Status of Women committee  I would have no comment. I would defer to the RCMP.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. In fact, most indigenous people who come before the criminal justice system, you could argue, are victims themselves, whether they are there as an offender or a victim at the time. Therefore, through our victims fund we are trying to work with victims services across

Status of Women committee  That is a big question. It's based on a call for proposals, so it would depend on what comes in. Sometimes it's awareness building. Sometimes it's working with women within the community to set up new protocols, depending on whether it's family violence, depending on what the iss

Status of Women committee  Okay. I'll preface my remarks by saying that I'm not with criminal law policy. I'm implementing the law; I'm not designing the law. But in my understanding of the Gladue principle, section 718.2, paragraph (e) of the Criminal Code, it is to give special consideration to indigenou

Status of Women committee  Yes, absolutely.

Status of Women committee  Those programs are based on the needs of each community.

Status of Women committee  Sometimes they're reintegration programs. There are diversion programs and prevention programs. It truly depends on what is the need of the community and the offender population within that community.

Status of Women committee  That was a very bad choice of words on my part. A lot of people don't identify as to whether they're indigenous or not. The court workers are from the community, so they basically know who is indigenous. They will approach these individuals. Some of these individuals wouldn't k

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you about this important issue. As indicated, I am Elizabeth Hendy. I am the director general of the programs branch within the Department of Justice. My branch is responsible for the management of all grants and contribution

Justice committee  I was going to add that in 2001, when the federal government started cost sharing or providing a contribution for immigration and refugee legal aid, only six jurisdictions at that time felt that there was enough of a population to warrant those services. Perhaps that has changed

Justice committee  When they took the Canada assistance plan and transferred it into the Canada health and social transfer, and then it came into the Canada social transfer, it was very difficult to determine how much money was set aside for different elements in that transfer. Again, it's up to th

Justice committee  Yes, there are many different types of alternative dispute resolution that the provinces are trying in an attempt to bring as many people out of the court system as possible. Different plans would have different types of services, depending on the needs of their populations.

Justice committee  Yes. Obviously, our elected officials get to set budget priorities. For the previous 10 years, the federal contribution was set based on the priorities of our elected officials, and the provinces did put in more money. In budget 2016, the federal government has brought more money

Justice committee  As stated earlier, the Department of Finance funds the civil system through the Canada social transfer, so we're not involved in those discussions.

Justice committee  It's part of the information that we would like to receive, that we don't necessarily receive now. That's why we're working with our colleagues at the Canadian centre for justice statistics to have a more robust survey coming in with better outcome data so we can actually figure