Mr. Chair, thank you very much.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here.
Mr. Chair, we've heard compelling testimony so far. I think part of what we've heard is that we have to be very mindful to not inadvertently perpetuate or even recreate elements of the residential school system through our correction system. We've also heard in very compelling terms this morning from your predecessor witnesses that this is a much broader issue than corrections itself. We're talking about criminal justice here. These issues are issues of social justice.
I'd like to start out by asking you to venture outside the box. I'm very mindful that this committee has its parameters and other committees on Parliament Hill have their parameters and that they're masters of their own destiny. If issues are horizontal and cross-connected in such a profound way, maybe we can create some inspiration or ideas, and it will then be up to us as parliamentarians to connect the dots.
I'd like to ask each of you if you could identify as precisely as possible, maybe as a theme of inquiry or maybe in whatever terms you see fit, the top one or two system-external drivers that have indigenous offenders end up in your system in the first place. In other words, if you're saying the correctional system isn't working as well as it should and that out there in Canadian society we are still perpetuating a mindset that leads to such a huge concentration of indigenous offenders, what do we need to change outside of the parameters of the correctional system to achieve reconciliation in a nation-to-nation sense?