Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you both for being here. I appreciate all your testimony about the issues in communities and with young people and colonialization and residential schools. This committee looks at corrections, so that's why our study was focused on what we can do for people who are in the system to make sure that they are accessing programming and early release, because that's just not happening now.
I invite you both to come to the status of women committee, because we're studying indigenous women in corrections, where our mandate will be much broader and include access to justice and that type of thing.
You touched on the deputy commissioner and whether we should have that. The other issue that has come up is the need for indigenous corrections officers and parole officers, and the lack of people who are getting into that profession. When the Union of Solicitor General Employees was here, they said that it would be really good to have people from corrections actually go into the community, and also to provide resources for people to access the courses they need. Not everybody can support themselves for three months without income to do what they need to do to be able to work in corrections.
Do you agree with that sentiment in terms of doing recruitment by actually going into the communities? Do you have any other suggestions on how we can recruit more people to work in the system?