. We can't touch them. We can't do our own policing ourselves with our own hard lines.
Clearly today the revolving door is causing issues. It's unfortunate, but the sad part is a reverse position you have to be scared of because, if you look at who's in the jails, it shows that indigenous people make up the highest number in this country. They're the ones that are going to be more interactive with the bail reform necessities.
Studies have shown that non-indigenous people were able to get bail faster because they had parents who were working, parents who had resources and parents who could buy good lawyers. When you start looking at all of that data and information, there's still has to be a process where people can't just walk in and walk out. That's why, when I wrote that court model years ago along with judges, it was where we would have the community control and adjudicate the matter in their village.
You would know if Tommy was the one acting up. Now the defence lawyer goes into the courtroom and says, “Oh, Tommy's looking for work every day. He's doing this.” We know Tommy's at home sleeping and that he's drunk on the weekends. Don't come to a court and lie to us. The judge doesn't see that, but if you're doing it in the community, the community sees it. They'll say, “Don't lie to us. Tommy was drunk the other day. We saw him.”