Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the panel for being here today.
I've always found it very interesting. The committee previously toured many of the facilities, including the healing lodges. I'm not sure that I had any understanding of what a healing lodge was until I went there. I would suggest, Mr. Chair, that if we have members who have never seen a healing lodge in operation, it wouldn't be a bad idea for us to visit one.
I am also of the opinion that by the time an offender gets to the institutions, we as a society have already failed. We have not broken some other chain of behaviour. I'm wondering whether, within the indigenous communities, there are some that are better prepared to deal with their young people through a variety of means.
What I'm looking at is whether there are areas where, as a result of their upbringing in those communities, far fewer people run afoul of the law and end up in your institutions, or are we looking at everything being the same? I rather doubt that. I suspect there are some areas that are far better. Might we better spend our resources, or some of our resources, imitating the communities that are working better with their young people?