Thank you so much for your question. I appreciate it.
I want to say a couple of things. If you bring a plumber to your house and ask for input on a renovation, she's going to point to your pipes. I understand that the chief of police thinks about the types of solutions to underlying problems that might be available to criminal law. I respect Chief Montour, as well, as a member of the community and a leader of the community, but I want to tell you something. In a triple murder case from that community, two of the victims were former clients of mine. Two of the three significant charged people were former clients of mine. In sharing that earlier anecdote about eulogizing them and remembering their laughter, I was talking about one of the victims.
We have this idea that there are victims on one side and offenders on the other. There are not two camps of individuals, particularly for racialized people. They are one. There are road maps set out in the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, in the TRC and in missing and murdered women inquiry, where indigenous people have shared with us how to move forward from the history of colonization and racism to reforming criminal justice. We just need to listen and follow through.
A key thing they have said over and over again is that mandatory minimum sentences have to go because they are not the solution to the underlying problem. We cannot fix the fact that the Canadian criminal justice system has not earned the trust of indigenous people through mandatory minimum sentences.
If you really want to empower victims, put some teeth behind victims' rights legislation, so that the Crowns stop treating them like these are guidance. Give victims genuine participatory rights, as well as the ability to be involved in meaningful ways.