Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Zinger and Ms. Miron.
I'm afraid my question requires a rather long introduction, so I hope you will be patient with me.
The correctional system is not responsible for the increase in percentages. There is something or someone that causes this population to go into the system. This creates greater pressure on the correctional system, which must respond by offering programs that are non-existent or not available because they are so targeted.
In your presentation, you recommend “increasing the number of agreements with indigenous communities for the care and custody of medium security inmates.” Even in ideal circumstances, if the entire indigenous system took charge of the entire indigenous population, all we would do is displace the problem onto the shoulders of another group, which would not prevent the increase in the percentage of indigenous incarcerated persons. We would not be solving the problem at the source.
In a way, is the system not adversely affected by the limit on the application of these recommendations? No matter how many programs you have, if these people continue to join the correctional system in industrial quantities, it will continue to be overwhelmed.
What is your position? What is your reaction to this reality which seems inevitable, and about which we would like to hear your recommendations? In fact, I think that all of the parties agree that we have to improve the system. However, we seem powerless to affect the things that do not occur at your level, but upstream from that.
Aside from improving the system so that people transit through it faster, may we expect the correctional system to make recommendations that will help reduce the number of people that enter it?