Status of Women committee  At university, I teach 400 students a year. And the first exercise I assign to them involves naming the Aboriginal nations in Quebec. Unfortunately, only about 10% of students are able to name some. So, I invite members of Aboriginal communities to class. We start from the bottom

Status of Women committee  I would like to come back to skills development and the penitentiaries. In Quebec at least, there are no programs. There is no attempt being made to develop inmates' skills in prison. There is no money. So, inmates serve their term and there is nothing else. It is kind of a parki

Status of Women committee  With respect to the registry, I think it would be a little silly to say that controlling access to firearms and ammunitions… I think you would receive a better response if you talked to the police. They have raw data on cases involving violence or the use of firearms. However, t

Status of Women committee  I want to come back to a comment made by Ms. Brown about the problems related to developing skills programs. I am going to try to give you a very practical example. Several years ago, we decided to all focus on development. We looked at Aboriginal families and decided that Abori

Status of Women committee  Your question is important. You need to have specific things in mind when talking about skills development. In terms of skills development, it's not really that complicated. What actually is a skill? Well, it is a gap or something missing in someone, such as a lack of self-estee

Status of Women committee  I will take the first question, which dealt with the Aboriginal Cultural Awareness Program provided through the correctional system. The reality in Canada is this. Provincial prisons do not have adequate budgets. They receive less money than facilities operated by the Correction

Status of Women committee  These are territorial prisons. We are about to start developing the North, according to the Charest government. But how will that development work? I think one of the priorities is the structural underdevelopment of the communities. Will we once again find diamonds, treasures an

Status of Women committee  That is my niche. I actually did my Ph.D. thesis on Aboriginal women who are incarcerated in Quebec. I am currently completing a study on prison trajectories among Aboriginal men. At the same time, officials with the Correctional Service of Canada refused to allow me into the pen

Status of Women committee  I'm inclined to let my colleague answer that question, because that falls outside my area of expertise. I think she has it with her, and she will be more convincing than I could be.

Status of Women committee  Just to answer your question, this is something that was internationally recognized. A few minutes ago, we were talking about invisibility. Why are the Aboriginal people so invisible? The answer to that is because politicians have good reason to ensure that they remain invisible.

Status of Women committee  I would like to comment on the issue of skills development. I think this is a good example of a situation where caution is required. We are in an era of leadership skills development. Over the course of its history, Canada has often had a tendency to adopt cross-cutting policies

Status of Women committee  Good morning, my name is Renée Brassard. I teach at the School of Social Work, but I am a criminologist by training. Today my comments will be quite brief, because some of the points I intended to address have already been made by the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labr