Mr. Chair, since I became justice minister I have had the occasion to travel the country and meet with my counterparts, as well as with various members of different communities.
The point he is referring to is a real concern. For example, I was once in Saskatchewan having discussions with people of the aboriginal community, although I do not remember the exact number, of approximately 17% of the first nations people in Saskatchewan something like 70% to 75% of them were incarcerated. The member is right, we do have to address that problem as a community.
I am pleased to say that last year the department was able to renew our aboriginal justice strategy. We will be investing $57.3 million over the next five years in various programs that will help those communities. As well, we have renewed the court worker program and invested $5.5 million during 2002-03. This is a fantastic program and I will explain why. People are there to help aboriginal people, to explain the legislation and the court process, and to divert them to social programs when needed in order to ensure that some time down the road they can go back into the community and live a normal life.
As everyone can see, we have addressed the aboriginal concern with the renewal of our aboriginal strategy and with the court worker program. We are also involved in different projects across Canada with another national strategy that is in place, which is the national crime prevention program. It has given us wonderful results so far and we will continue with that strategy. We are involved in some projects with the aboriginal communities as well.