Just for the record and so that Mr. Jean's ears will be properly attenuated to my remarks, I want to speak in favour of this particular amendment, because it does speak to rehabilitation.
One of the very sad aspects of our prison system is that the aboriginal population is significantly over-represented in our prisons. I think perhaps six or seven times, if not more, of their percentage of the population are in the prisons. It may actually be higher than that in some provinces where aboriginal people are incarcerated. Their rehabilitation is particularly spoken to here in proposed section 84:
If an inmate expresses an interest in being released into an aboriginal community, the Service shall, with the inmate’s consent, give the aboriginal community
(a) adequate notice of the inmate’s parole review or their statutory release date, as the case may be; and
(b) an opportunity to propose a plan for the inmate’s release and integration into that community.
This is an improvement to the existing law, and it allows for the aboriginal community to play a role in assisting the reintegration of that individual into the community. I hope—and I just hope, because I can't propose any amendments that would spend money, as I've just found out, at least in relation to the proposal for an independent board—I hope that resources will be provided to assist aboriginal communities in playing a positive role in this integration process. It's extremely important that we try to support aboriginal people who have to endure the conditions of incarceration as part of their punishment, I'm not denying that, and in addition also have to endure the cultural community dislocation that occurs when they are in a correction facility, sometimes for lengthy periods of time.
I do support this. We support this as a party. We think significant extra efforts ought to be made to assist aboriginal people to reintegrate into their community. That may require more than just a plan as proposed here. It may require significant resources. I would encourage the government when considering the implementation of clause 66 of this bill to consider programs and resources that might be needed to make this more effective.
If aboriginal people are able to return and be integrated into their community and associate with other members of that community in a plan that's considered by the community itself, with the elders and the groups within the community, their success in reintegration is going to be enhanced.
Those would be my comments, Chair. Perhaps some of my colleagues would like to express themselves on this as well.