Mr. Chair, thank you very much.
Dr. Zinger, Madam Miron, it's great to have you in front of the committee.
Madam Miron, I think it's special privilege for members of the committee to have you here and to hear your views this morning on this very important issue.
I'd like to thank you for being so frank and so compelling in your comments. I think this is a problem that the committee is very well aware of and seized with, but that Canadians also are very concerned about. We have to be mindful that we're not inadvertently allowing some of the horrors of the residential school system to creep back in through the Correctional Service. Thank you for your work and your service.
I want to start by drawing your attention to chapter 4 of the “Annual Report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator 2016-2017”. At the end of chapter 4—I'm just going to read them briefly—there are three recommendations:
i. increase the number of Section 81 agreements to include community accommodation options for the care and custody of medium security inmates;
ii. address discrepancies in funding arrangements between CSC and Aboriginal-managed Healing Lodge facilities, and;
iii. maximize community interest and engagement in release planning for Indigenous offenders at the earliest opportunity.
Dr. Zinger, there is no recommendation that is specific to gender issues, even though you, in very compelling terms, had highlighted that 37.9% of the population of female inmates is indigenous.
Is the fact that there is no specific gender recommendation a result of the conclusion that gender applies equally across those three recommendations, or, if you were asked to be a bit more precise, are there specific issues that relate to gender, especially female youth? Girls, as you pointed out, are disproportionately represented, even more so than women, in the corrections system.