Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Most recently the Government of Quebec has announced new measures to counter cyber-bullying and bullying in schools, and I have to commend that government and other governments across Canada who have gone down that path.
This made me reflect that not that many weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a town hall meeting with the YK1 trustees and parents. One of the topics discussed that night was on bullying and I was concerned that although the schools are doing their part to curb this type of behaviour, we as legislators are sitting on the sidelines with our mouths zippered. I ask myself why.
Why as legislators can’t we assist our school systems to provide measures to counter bullying and cyber-bullying? Why hasn’t the GNWT denounced cyber-bullying and violence by providing funds for aggressive campaign ads for television, radio or Internet awareness? Why can’t the GNWT provide a website to identify bullies and strategies for their victims? Why haven’t we acted as stewards to provide the ability for NWT residents to symbolically or publicly declare our concern against bullying? And most of all, why hasn’t the GNWT acted like many of our provincial counterparts and put measures and legislation in place to denounce bullying and cyber-bullying? This will be asked later today of the Minister of Education.
Some may argue that we already have such legislation via our NWT Human Rights Act under the protection against harassment, but I say with conviction that this is not enough. This act does not specifically address or protect the victims of bullying of our children and youth, and it clearly does not go far enough to protect ourselves from the ever evolving cyber-bullying that takes place.
It’s imperative that our message needs to be broad based and our responsibility should not only be to protect our children or youth during the school hours but at all times during their development period. The message should be loud and clear: This government has a moral and ethical obligation to stop bullying and stop the intimidation, that it has no place in our schools or in our northern society at large. We have the means and the power to draw the line in the sand to bullies everywhere to say no more.
As legislators we can and we must pull together to agree that anti-bullying and cyber-bullying legislation has to be added to our priorities in the coming months, and I ask each and every one of the MLAs here today to step forward and accept this challenge. Together we can change behaviour.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
