I believe it unequivocally.
In my opening statement, I talked about the fact that it isn't because Black and indigenous women and girls, or 2-spirit people, have more propensity for criminality or criminal behaviour. It is because of racism.
I had a conversation, recently, with the CEO of the National Association of Friendship Centres, who said that, in federal prisons, anything as high as ninetysomething per cent of federally incarcerated women are indigenous. That is a ludicrous figure when you consider the percentage of the population indigenous women have in Canada—about 2.3% to 2.5%. Nobody can tell me that is anything other than systemic racism, which has resulted in such a small population being so grossly overrepresented. The same goes for Black and trans women. For me, it is a clear indication that the system is set up to disadvantage and discriminate against certain populations and do it with such impunity.
We're hoping that, with this bill and our proposal, more attention will be paid to the process of hiring and to ensuring that the individuals administering the process are individuals who are educated, understanding, empathetic and really grounded in intersectional understanding of race and gender.