Justice committee  Mr. Chair, can I just add another comment?

Justice committee  First of all, I'd like to go back to your question about the numbers that we had in our report. Those came from Maclean's magazine, and it was Nancy Macdonald who put out that information. Mr. Beaudin is the one who shared that information with us. Those are numbers that we got f

Justice committee  In regard to the sentencing of our indigenous peoples, a decision came down a while back called the Gladue decision. We found throughout our study that many judges are not receptive to using that process. Our lawyers have to really fight hard to convince the judiciary that the Gl

Justice committee  That's a good question. As a matter of fact, we've been discussing that with our legal counsel right now, who's championing the Daniels case. What are some of the gaps? We will be making that kind of report once we do the consultation process with Canadian Heritage.

Justice committee  I think that's one of the ideas that's being tossed around. Like I said, we are engaging in our own internal consultation. We're working with our front-line workers, and our regional representatives get to come up with a recommendation on the independence of the program.

Justice committee  First of all, we're certainly pleased to see it reinstated the way it is right now. We will look at the parameters and at how far we can use the court challenges program to take a look at some of those recommendations that are in the truth and reconciliation report. If we need to

Justice committee  We wouldn't have that information, but Canadian Heritage might be able to provide you with that data.

Justice committee  However the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call for action recommendations are implemented, if it help our indigenous people get access to justice and, finally, to alleviate this overrepresentation in jails, it's going to be welcome. We're anxious to see how the government

Justice committee  That's right.

Justice committee  No. For us, with regard to indigenous rights, rights are rights are rights. We'll see, at the end of the day, in about an hour from now, that definitely some other questions on rights will come out of the federal Supreme Court decision. So I'd rather discuss that at another time.

Justice committee  No. It's both. We have our indigenous rights, which are enshrined in Canada's Constitution. We want to be treated equally, like other Canadians, but we have to make sure that the treaty rights that are enshrined in treaties are not diluted in any way.

Justice committee  First of all, we've had discussions with the Canadian government and the ministers on this terminology of “nation-to-nation”. We support that. There is no question. That is the way to move forward. However, we cautioned the government on that. I come from a community, a Mohawk c

Justice committee  First of all, access to the funding program is not clearly stated out there. In the past, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, which is called Indigenous Affairs Canada now, used to have something similar to what the court challenges program had. We used to utilize that when we we

Justice committee  One of the ones we're looking at is to have this legislated in a different way, like an independent body, to make sure the court challenges program is not controlled by a minister or Prime Minister. I don't know what those mechanics are. We're looking at it, but that's one of the

Justice committee  We are reviewing the program right now and the way it's being implemented. That's why we will participate in this online consultation process, but we need to go further into it and take a look at some of the pitfalls our people have had, not only at the national level, but across