Mr. Speaker, listening to the debate, I cannot fail to mention the fact that so many of our aboriginal people are in penitentiaries across our country, in numbers that are greater than they should be as far as percentages when we look at the small population of the aboriginal community in Canada.
At the aboriginal affairs committee, which I have been on since I became a member, one of the witnesses who came before us was an ombudsman for people who were in prison. He presented numbers that showed a very alarming rate of offenders in the prison system came from aboriginal communities. Not only that, many times they do not qualify for rehabilitative programs because of the way they are labelled in the prison system.
With the bills that are being introduced by the Conservative government, will we be seeing more of our people in the system instead of them getting out of the system and becoming contributors to society?