A/HRC/10/21 page 15 foreign nationals and stateless persons detained for the purposes of identification or enforcement of a decision to deport them. Lastly, concerning the Working Group’s recommendation on facilitating the participation of civil society in the oversight of prisons and other detention facilities, the Government reported that, on 15 December 2006, the Ministry of Justice adopted its decision No. 85 ratifying the Instructions on the Procedures for the Formation of Voluntary Watchdog Committees. Canada 28. By note verbale dated 13 November 2008, the Government of Canada informed the Working Group about the implementation of the recommendations made by the Group following its 1-15 June 2005 visit to Canada. In relation to the Working Group’s recommendation to reverse the trend to ever-increasing use of pretrial detention and to find innovative alternatives to the detention on remand of accused without strong roots in the community, the Government reported that, in January 2008, provincial and territorial Deputy Ministers endorsed the creation of a Task Force to confirm and/or quantify the nature of adult corrections population as well as the nature of recent shifts in its composition. The Task Force is expected to make preliminary recommendations in January 2009 on the growing remand population and on the impact of federal justice legislation on correctional capacity. 29. The Government pointed out that there were several opportunities for an accused without strong roots in the community to be released pending trial or sentence. Over the next five years, the Government will contribute Can$ 560 million to provinces and territories for criminal legal aid and $57 million for immigration and refugee legal aid. In the case of the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut, funding for criminal legal aid, court work and public legal education and information is administered through the Access to Justice Service Agreements. In connection to the recommendation concerning the elimination of the use of security certificates, the Government stated that security certificate proceedings should be characterized as deportation proceedings. There is nothing arbitrary, ipso facto, about detention of an alien based on the issuance of a security certificate provided for by law. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) contains extensive procedural and human rights safeguards and is subjected to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The security certificate process is intended to deal with those people in Canada who are or have been involved in, for example, terrorist activity. On 23 February 2008, IRPA was amended, strengthening the ability of the person detained under a security certificate to know the case against him or her and participate in the judicial process. This amendment requires the establishment of a security-cleared “special advocate”, who will have access to the sensitive information against the detainee. 30. Finally, concerning the recommendation related to strengthening policies to address the overrepresentation of Aboriginals among the prison population, the Government reported on several law enforcement, justice and correctional services initiatives to reduce offending and therefore, the overrepresentation of Aboriginal peoples in the criminal justice system and among the prison population. Several programmes are being carried out by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Judiciary and the Correctional Service of Canada. A forum on justice system responses to violence in northern and remote Aboriginal communities took place in 2008 in Ottawa.