Debates of October 31, 2013 (day 42)

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of the committee? Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to consider Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Education Act, then Bill 22, Bill 26 and Bill 27, if we have time. Sorry, and Committee Report 8-17(4).

Thank you. Does committee agree?

Agreed.

Thank you, committee. We’ll commence after a short break.

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I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. Before the break the committee indicated that we were going to start with Bill 12. I’d like to ask Minister Jackson Lafferty at this time if he would like to deliver his opening remarks. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. I am pleased to be here today to speak about Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Education Act.

I’d like to thank standing committee for their thoughtful and important work on the bill. In particular, I congratulate the committee on going into the schools and speaking with the students and providing us with their feedback.

This is important information which will shape the action plans as we move forward.

Bill 12 speaks to the Motion passed by the Legislative Assembly on February 16, 2012, recommending “the Government establish a territory-wide campaign to denounce bullying, including cyber-bullying, and to provide information and resources for schools, parents, victims and bystanders, and that the government review anti-bullying legislation measures being undertaken in other jurisdictions and bring forward a bill for consideration by this Assembly within 18 months.”

This bill supports and strengthens clauses already contained in the Education Act requiring school staff, teachers, principals and education boards to take action if they become aware that students are being mistreated or threatened. It defines bullying, including cyber-bullying, and provides for the creation of a territorial school code of conduct and the creation of safe school plans.

The safety and security of our students is always at the forefront of our actions and this bill underscores that tenet.

I would be pleased to answer any questions committee members may have. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. I’d like to ask the Minister if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Yes, please.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Does committee agree?

Agreed.

Agreed. Thank you. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

For the record, Mr. Lafferty, if you could introduce your witness.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. I have with me Ian Rennie, legislative counsel, Department of Justice.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Before we go to general comments, I’d like to ask the chair of the standing committee that reviewed this bill if he would like to please provide committee’s remarks. Mr. Moses.

Alfred Moses

Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Standing Committee on Social Programs has completed its review of Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Education Act. Public hearings were held in Yellowknife on September 23 and 25, 2013, and Norman Wells on September 25 and 26, 2013.

For the first time in committee history, public hearings were held in various high schools. The committee thanks the many students and teachers who helped to facilitate the meetings and provide valuable input.

The committee thanks the Minister and his staff for presenting the bill. The bill is a reasonable first step in NWT’s efforts to prevent bullying. It amends the Education Act to establish a definition of bullying, including cyber-bullying. It provides for the establishment of a territorial school code of conduct and a corresponding safe schools plan for each district education authority.

The committee received substantial input from the public, both written and in person. This, combined with the committee’s work, resulted in three proposed amendments to this bill. First, to strengthen the definition of bullying; second, to strengthen the definition of cyber-bullying; and third, to clarify that a principal may establish school rules in the school for which he or she is responsible. The Minister concurred with these amendments during the committee’s clause-by-clause review on October 24, 2013. The committee’s report on the bill includes over a dozen recommended actions, all based on what the committee heard during the review. Following the committee’s review, a motion was carried to report Bill 12 as amended and reprinted to the Assembly as ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole.

This concludes the committee’s opening comments on Bill 12. Individual Members may have additional questions or comments as we proceed. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. We will now go to general comments. Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Weledeh

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank all involved for bringing this legislation forward. This really addresses a very serious issue that at its most serious, of course, can lead to severe consequences, most extreme would be suicide. It’s a national concern, but it is a concern, as well, in every community.

What is the role of schools and our educational system dealing with bullying is the question, given that they have considerable responsibilities already for educating our youth. I know there has been considerable discussion on that and I appreciate that.

Schools and the education system need to be part of our program, of our suite of programs to deal with bullying. I think it’s appropriate to bring legislation like this forward to help. But I also feel, fundamentally, that really dealing with bullying starts at home and with the parents and is largely, and always will be really, a responsibility of the parents, and school programs will be supplemental to that.

I do recall some lessons when I was a young sprout, which I was once, and participated with a bunch of others in teasing a hockey kid that had white skates, which I shared with committee. The next morning, to my chagrin, I found my hockey skates had been painted white. I had to wear them to three hockey games before I could go back to the usual skates. Again, very effective measures can be in place at home, and should be. It is an important responsibility of parents.

The school needs some guidance on how to deal with bullying and I would say that this legislation provides a start. I emphasize that it is just a start. I am not aware of dollars going into this, but it is an important first step on a complicated issue. We know bullying is common in our schools, as I mentioned. I believe the national figures are greater than 70 percent of kids have experienced bullying. Simply defining it, in a way, has been challenging. This legislation makes a stab at that including cyber-bullying. It also provides measures, as the Minister mentioned, like code of conduct, safe school plans and other measures. I think it does bring a bit of focus on dealing with the root cause, which is what is needed, not just disciplining with respect to bullying.

Again, I will leave it at that. I am supportive of this legislation and look forward to hearing any other comments on this and perspectives and will stay tuned on this issue. I think it is a first step. Ultimately, perhaps, resources might be needed, but I support where we are going right now. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. General comments. Next I have Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to echo what we’ve heard a bit here as well. I would like to thank the schools, the teachers, the school administration, parents and the various stakeholders that we had a chance to talk to throughout the Northwest Territories.

Committee found out, as soon as we embarked on this journey, that bullying was more of a personal issue than we anticipated. While we listened and heard many stories and great ideas, in some sense it was a bit of a healing method in itself for some. To that, I want to thank those who opened up to some very deep, buried scars that had been with people for many years. So I think in itself it was a healing journey for committee.

To start off, I just want to take a moment to review the motion that I was able to bring into the House with support from my colleagues that was passed unanimously on February 16, 2012. Although I wish to commend the department for capturing most of it in their attempt to cover most of this bill, there are areas within this motion that I found that were not addressed to its fullest in the draft of the bill. I will just quote here, and it was one of the “and whereas.”

And whereas, the Members of Legislative Assembly which denounce all bullying behaviour in our schools and our society at large.

It’s determined that society at large seems to be not captured as well within the bill. I understand that we have to start somewhere and that the Education Act was used as a means to commence this product that, as we heard, bullying is a societal issue, and that was loud and clear in our journey.

The other aspect to this was that it recommends the Government of the Northwest Territories establish a territory-wide campaign to denounce bullying, including cyber-bullying, and to provide information and resources for schools, parents, victims and bystanders. Now, there are implied responses within this bill we would assume through territorial code of conduct or through safe schools plan, but nothing explicit. As a result, I would love to see more that answers to that question. I am earmarking that for the department and hopefully they are listening and that, with time, more of a campaign, a more prescriptive campaign of bullying would be coming.

My first reaction when I got this bill was interesting because, as you are well aware, I went public early on and this is one of the first topics as a newly elected Member that I was going to bring forward even as a private member’s bill. I put a lot of effort and research into this before it even became a motion of the House. So I waited 18 months feverishly to find out the reaction. I have to say my first reaction was that this bill was somewhat playing around the edges of bullying. I think I may have said that publicly as well. I always ask myself, when I look at a bill of this magnitude, does it really tip the scales to help the victim. Even after going through everything we did with this bill, I am still not sure if it does. I think we provide some definitions, we provide some framework, but are we tipping the scales to support victims?

One of the other things of my reaction was the 20-day suspension that, as I said earlier, I treat that type of terminology more as a holiday. I can tell you that some of my early diagnoses were echoed by many stakeholders as we talked throughout the communities. Not that it was comforting to hear, but it was nice to see, as a Member, my barometer was working just fine.

Of course, many were hoping for a bill somewhat to the likes of what we have seen in Nova Scotia. We know it’s a far cry from that. We want to make sure that the department, whether it’s Education or Justice, need to continue to strive for stronger aspects of this bill, whether it’s protection orders, torte laws, and hopefully we can get some assurances from the House that something can be done in the near future.

I just want to take a moment to review some of what we’ve heard from stakeholders. Some of this stuff was captured in committee’s report, but I want to make sure some of the things that were not captured that we can share today here. As I said earlier, bullying was a societal issue. We heard that time and time again, so I can’t stress that enough.

The issue of mandatory counselling was viewed upon differently throughout the Northwest Territories, yet the overall feeling is that it would do good, so there was support for that. Many wanted to make sure the definition was easy to understand and to remove all the guesswork both for bullying and cyber-bullying. I believe, as we heard from our chair, that was captured with the amendments, and thank you, Minister, for agreeing.

From the kids’ perspective, they said snitches get it worse. That was a unanimous theme and yet this bill somehow doesn’t protect the people who come forward. I think that’s something that I’m hoping through the safe schools or territorial code we have to keep that in mind.

We heard again that parents need to play a bigger role here. This came out everywhere, yet the bill does not factor this nor is it implied with it in the code of conduct. Some places we heard that fines or financial penalties would not be out of line, and hitting the issue of bullying at the expense of a pocketbook seemed to be well received by some respondents, and I wanted to make sure that made the public as well.

We heard different ways of restorative justice, especially from students. Again, we hope that gets filtered down to the department. However, I want to shed some light that aside from trying to find the root cause of bullying, which I’m very supportive of, I believe there was equal weight given to the punitive aspect of one’s actions. Community service was such an option, as was a sentencing circle, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that many times clear consequences and process must be known and practiced.

It was also mentioned that all the legislation should depict the maximum consequences. Schools should still have some flexibility and some type of tied judgment model or process.

Ironically, in small pockets of the Northwest Territories there appears to be gender-based bullying, which was a surprise, I think, for some Members here, especially amongst girls. The ideas of a girls talking circle seemed to be well received as an option for redirection, and again I’m hoping the department is capturing that.

I guess from the teachers’ perspective, they were wondering how protected were they as teachers. It came up many times in our deliberations, because many teachers and ex-teachers did participate in the stakeholders meeting. Again, the other concern that teachers had was how much time will this take out of my day already. So, clearly, committee heard concerns from teachers being bullied as well. Again, they’re really concerned what tools they’ll have at their disposal. We’ve heard in many circumstances that most schools only have a 0.5 position for councillors. Again, I think we need to take a look at that model.

It is also clear that the department has to really strive to work positively with the NWTTA, all school board authorities and teachers to balance teacher workload and the options to deal with bullying. Many schools already have been addressing the issue of bullying. In fact, just recently Range Lake North School, in my riding, just had a great day dedicated to this topic, yet we’ve seen other schools with little programs. So my hope is that with this bill we don’t eliminate the great programs that were working well in regions, but we need to enhance or standardize those best practice errors that we are seeing.

The issue of a territorial confidential help line came up a number of times, and we think committee captured this in the recommendation; however, I would challenge the department to review this one with the help of technology. That is with almost 70 percent of our territory with 3GB and soon to be almost 100 percent, with the proper app technology, we could, in essence, use smart technology to modernize our unique messaging to our students. Let’s face it, the days of calling in to a switchboard is about as old-fashioned as they come. So I’m sure the department will find the right way to bridge mechanisms and bring the message home to the students in a way that they’ll receive it.

In conclusion, I think these are great first steps that the department has brought forward. I know there’s been a lot of time and energy from many people who brought this draft forward. On an equal footnote, there’s been a lot of equal work done by the committee, from Clerk’s staff to bring that report forward. As you heard from our chair, this is the first time I think in legislative history in the Northwest Territories we took a bill on the road to the schools and had the schools’ and the kids’ input on effects. I think that should echo loud and clear, the fact that the committee did a very thorough analysis in preparation for today. I want to commend the Standing Committee on Social Programs for thinking outside the box, and I hope that’s the tone for future bills to come.

Madam Chair, we know this is not the end; this is the beginning to bullying and denouncing of bullying. I’m strongly looking forward to seeing future amendments or future legislation to help stop and curb one of our worst traits as a human being. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. General comments. Next I have Ms. Bisaro. Oh, I’m sorry. Minister Lafferty.

Madam Chair, with your permission, I’d like to ask one of the witnesses to join me at this table.

Does committee agree?

Agreed.

I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witness into the Chamber.

Minister Lafferty, for the record, could you please introduce the additional witness at your table.