Debates of February 16, 2012 (day 8)
MEMBER’S STATEMENT ON BULLYING IN NAHENDEH SCHOOLS
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Parents in the Northwest Territories have a legitimate expectation that their children will be safe in our schools and neighbourhoods. Children should feel confident that no one will hurt them or threaten them and that no one will say demeaning or sarcastic things to them. Parents in my riding are deeply concerned about bullying and so are students. They recognize the seriousness of the issue.
When students in Jean Marie River had the chance to work with TV star Dakota House, they produced a play centred on bullying and gossip. In Fort Simpson we’ve seen lives damaged and families leave town because of bullying. Schools in Fort Simpson have tried to prevent schoolyard bullying by introducing new games that include everyone and by signing up parents to help with supervision, but it’s hard for school authorities to watch every moment.
Timothy Gargan-Lacasse, a student who represented Nahendeh in last year’s Youth Parliament, presented a motion demanding zero tolerance for bullying. He said, “So many kids are getting bullied these days and might drop out and never come back, and in extreme cases, commit suicide.” Suicide, Mr. Speaker. You can’t get more serious than that.
Mr. Jack Yeadon, a concerned parent, wrote in the Liard Times last April that bullying is a life and death issue that we ignore at great danger to our children, to ourselves, to the future of our community.
In the North and in my riding of Nahendeh, we may be even more sensitive to the issue of bullying than people elsewhere in Canada. One well-known impact of residential schooling was to make some students bullies and abusers, taking out their own pain and oppression on weaker children. That’s part of our history. As Mr. Yeadon says, it’s not enough just to identify and stop individual bullies; we have to look at how and why the bullying is happening, how a child becomes a bully or a target of a bully and what role bystanders play. Only then do we have a chance to stop the cycle of violence that for some began in their parents’ and their grandparents’ day. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.