When you are at the stage where you're a prison inmate, your future is already mortgaged. You have a criminal record and it is more difficult to be reintegrated into society. Unfortunately, these individuals are often lost. But prevention programs would allow us to do something before they go to prison.
We should be working with young dropouts who are having trouble by setting up an institution or a group that could work with these young people and help them go back to school. That is when you have to go in and save them. I worked with young dropouts who were having trouble. When they get into drugs and alcohol or end up on the street, that is when you have to go in and get them, find them some work and pay them to do some kind of gratifying work. You don't want them to end up in prison, because that will mortgage their life. We can't control everything, but it is critical to work with young people, men and women, so that they don't end up in prison. And that work is being done. We have seen young people go back to CEGEP. We have seen young men and women who are able to get away from the drug scene. We have seen some who managed.
As for the First Nations, it is important that they have an opportunity to develop their own institutions. Who could possibly be more concerned about a problem than the person actually experiencing it? We have our cultures and our language. Unfortunately, we have no laws to protect our language, and so it has been forgotten. I'm speaking in general terms. The First Nations have different cultures. They have ways of expressing their culture, through ceremonial practices, for example. I don't think filling our prisons is the solution, because all it does is mortgage people's future, particularly youth. It's not really a good idea. The answer is still education. Education is the key.
We need to put programs in place to get dropouts back on the right track. That is what is critical. We have to go out into the streets and take them back to their roots. That is where the street work has to happen. It's important. Who is in a better position to solve these problems then the communities that are suffering? That is how I see it. I always come back to the idea of our having our own institutions, because we can identify our issues as First Nations.