I just want to add to that.
I think one of the missing pieces here, as I've said before, is that in overseeing all of the healing lodges, there's a drifting away from the MOU. The community is very much waiting to be included in the memorandum of understanding that they signed with CSC. Some of the specifics in those memorandums have not been met. I understand that they're going to be meeting again to discuss some of the specifics that they need in order to go forward.
There's an under-representation of indigenous staff working at the healing lodges, especially in senior-level positions. Elders do not have the decision-making authority that they're supposed to have.
I'm speaking from experience. I worked in a healing lodge for 10 years. You can't run a healing lodge with the colonial style of thinking. You need to run it from aboriginal ways of knowing. Once that is fulfilled, I think you'll get some really good results.
I'm not saying that CSC is.... They've made some gains in that area, but I think they need to return to the table, return to the community members and chief and council, talk to them, and start working on a relationship that is positive and inclusive.
They need to consult. One of the big problems we hear about in the paper all the time is that there's no consultation with the indigenous chiefs or indigenous people. I know from speaking with some of the chiefs and councils when I do my visits at the healing lodge that they are ready. They want to make a difference in terms of reconciliation.
If we don't start having that discussion, that dialogue, then I don't think there'll be any kind of remedy going forward in terms of CSC and helping our indigenous young offenders or the ones who are already incarcerated.
Programs have to be completed and initiated within the frame of reference of indigenous people, from indigenous ways of knowing. They need to have wardens and staff members who are role models for indigenous inmates and young offenders. In my role as senior investigator, I always hear the comment, “Wow, it's so good to see an indigenous senior investigator.” I'm proud of that, because at least I give a voice.
I don't play favourites because I am a person that walks the two worlds. I walk in the white world and I walk in the indigenous world and I take the best of both. I'm speaking from my heart today because, as you know, there is a big crisis for our indigenous inmates. I am a survivor of the effects of residential school. I am a survivor of sexual abuse. There are a lot of things I can speak to.
I started working in 1995, when the model in “Creating Choices” started being used. They drifted away from “Creating Choices”. Edmonton Institution is now basically a maximum security institution. I went back for four months to see it, after “Creating Choices” sort of eroded, and it was just a prison system. There are not enough indigenous staff members to offer assistance or to act as role models for indigenous inmates there. I know that when we started with “Creating Choices,” about 70% to 80% of the women working there were indigenous, and we had success.