Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm just going to go back to—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. I wish there were a brief answer to that. I don't want to mislead this committee in any way. My expertise is not on indigenous justice systems. I can tell you that we see hope and opportunity in more community involvement, more cultural involvement, more elder involve

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think there's a whole range of tools and levers available to the architects and operators of the criminal justice system, starting with what happens with charging practice by crown counsel, police practice and how it's done, through to what happens with bail and remand. Bail re

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think the Prime Minister has made it clear in the mandate letters to ministers that this is going to be a priority of the Government of Canada. I think one of the ways that priority is being pursued is through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I certainly wouldn't presum

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The capacity doesn't match needs. That's absolutely true. As I say, there are many reasons why there are program delays and why people don't get in. We haven't even talked about the complexity of individuals who are getting their sentences shortened, who then waive their hearing

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The simplest thing to say about the effect of mandatory minimums is that they are the antithesis to the Gladue ruling. How can you instruct the court to use discretion and then impose a series of mandatory minimums that eliminate judicial discretion? They are fundamentally incomp

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm absolutely not expert on young offenders and youth offending. What I can tell you is that we know that crime more or less is a younger person's folly. A younger demographic tends to be more caught up in the criminal justice system. We also know that the average age of an abor

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't have a number. I would leave it to the Correctional Service of Canada to give you a number and tell you what the specific budget implications are. I can tell you that I don't believe that this is essentially a problem of budget. I think this is essentially a problem of fo

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Gladue and subsequent rulings by the Supreme Court, like Ipeelee, are absolutely essential to making progress. The Correctional Service of Canada has a responsibility to use a Gladue lens in correctional decision-making. What we see, though, is that it happens a little haphazard

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's for federal corrections only. Thank you for the question. Provincial ombudsman offices typically handle a fairly high volume of complaints from federal and territorial jails, and remand centres.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We're mandated under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to produce an annual report that's given to the Minister of Public Safety in June of every year. The minister is then required by law to table it within 30 sitting days of Parliament. All members of Parliament and s

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think I may have missed a key word in your question. Did you talk about indigenous policing?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay, so how is the aboriginal culture reflected in correctional programming?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are actually many ways. The Correctional Service of Canada has published a lot of good information on this, and I can tell you that things have gotten better over the years in recognizing the importance of bringing culturally specific programming and initiatives inside. The

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are a number of reasons. One has to do with the availability of programs and competent program delivery staff to deliver those programs within the time frame of sentence, so that the offender is given access to those prescribed programs. This new, integrated correctional p