Thank you.
First, I should make it clear that we have a victims' rights component to our organization, so victims' issues are very significant to us as well.
I don't sympathize with the dilemma that you have in some ways as Parliamentarians. I certainly know that many people have those concerns that you have with the justice system. But I found it interesting that when you spoke, you said there's room for both conditional sentences and imprisonment. That's what we have now. That's why we don't understand Bill C-9.
The concern is that we have no confidence, no belief that this will make any community any safer. May it make some of your constituents feel they're safer? It may do that. But in order to do that, you are sending individuals to jail who shouldn't be going to jail. And we know that, disproportionately, those individuals will be aboriginal.
So if Parliament would like to respond to real concerns about public safety by enacting a bill that will not do anything to actually address those concerns, but will send aboriginal people to jail in even greater numbers while not resulting in any increase in public safety, then you should do that. But you should be aware of what you're doing. You are simply perpetuating what has been done for years.
So if the concern is how we remedy the problems, we look for real answers. In our opinion, this is unfortunately not going to do that.