 You've heard a little bit about Mr. Ivan Zinger, prison ombudsman. I'm going to skip over but a little bit for the people that may have not have been here earlier. He's a lawyer with a BA in psychology, graduated in 1992. What often interests me is how people got to their jobs. He went on to complete a PhD in 1999. The road he traveled from 92 to his appointment as the OCI is actually quite interesting. In 1996 he joined the Public Service of Canada in the midst of the fallout from, as they call it, certain events in 1994 at the Prison for Women. Incoming CSE Commissioner Ole Ingstrom was then asked to sort of clean up the problem and he turned to Mr. Zinger who was tasked with reprogramming corrections managers. Fun job. In 1998 Mr. Zinger was named Manager of CSE's First Human Rights Division, a division he argued needed to exist within CSE. The following year in 1999 he earned his PhD. The topic was the psychological effects on inmates from solitary confinement. How many years did it take? Mr. Zinger joined the Office of the Correctional Investigator in 2004 under former OCI Howard Saepers. He was the Director of Policy and Senior Counsel and ultimately in 2005 was named as Executive Director and General Counsel. And together the dynamic duo, the two assisted by dedicated team members, breathed life and purpose into the office because there wasn't a lot of life in the office at that time. And many important reports have flowed from his work. And he showed on the screen the different reports that had been done. In 2008 there was the Ashley Smith report. In 2012 the report entitled Spirit Matters, Aboriginal People and the Correctional, the Correctional Conditional Release Act. In November Mr. Saepers left the OCI and Mr. Zinger became the Acting Correctional Investigator. And then in January of 2018 thereabouts Mr. Zinger was appointed the Correctional Investigator. I then have as well to his right Dr. L. Jane McMillan. She is a legal anthropologist. She's the former Canadian Research Chair for Indigenous Peoples and Sustainable Communities 2006 to 2016 and the current Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Anthropology at St. Francis Xavier University. A cultural and legal anthropologist with a specialization in Indigenous justice. Jane has worked with McMaw communities for over 20 years. She's been involved in policy analysis and advocacy in support of Aboriginal rights and self-determination including community-based justice that is aligned with Indigenous beliefs. Like Ivan her path to this position is very interesting. As Donald Marshall's partner she was an eel fisher and one of the original defendants in the SEC Marshall decision 1999. I say eel fisher I think she's still fishing eels. She's still fishing slippery things. Very slippery. President of the Canadian Law and Society Association and coordinator of the Law and Indigeneity Collaborative Research Network of the American Law and Society Association. Member of the McMaw, Nova Scotia Canadian Canada Tripartite Forum Justice Committee and her most recent publication is Truth and Conviction Donald Marshall Jr. and the McMaw quest for justice. A long one. UBC Press 2018 available this November. Jane was also a PI and I always get this wrong. PI is a principal investigator not a private investigator. I thought I was a private investigator which is sort of anthropological. Right I said mad dog you went that far. On an evaluation of the implementation and efficacy of the Marshall inquiry recommendations in Nova Scotia 2011-2016 very important when you consider where we stand today and what still needs to be addressed. This collaborative community initiated research examined the outcomes transformations and disappointments stemming from the Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall Jr. prosecution with its attending Marshall recommendations. 16 community forums were held in McMaw communities across Nova Scotia. A lot of work. Focus groups were held with law students Nova Scotia Legal Aid, the Race Equity Committee of the Nova Scotia Barristers Society, indigenous members of the RCMP and the McMaw Legal Support Network again Paula Marshall's organization. Interviews were conducted with the Nova Scotia Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Aboriginal Policy Analyst H Division and with a member of the Commissioner's Aboriginal Advisory Board for the RCMP. So what happened to outcomes of the policy informing work consist of three volume research report for the McMaw Nova Scotia Canada Tripartite Forum, a high-level justice symposium, support for the opening of an indigenous people's court in Gwokma. Thank you. And a number of scholarly publications. We have a, we were talking about powerhouses in the opening keynote panel. We have a powerhouse. Pam Glode de Roche is the Executive Director of the McMaw Native Friendship Center in Halifax where she's worked for almost 25 years. 1994 Ms. Glode de Roche was a person in, well this is the interesting part, she was a person in need no different than anybody else that comes up to the steps of the Friendship Center and the center's door opened and the years passed and she was healed by her community and they helped her grow and flourish. I actually asked her what she meant by her community when she kept saying well my community helped me and her answer was the Urban Indigenous Friendship Center Movement. Just picked her up and as you know one point I said well then you were forged from all of this. I mean you became their fiercest advocate, their fiercest warrior because you never left and she never left. Empowered by her culture its teachings and the knowledge of what it can do. Ms. Glode de Roche became the center's executive director and set to work in addition to working on the issues that plague urban Indigenous people such as homelessness and hunger and addiction and more. Pam sits on five boards, she sits on the National Association of Friendship Centers, the NAFC. She spends considerable time in Ottawa involved in consultation and advocating on behalf of Indigenous people and in her role as executive director Pam has spearheaded as the executive director of the Friendship Center she has spearheaded the development of a new Friendship Center idea, a building that she hopes to see built on land in half a 70,000 square feet for healing and programming and teaching and she has gotten further than any of her opponents could have guessed. Asked what her vision was for the building's appearance, Pam's answer was I want to make sure that when you look at it people get a real understanding of the territory that we're on. The Mac Mac are still here and they're not going away. Which I thought was great. So these individuals, the way I want to sort of look at it is I've got some you know questions that I wanted to ask but really it's a conversation and I've got different slides that Ivan Zinger has prepared. A good government person always has a power point. Could you? In a blackberry. So what's very interesting, I talked about this September 5 release of this mandate letter from Ralph Goodale which is very very interesting and interestingly and Kelly the new commissioner responded as I said equally publicly and Anne Kelly has been around for quite a long time but ultimately here she is in charge and he is welcoming her with this mandate and importantly he says I acknowledge that some of these initiatives that I'm looking to propose may require new policy authorities and or funding. It's a key issue which we can work on together. I also want to applaud the progress already made in certain key areas such as reducing the use of administrative segregation. I'm sorry to interrupt but I sat through a previous panel that ended up having no indigenous people speaking on it and I'm now sitting and there are two indigenous people whom I would really like to hear from. Could we move on to the panelists? Yes I just wanted to start with all due respect to Mr. Zinger not start with Mr. Zinger. Yeah that's great I just wanted to put this out and please move on to the panelists. Okay so in terms of I think you've all had an opportunity to review the commissioner's mandate letter but first what I would like you maybe each to do and I will start with maybe Jane McMillan I'll ask you first. Maybe it would help us to sort of contextualize your answers to different things and your comments if you could just give us an overview of where you're coming from your perspective on changes with respect to CSC and how it deals with indigenous offenders. Okay thank you thank you all for being here. It's a really a wonderful privilege to be gathered here in Mi'kmaqi the unceded and ancestral territory of the Mi'kmaq nation. Thank you for last night that was super refreshing. I hope everybody has a very good equinox moving on. I would like to say just a few comments thanks Ivan. Systemic discrimination is persisting despite volumes of recommendations emerging from royal commissions and national inquiries and while there's been a movement to address and remedy the effects of colonialism through bail and sentencing reform restorative justice and culturally appropriate initiatives indigenous communities social scientists legal professionals all agree that the Canadian justice system is not working for indigenous peoples. Indigenous communities call for the reinvigoration of their traditional legal principles and practices as the best way to address the problem of overrepresentation systemic discrimination and racism to decolonize the justice system and to legitimize indigenous legal institutions and what those practices are and what are the best applications today and what resources are needed are to sustain them and to make them efficacy to improve their efficacy or key areas in inquiry. I just want to remind you of what was said in response to the Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall prosecution by the Union of Nova Scotia Indians and by the collectivity of the Mi'kmaq Nation in 1990 the Union took the lead and they said you know the inquiry has opened new doors it has created new opportunities so that fostered new hopes in our people's aspirations for self-reliance and self-determination and this is 1989-1990 the Union put forward a statement of principles and it offered an alternative reading of the recommendations by dividing them into two groups those that deal with improvements to the justice system outside of Mi'kmaq communities and those that pertain to the development of a justice system within the Mi'kmaq Nation and two main threads emerged in that discourse the first was a rights discourse centered on treaty constitutional and human rights arguments for self-determination including the right to control their own justice system and the second thread focused on the cultural necessity to control a separate justice system in which disputes could be meaningfully managed using Mi'kmaq legal concepts Mi'kmaq leaders submitted that it's all but inevitable that the Mi'kmaq will continue to interact with the outside system and that they were committed to working with both the federal and provincial governments to implement changes to the justice system they welcomed all efforts to indigenize the system an indigenized system of the present system though will only serve to improve the administration of a non Mi'kmaq form of justice law enforcement and incarceration on the Mi'kmaq they cautioned that this approach was not a solution for the Mi'kmaq Nation who wanted to design operationalize Mi'kmaq justice on their own terms and to this day the Mi'kmaq continued to abide by a system of social control that is unique in their communities it operates upon different principles of fairness and justice the key question is not whether it exists but rather how do we harness these Mi'kmaq concepts of justice to design and to develop an acceptable and effective justice system in Mi'kmaq communities I'm not going to go on I'll come back to some of the key points that I want to make but I have some quotes for some chiefs that I think are very insightful to where the Mi'kmaq Nation is on and the desire for their self-determination in governance of their corrections programs. Pam? So I don't have any papers and nor will you see that I I do tell a story that's traditionally how we do things and we have the ivans of this world to do the work to find those numbers and all those great things we have great people that we truly partner with to make a difference in how we move forward I first want to start by saying that our communities actually have the answers we have them the problem is is quite often we're seen as not being legit we don't I I don't have a master's I don't have a PhD and nor do I wish to what I do have is true experience from my community and I know it and I know it well the reality is is that I'm alive today I'm here today because of the movement the Friendship Center movement I was picked up dust off many times by the way I was blessed to find some of the great elders that have since passed on the Diamond Nicholases of this world the Emmett Peters who left great impacts on our communities the reality is we are the experts in our self there is nobody else out there that's an expert in us there's nothing any worse than I have when I I'm sitting and I listen and somebody said well I'm an expert in our communities well the reality is the only ones who are experts in our communities are us there's a real opportunity here for me to tell you that at the end of the day the Paula Marshalls of this world myself and many other community members we don't get to go home and walk away from our communities lots people do and most of you probably can walk out of here and never have to deal with one of our community members ever again the reality is I don't get that luxury sometimes I do wish I could just walk away because when you hear the heartaches and the breaks that happen within community it has destroyed us to the core quite often however we have the answers to fix it we need to be allowed to do what we need to do being being self sustainable being able to determine for ourselves where we go in the future is key and how we heal I want true partners and when I say true partners I want somebody to stand next to me I don't want somebody standing behind me in front of me above me under me I want somebody to stand next to me and truly recognize that we do have the answers and I have seen that happen and wonderful things happen when people are there for the right and true reasons I encourage each and every one of you as you go through life if you the reality is with the with the amount of people we have in institutions you're all going to run into one of my community members anyways do yourself a favor come to our communities understand who we are and what we are build a relationship before you have to the best thing I can tell you is come into our communities and experience who we are and what we are don't sit back and go I'm gonna wait till I have to you know the letters you know there's nothing any worse when I see letters that are mandating people to do things for our community shouldn't be a mandate we should want to do it we're human beings we're good people and yet the only time we ever seem to be in the media is when there's something negative I'm gonna tell you we've got great people in our communities who are doing wonderful things whether it's a friendship center or another organization like mlsn you know quite often we're doing 20 30 different things off the side of our desks the reality is I may be the ed of the friendship center however I'm gonna tell you I've cleaned toilets a matter of fact that not long goes up on our roof and heels by the way with a tire with tire fixing a hole in the roof you know that's a reality we do what needs to be done and I'm quite happy and I will do it till I can no longer do it but that goes back to you know the mention of the new friendship center and the ability to take that to the next level that friendship center is not just bricks and mortar it is a building make no mistake but it's so much more it's going to give us the ability to become self-determinant and self-sustainable and then I can decide for my community and my community can make recommendations as to what programs and services we need that we're not being dictated to or that I'm not trying to figure out a year here in a year there pilot projects kill us they kill us they set us up for failure time and time and time again community members come in and they all of a sudden there's this great service that's there that has been created by community for community and then all of a sudden the funding ends so all of a sudden they're left with nothing and we're trying to fill the gaps we're trying to fill fill those pieces seven sparks was a great program that we once had it worked with our community members who were incarcerated we worked with them on the inside and we built them a plan on the outside and we worked with them and they were successful and we were able to fill some of those gaps whether it be employment and training housing whatever that may be friendship center has over 28 different programs it's wraparound services it is about making sure our community members have the supports and kicking them out the door sending them without a real plan in place boy oh boy are you ever setting them up for failure let's be honest the institutions are designed to keep us in the institutions and I know lots people get very offended when I say that but they're not there to actually support us to get out and many of our kids that start in foster care and you think we've got a problem now with residential schools boy we got more kids in care now than than ever and they're all going right straight through the system from beginning to end there is no out for them there is no off-ramp for them but we have the answers to some of that we have the answers friendship centers and other organizations communities have the answers we have the supports and we have the ability to do what needs to be done to support our community members you know the reality is we're not just dealing with one side we're not just dealing with the offender we're dealing with the followed on the other side too we're dealing with you know spouses and family and you know children quite often we're trying to find that balance and the reality is you can't treat it separately you can't treat it separately it's a family unit it's it's that's what it is and family is everything to our communities so I you know I just I know I only was supposed to just ramble for a few minutes but go go go go go as always I tend to ramble and and I try to tell a story in a way that I want you to remember that we have the answers and we know we can make an impact for our community but I will tell you this I don't want to do it alone I can't do it alone I've tried to do it alone and you get tired you know you look at poor Paula and I and I I know she's not here and quite often she is pulled in 10 different different directions and that program works MLSN works and it doesn't even have core funding Paula doesn't know from one day to the next whether or not she's going to have her job like let's be honest here how do you actually how do you move forward and actually offer a program and service that is sustainable and reliable when you don't even know if you're going to get a paycheck you know whose responsibility is that the problem is is that nobody wants to step up to the plate nobody wants to do something a little different and sometimes I and I I question I sometimes wonder does anybody really want our communities to move forward there's jobs attached to us there's money attached to us and those are tough conversations those are really tough conversations I often think you know tomorrow the friendship center didn't exist where our community members would be we have over 5 000 people that come through our door on a yearly basis what happens to them where do they go I know you know the fact that you know Paula's had four suicides in the last week too it affects me deeply because there are community members they are our community members and they are real people and they deserve so much more and I know it personally my nephew committed suicide three years ago so I know the impacts those have on us as human beings and again most people get to go home at the end of the day I don't my phone rings all hours of the night I take emails whenever I I can evenings weekends whatever it may be you know the reality is my community in the urban context is real it's tangible and our communities are real and tangible and if somebody would just sit back and listen to our elders to our communities we can do something magnificent and we can change the output and the input that goes in through our communities because quite often we're seen as dollar signs let's be honest you know there's probably not one person here that hasn't said oh you know that's silly little status card that I have you know oh that's great you don't pay taxes you don't do this you don't do that oh my gosh it was somebody would tell Revenue Canada I don't pay taxes you know like come on like we are so back sometimes we're so stuck way back there that little card has been no favor for me let me tell you it's probably causing me more headaches than than anything and yet I've been determined by somebody else that this card is my number and when I go and I go to for services or whatever I may need well what's your number how about what's my name you know our people that are institutionalized they're good people they've many of them have gone through trauma that most people don't even understand or recognize or care to understand or recognize we know that knowing who you are and where you come from is often a very big piece of what's missing I have I'm very fortunate I have two beautiful boys who are married and I have grandkids and I'm gonna tell you my boys I didn't I they did not have it easy growing up I was on them like you would not believe I was terrified of some of the things happening to them that happened to me and I made conscious decisions with them and the reality is our young men are lost they don't have a role anymore they don't know where they fit and we need to be looking at that we need to be dealing with our young men and women together not separately not doing a program here for this and a program there for that needs to be incorporated together we need to understand who we are and where we come from and what our roles are there's nothing wrong with knowing who you are because boy oh boy once you know who you are you don't know where you'll end up I know I'm very very thankful to be here today I'm thankful that you know the reality was I wasn't sure I was going to be here and I hesitated about coming and I know you didn't sleep and I know I didn't sleep and that's a reality there are things that there's moments in time that you can go okay I can just not do this and I don't want to do it but the reality is this is a gift and I'm going to take it and I'm going to run with it the gift is is that I get to speak to you guys and if I can change one person today it's a gift worth having there are challenges in life that I I wish I could change that I've done some of the choices I've made in my life however I'm not sure I would actually do it if if the great creator came to me in sepan we're going to change some of the stuff that you've done in in life not sure I would do it now maybe if you had asked me as my kids were small maybe I would have but the reality is is those decisions I've done those experience that that I've gone through I now have a voice that I can truly say I know what I'm talking about I can tell you that whether it's under it you know the royal commission the TRC you know what I the reports that I'm sure and eventually 20 years from now I'm sure TRC is going to be sitting on a shelf somewhere and I hope I'm wrong but I'm gonna tell you time and time and time and time again there's listen we've been studied to death and I and I've been interviewed a thousand times and I'm gonna tell you and I and I always laugh because we do do a lot of research and I always say you know it's community owned that's the only way I'm involved in research but the reality is as a kid you know you know we were always doing research and we were always given that 20 I think was 25 bucks back then gift card but I'm gonna tell you I lied through my teeth so much on those things like and it wasn't just me that was the best of it right like we lied we just wanted that 25 dollar gift card or whatever it was they were giving us you know you get tired of of having those conversations and you think you're doing good for our community but unless the community is the driving force behind it don't do it don't do it make sure that the community is the driving force you make sure that community understands what you're doing I'm gonna tell you most community members want you as partners I want you come into my center and I want you to come in and understand who we are and where we come from what we have to offer but don't quite often when we get people who show up and they have a little letter from judge or somebody says oh I have to be here pardon where was the where were we in that decision making so you know when when those things happen you kind of step back and you go and and you look at it and you think okay so they know the friendship center exists but do they really know what we do as community members do they know what's really out there and I don't I don't think people really know what's out there in community and the problem is is quite often it's not with a phd it's not with a masters it's not with all that good colonized way of doing things and trust me that will help us move forward in ways but there's so much more to knowledge it's not just that kind of institutionalized knowledge that you need to make a difference in community so I'm going to leave it that because I can talk all day yes so what is your vision of a real partnership if you could say right now what is your vision what do you need tell us what you would need what would work for you right now we're talking about corrections even if I ask you know Ivan and I say well okay from his perspective he's looking at it in a completely different way and he's saying well this is what I think should be done mandate letters useless right so in the end what just tell us what you need what would work for you what would be a real partnership if I can intervene I think it's okay with you yes absolutely I think that's that's exactly what in my experience happens to indigenous communities and other communities when you go and say tell us what you need um when in my experience when they take the time to tell us you me it doesn't always happen and so I would say we should be saying what we can provide and in this context when it comes to corrections you may hear from um from Ivan he's done a lot of great work in this area that one of the things that can't be provided there are provisions in the act sections 80 81 and 84 of the federal legislation that say indigenous communities can and in fact the legislative intent was to have indigenous people in their communities and have resources to go with it corrections has limited those provisions by having very narrow policies as you know Paul was working on some of those others are and instead of saying to the community how would you what would you want for this to work and when that's happened it's worked very well it's very rare mostly those are being attached to other contracts now other house contracts and that sort of thing those are all well intentioned but I to my experience from you know the work I've done with indigenous communities is you're not being asked how do you want to use these resources what resources do you need in the first place and how do we assist that process it's great to me that's the first thing we need to be doing and the legislation allows that policy doesn't but that's part of the reason and I'm I had offered to Alina because we didn't get the chance to talk in the last session some research has been done around what the legislative intent of those provisions was and the fact that it was partly designed to reduce the number of indigenous people in prison in 1992 when the legislation came in so it strikes me that we should be talking about how do we assist in getting those boards and if you're interested and if others are interested there is some material that's been developed about that legislative intent and how to go about putting in letters to the minister to request individuals from your community to come to your community and start building the case for those resources and we're working on some legal factor which you know all the but basically take those to court when the minister says no because we anticipate the minister will say no and I just saw a very interesting quote from Moana Jackson and and many of us know from from from New Zealand who said we need to start moralizing the community not talking about decolonizing and I would say in this case we need to start it as well so I just want to thank you very much for your contribution and it's very very helpful and offer and on behalf of there's a number of us but if I can assist with that process there are resources available and I think we should be I agree they should be being made available so I I think there's there's probably several several things one is we're one of 125 friendship centers across Canada so you have access to an urban context period some friendship centers are just starting some of them have you know we've been here for 46 years other friendship centers are around for 60 years one way or another we're all dealing with with justice issues so you you have a network to be able to consult with hands down to get and really get the the the piece for urban the other piece is when you're talking on reserve you have to go to communities please please don't ignore communities please engage them in a good way have somebody from community do that work for you don't you know the reality is there's good community members that can do that work secondly I know for us that's been a huge sticking point for us around the urban context and part of that new friendship center is about having that healing lodge the reality is we should not have to send our community members away every community should be a community member should have a choice of where to stay and sending them away you're just re-traumatizing everybody you're re-traumatizing the family you're re-traumatizing the individual it's like you know when when you're taking our kids when the system takes our kids you know you're re-traumatizing them for whatever may have happened you know I'm a firm believer and listen my brother has adopted two boys that have been in the system and so thankful for that but I also know that know that there's a need for for women who are incarcerated to the the opportunities around needle exchange and methadone opportunities like those things are never really looked upon they're not I'm gonna say they're not sexy right probably the worst thing to say in a room full of lawyers but they're not people don't want to have those conversations having a healing lodge in your backyard people don't like that they're criminals they're this they're that you know we we're working with the chiefs right now and I'm I am very fortunate because I do have I consider myself very lucky I have a good working relationship with the chiefs and actually one of the old CSE halfway houses that they're looking to get rid of the chiefs have approached me to see if it's something we would like to take on and it certainly is because it's a real need within our community to provide housing for people looking to get out of institutions and that's really being able to ride those wraparound services that support those people healing lodges are huge I'm not saying that they shouldn't be done within CSE which I've heard that seems to be the path I I I don't know enough about it what it needs to be is in community it needs to be where the community is where they can get the supports that truly are required and that's where you will thrive that's where you will see huge changes in community members you know the reality is and I hate saying the reality but it is my reality I live every day I don't know when my phone rings what's on the other end nobody does however on my phone it seems to be the worst of the worst calls we're quite often the last call that somebody can make and being able to bring seven sparks back would be probably the biggest impact that you could have seven sparks was successful and it was so seven sparks we were very fortunate I think it was actually a five-year funding pot that we had received it's been quite a while now my memory is not as good as it used to be and some corrections it was from corrections and we had a lot of people pushing for that at the time because five years was unheard of apparently however the seven sparks program actually work with offenders while they were inside when they came out and of course we were fortunate because we have all these other wraparound services so we had access to housing child care daycare services employment and training so all of the other services addiction services was there as well worked with the seven sparks and we were so fortunate we had Emmett Peters at the time who was a wonderful wonderful elder he unfortunately has passed and he he literally followed these guys around made sure they get to appointments and the reality is there's one in particular person and I will not say his name because I didn't ask if I could do that who actually was so successful with seven sparks we were able we kept him he we had his employer loved him we found an employer to take him on and he was so successful seven sparks stopped existing and then all of a sudden those supports we we do the best we can we still do section 84s and and that off the sides of our desks but the reality is is when that stopped those supports were no longer there and I do believe that they have been there he would never have gone back inside he's now out again but again he had to go away to get the help he needed because we didn't have those resources here anymore and the reality is we know our communities and we know them really well we know where they're going to go we know who they're hanging with we know all of that so I think if you were to ask me what you could do for me support organizations like friendship centers like MLSN make sure that make sure MLSN is core funding seriously like I I just my mind just gets so ball and I happen to sit on the board of MLSN so I know the challenges that they have seen you know when you when you have community members working side by side with other non-indigenous community members doing the exact same job and them getting paid you know twenty thirty thousand dollars more than what you're doing because you're from an indigenous organization it's wrong really really wrong there's something wrong with that and make sure they're funded well make sure MLSN has a voice and make sure that they have some sustainability those pilot projects kill us like honestly I every time I see a call for proposals and there's a pilot project opportunity I am always so hesitant now to actually do a pilot project because they do hurt us they actually hurt us I'm sure the intent was never meant to do that I like to think that because I think that's what keeps me saying but the the piece is is that when we do pilot projects it sets us up for failures we we we set people up we get them here and then all sudden they're back down here same seven sparks right we had five great years we did great things the evaluation was phenomenal for it and it was touted right across canada we did presentations on it right across canada and yet government changed and it was no longer a real priority so whether and listen I'm I'm very fortunate in what I do because I do get to build relationships in Ottawa and I do get to build relationships with all levels of government and that's a lot of work it's really not my job because I really should be doing doing my day-to-day work and I'm fortunate that I have great staff but I also recognize that I need to be able to be building those relationships finding the warm fuzzy people out there that really want to make a difference for my community the jay mcmillan's of this world the Ivan's of this world we all play a major role in what we do but I need everybody to be a partner with me and a true partner and that means working with us listening to us recognizing us for what we have to say listen to us listen I'm telling you the answers are there and and you won't look far for them because they are there Ivan what are the chances are what are the chances of csc being able to actually engage in true partnerships given its history no pressure right yeah you know what when I when I became a civil servant more than 20 years ago I had the the real delight to meet and work for a couple of years with the late Maxwell Yaldon he was the former chief commissioner of the canyon rights commission and a couple of years before he retired in that role he had publicly said that the number one issue dealing with human rights in canine society is the over representation of indigenous people in prisons and jails as well as how we treat indigenous people let's move you know forward into the future little about 20 25 years later the rate in terms of over representation has doubled he described at that time as being a crisis so I don't know what happens when you double you know and you up to 28 percent of indigenous people now are in federal corrections how do you classify that and we actually also reach a new milestone for women we're up to 40 percent can you imagine 40 percent of all incarcerated women are indigenous background so you know I know one thing is that in in terms of the in social science when you typically you never ever get a trend that year after year so systematically gets worse it doesn't happen usually things move up and down and so on and this is one where we have a perfect linear relationship for the last 30 years as far as we can go back in terms of counting the over representation things have got worse no government has actually been able to slow down stop it or even better reverse it so when I hear that there's you know now we are you know just to give you a sort of a different take on it if we were magically able to match the incarceration rate of indigenous people in this country to their proportionality in the community we would have an incarceration rate like you know Finland Sweden and we would be at the top of the world in terms of of our ability to you know to you know to basically have citizens that are you know I you know I guess the use of imprisonment at one of the best rates in the world so we're not there I am skeptical about any time that I hear about investment basically in the criminal justice system and you know you know let's focus on CSE which is at the tail end of the criminal justice system to try to fix the problem that is way more upstream and glad you used the same thing glad you for me is a band-aid it's arm reduction it doesn't go to the cause root root of so do we want to do more glad you do we want to spend a bit more money do we want to do you know give CSE more awareness training or competency training or so I think we have to do something bold I think it is time to do something bold like what because upstream the issues in my views that flows are human rights issues since the inability of the Canadian society to have made a society where where indigenous people can benefit from socioeconomic rights equal opportunities equality you know political rights indigenous rights so is this applied to me so I am just okay it's okay so we you know these are are the things that that needs to be addressed so so when I hear you and you're you know and you're skeptical about about the future well with that trend I would be skeptical too unless something bold happens Kim is absolutely right in my role as a correctional investigator I'm mandate to you know I'm part three of the corrections and conditional release act and I have to look at the act for compliance and for fairness and I think absolutely they are wiggle room in the existing law and basically I would argue that section 81 section 84 and the focus on community corrections have not been implemented as it was intended by the legislature back in 1992 so that's more than 25 years ago so we could do a huge shift in resources existing resource I'm not talking about spending more money because we're spending about $115,000 per inmate per year and it's over 200 for women and we could reinvest this in community alternatives and community alternatives means to partner with the community and I ask you a question and I would see a big budget of CSC being just like a program department where they hand over a significant okay you have to remember I'm an ombudsman I have no binding acts but these are the kinds of bold things within corrections I I don't know what we need to do in society but within correction they are things we can do but I have a very specific question that is there's talk of AUC's five regional centers being set up and they'll be running by the end of the year and I'm not sure what they sound like but they sound like operational stuff do you know anything about this because well they're in operation already they're in operation so it's basically and I told the senior deputy commissioner as well as the commissioner on this in order to respond to the auditor general of Canada criticism about failing to provide indigenous people with programming on time and and making them ready for their first eligible parole they created these centers at during the inside the intake admission units to try to fast track and the only thing that I said to to to the senior deputy commissioner and the commissioners well finally you're applying the law you're applying the law specifically to the indigenous because you're actually doing good case management and getting people quicker through the the hoops when they get there they get right away enlisted in program they fast track their program once they got the program right away there's a review to see whether we can cascade them to a lower level security so and it's actually working so in the past year they have been able to make a bit of movement but the whole initiative for me is simply doing what their law requires them to do for all offenders but of course if they do it for all offenders then the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous will not you know everybody will benefit and there will still be the same gap so they're they're being strategic on how they're they're prioritizing these things they're not envisioning reaching out horizontally to communities at greater intake well for me it's the the shift has to be way more than doing what you're supposed to do under the law and you know making sure you don't have wait lists and making sure people enter into program and that the programs are actually meaningful and and and responsive to the unique needs but i have talking too much maybe i should give you an opportunity okay yeah yeah well it's it's uh you know i can't you know i'll tell you i they're putting a lot of efforts the issue and a lot of money and the issue for me is whether looking from the outside inside whether they're they're getting the best value for their efforts and money and my answer to that is no because if you look at correctional outcomes on indigenous they are more likely to be released later in their sentence they're more likely to be segregated you know subject to use of force they're more likely to self-harm etc you know suicide attempt so the government is there any sense of are they receptive to some of the things that you're proposing well the mandate letter is truly exceptional in terms of i think it's the first time in keen history that a mandate letter to a deputy has been publicly released and i'll tell you that on on two counts the the first count is that historically the mandate letters are part of a deputy head compensation so deputy heads deputy minister received a base salary and then they receive a mandate letter and if they accomplish certain objectives that assist the government they get a performance bonus and the bigger the poor performance bonus it means that they have achieved a lot of tick marks on those mandate letters so this is why it's very unusual that this letter is actually published and the second point is that you have to ask yourself why did it publish this well i think after almost three years into their mandate and maybe kim you can correct me i think the shift between what happened under the harper government ten years of very entrenched line order approach csc has been has been having difficulty to get clarity on on their marching order and the directions that this government wanted to go to so by publishing that letter it makes it clear to the rank and files and all employees of the correctional service of Canada here's what we expect of you so this is a very very unusual so that we look back to kim's idea which is is the time for community action now well i was just gonna one other thing you asked what else just having been up north with the number of indigenous communities a concept that not most of them had no idea about was guaranteed little boy comfort and art eglinton is just released a book evelin for jay is about to release one there's a move afoot to look at a federal initiative and to free up social workers to no longer police people in the way that in comparable parole officers police individuals on on conditional release and to allow communities to actually have people with resources to be able to go out on the land to learn from the elders to contribute in ways instead of being trying and pretending like they're looking for non-existent jobs every day and to actually move through into a different place and there's a very strong case for investing in the resources up front the auditor general has made as well and so i think all of us here you may think what does that have to do with prisons it has a lot to do with prisons it's upstream and so it really is about starting to look at how we can be pushing and doing the intercepting work that needs to happen because if you're working in prisons you're working with poverty you're working with racism you're working with all kinds of discrimination and seeing the end result of every system that fails because the abandonment is the only one that can't produce people so i think it is something that should be looked at so Julie has to put a question in the house those are the most dangerous so i think you spoke to the need to redirect our existing resources and Pam you've got some really great ideas okay i think they were living in resources need to actually be for them to be effective so who needs to be i mean who needs to be told to get over here and sit down with Pam and start being her partner to actually make this happen because she sounds like she's never been talked to really well i'm asking why then and Pam who needs to be sitting down in that room to actually bring together the commitment that you're that you're downstreaming to to realize what Pam in the community knows needs to happen well you know i i'm a bureaucrat so i will you know initially and i will tell you that now we do have this mandate letter so now it's clear that the government has made it crystal clear that we need to move in that direction and that that mandate letter reflects certainly a lot of things that are in my annual report and my upcoming annual report and reflects also the the call for action so now i think it's yeah you can wait for the commissioner to give you a call but now you can also you know you can yeah exactly you can contact the commissioners okay now you've got clear directions from the government how can i help you what can i do to make this work and let's start discussing if it doesn't work then you obviously you go stop above and then you say minister you you wrote to your deputy head saying that these are the expectation this is directions and i'm not getting any traction so i think this is why that mandate letter is important in a bureaucracy you know i'll just say you know like any other government department so you know i i think that that's the so this is why there's a bit of hope here but again i i'm cautious about this hope because i showed you the the data seems to be going the wrong direction and i think something bold got to happen you know obviously in corrections there are things that we can do but corrections is you know is at the end of the line and that's not you know for me we have to talk about you know all sorts of things upstream to uh so that it doesn't become just a a a band-aid solution chain any comments there's an announcement last week of a new jail opening up in Cape Breton but there's been no inclusion of consultation with the migma nation on on what that looks like as of yet and so these are the mandate letter hasn't filtered through clearly in the actions of people and the burden shouldn't be put on the migma community at all and i worry about section 81 84s and the imposition of the the way the contracts work for for community and the criteria in which they they get negotiated or not and if it becomes tough to have that conversation or that tough conversation they're abandoned and it's the inmates that suffer as a consequence of that so there is an awful lot of correction that has to be done on the engagement with community absolutely can do you want to yeah i and that's a good point there is a lot of corrections that need to happen but i will challenge each and every one of you and and i know this just close your eyes and take a leap of faith with community just close your eyes and take a leap of faith i know it works and i know community has it the ability to to rise to the occasion what do you get to lose i know we have nothing to lose at this point you know we continue to see the numbers go up you need to try something different unique and something that yeah you're right it may not even fit within a guideline that you may have right now but take a leap of faith do something different that's the only way it's going to change and you need to you know i've had conversations with people we've had the same conversation 10 years ago 20 years ago 30 years ago people are having the same conversations the numbers keep getting worse the only way to change it is to change what we're doing you know we're doing the same things over and over we're putting different little tags on it little you know i always laugh you know government changes and all of a sudden that no longer exists so we're going to reinvent that program and we're going to change the name and but it's really the same program so the reality is you need to really take a hard look and say okay we're going to stop it here and we're going to create something new that we know works and we do know what's working in community we really do so take a leap of faith with us i've always been intrigued why your office doesn't hold investigative hearings why you've never been an intervener and why you know what your staff does not file with the correctional service or the board i need the pro board of canada of finding the fact i realize you're an omniscient and you can't direct the service to do things but you can make findings of fact give me a lot more aggressive about the situation than historically your office has been and i go way back to when football guy was the chair of your agency and he was stealing people of canada and the convicts he was supposed to serve um well thank you for the the the question the question was asked yesterday and i didn't answer very well so this is great that i have another kick out the can so i guess i have to tell you that there's a provision in the act which is in in provision of any ombudsman act that the the person who holds the office does uh is not competent before any legal uh it is not uh uh comparable nor competent before any legal proceedings so that's why i'm not anywhere to be found and every time that somebody is trying to get me to come and testify i said i'm sorry i'm not competent which i i love to say i'm incompetent so it's a it's part of the scheme to protect the confidentiality and and and the the fact that one of the pillars of successful ombudsmanship is to maintain confidentiality and to resolve the matters informally so the hearings for me makes it more in the realm of of lawyers and the formal system and i am and will remain an alternative to that formal system that uh isn't uh i'd say we were created because that formal system has too many barriers in terms of when you've got lawyers and time and money and so on if you want a hearing uh and we i'd say i will always consider it but it's got it i i don't quite see how because it it it it would it would happen because it is so i would say uh so formal uh requires lawyers and and it goes a bit against the values of an ombudsman trying to resolve matters informally when everybody is lawyered up that can happen through the inquiries act if you want an inquiry my time is up so so anyway happy to uh thank you everybody thank you and my apologies