Mr. Chair, the justice system has a provision that in sentencing we have to take into account the history of aboriginal people. Other than that, when someone comes before a judge, they do not have that much time. The judge does not know them as a person. Most judges, until we get more first nation judges, do not know the entire different background of the residential schools or the intergenerational problems or the different cultures people come from. A Gladue report paints this all out. It describes the person. The judge gets to know the person as an individual, not just as an entity in front of him.
With that detailed information about how that person is different from all the other people who have appeared before the court, the judge can then follow the justice system's rule of being sensitive in sentencing.