Jane Groenewegen

For the benefit of the people who are listening to this, and I would like to understand a bit more what the process is, if a family member becomes involved in the care of a child and that is not through a formal apprehension of that child, how would the caregiver go about finding the support of this government to act in that role?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Education if this government would be amenable or open to the idea of funding some kind of awareness campaign and, hand in hand with that, a support group. My fear is that these incidents happen in isolation and no one ever knows anybody else that it happened to. They have absolutely no support. The isolation from an event like this and the fallout throughout the rest of their life thinking about this is one of the most damaging things. Certainly the act of violence or assault is very, very difficult too...

A lot of the awareness that is out there right now is to try to make young people aware of the dangers of drugs, and they are drugs that people sell to them that these people take. But, Mr. Speaker, this date rape drug is something quite different in the fact that a person could just be innocently at a social function or at a public establishment and could have this put right into their drink. Mr. Speaker, so this is a little bit different; the awareness on this. The Minister mentions victims services. I would like to know are the victims services committees in the communities specifically...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about something today. I know we’re celebrating our youth and all the good news stories, but Mr. Speaker, I want to speak about something today that, I think, needs to be brought up in a public forum and we need to create public awareness.

Mr. Speaker, many of us are parents and we do everything we can to protect our children, but, Mr. Speaker, at a certain age youth can be a danger to themselves. It’s a time when they are trying to assert power and control over their own decisions, and if we can keep them safe and provide guidance about wise...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The wish of the committee is to deal with those three items that you just listed in that order. Thank you.

Is the Minister aware, in his role as Minister of Education as well, of any campaign in the schools to warn children, young people, of the threat of being drugged by someone else? I understand that we talk to young people about the negative effect of taking drugs and what can happen to them, but how do we teach them to protect themselves from somebody who would drug them and subsequently hurt them and assault them in some way?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today in my Member’s statement I talked about something that is not easy to talk about because it’s something that is in our communities, but it is a very insidious thing and it’s hard to get information about it. It’s hard to create awareness, because I personally have not heard of any public campaign to bring awareness of this issue of this Rohypnol or date rape drug. Mr. Speaker, I am going to direct my questions today to the Minister of Justice.

Mr. Speaker, the thing that makes this so difficult is the combination of factors that allow this crime to be...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, today we would like to deal with the bills in numerical order. So Bill 2, Forgiveness of Debts... Well, let’s just say Bill 2, 4, 5, 7, 10 and then moving on to Committee Report 5-16(4), Report on the Review of the 2008-2009 Human Rights Commission Annual Report. Thank you.

I’d like to ask the Minister if any of the consultation and work that’s being done on this act is to the stage that it could possibly be tabled this session or the May session. When does he think the legislative proposal for the amendments might be forthcoming?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, the Senior Citizens and Disabled Persons Property Tax Relief Act is a piece of legislation of this government that enables municipalities to offer tax relief to property owners in their taxation area who are either senior citizens or have a disability.

There is something inherently unfair about this. If one of the recipients is in a relationship, is a common-law or partner of the person who is a senior or person with disabilities, if by sharing title to that property, they then become disqualified from receiving this tax relief...