Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had a nice statement all prepared, a text all prepared today to stand up and congratulate the winners of the municipal elections, but, Mr. Speaker, I am going to deviate from that topic because I have something more important to talk about today. It would be somewhat untrue to my own conscience to sit here and just talk about the nice things, because there is another topic that is not so nice. The topic is the issue of the abuse and the legacy of abuse in the Northwest Territories. It is something that I would like to look away from. I would like to not have to deal with it, but it has come to the forefront in discussions, in media articles and amongst people in recent days. It is difficult to stand up here and talk about it because there are nicer things to talk about. You do so at some personal risk because I went home to my riding after taking a stand with some other MLAs in a press release. I had a constituent come up and say, why are you picking on the Premier? Mr. Speaker, I am not picking on the Premier. I have a lot of confidence that the Premier will remember the day he announced he was going to put his name forward. I shook his hand and I said I would support him, and I have supported him. This is not personal. This is something that is so pervasive and so far reaching in the Northwest Territories that we have to talk about it.

We have to know where the leader of our government stands on this issue of abuse and the very vulnerable situation that young children found themselves in in institutions at the hand of people who were in positions of trust and in positions of authority and what did we do as a government to protect them. In response to issues now that have been raised, we want to talk, as a government, about consent. We want to talk about age of moral majority. Were these children Inuit and therefore they had been out on the land and somehow were operating as adults? Are we going to talk about whether they are lying or not? Are we going to talk about 150 students going over to their teacher’s house on a consensual basis to have sex with their teacher? I am sorry. These are ugly subjects, Mr. Speaker. I apologize for that. But I just would be so not true to myself and to the people of the Northwest Territories if I sit here and do not say something about this. So, Mr. Speaker, I have questions. I need answers.

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Mrs. Groenewegen, your time for Member’s statement is up.

Jane Groenewegen

Hay River South

Thank you.

---Applause