Hon. Kim Pate: Senator Gold, so many of us support the objectives of Bill C-5 to repeal mandatory minimums and decrease the overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black people and members of other marginalized communities in prisons.

Just this week, the Office of the Correctional Investigator released their 2021-22 report, confirming that Indigenous women continue to be the fastest-growing federal prison population and that they are now 50% of federal prison populations, two out of three of those classified as maximum security and 76% of those in structured intervention units, the supposed replacement for solitary confinement. Of the incarcerated Indigenous women, 86.2% are assessed as high-risk and high-need. The majority are incarcerated for violent offences and serve long sentences, largely as a result of their responses to violence first perpetrated against them.

The incarceration of Indigenous women most often results in their children being apprehended by the state, as you have indicated, which further contributes to cycles of institutionalization for Indigenous children, families and communities.

Could you please explain how this bill in its current form will not implicitly defeat its own objective by continuing exponential increases in incarceration of Black, Indigenous and racialized or otherwise marginalized people, especially Indigenous mothers?