Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are some very scary things happening on the streets of this city. That’s why it’s so important for our schools, Social Services and the police to do the right thing when they are faced with young people whose lives are seriously at risk. It can be the difference between saving a life and sending a youth down a long and dangerous slide, one that they may never get out of.
Only days ago we had a young man, only 16 years old, pass away in a downtown alley. We should take this to heart, Mr. Speaker, as this young man’s family and friends have. It’s any parent’s worst nightmare, and many parents out there are worried, and with good reason, Mr. Speaker.
I recently heard from a mother who is so afraid for her 16-year-old daughter, she doesn’t know what to do. She’s already turned to school officials, Social Services and the RCMP, with disturbing results.
Two years ago her daughter was a top notch student, and now this, and I’d like to quote her mother: “To date she has missed 270 days of school. She is drinking, doing drugs, smoking cigarettes, stealing, and doing much harder drugs than I thought, and at one point I lost my temper and hit her. I’m not proud that I did this. So we went to Social Services.”
She wanted to put her daughter in treatment. Instead, says her mother, “I was told that I had to let her make her own decisions. I then asked about my 12-year-old son whom she verbally and physically abuses. I was told that I needed to protect him and remove him from the home after school. Why would I punish my son for my daughter’s behaviour? I was told that if I hit my daughter again, they would charge me. I was unaware just how bad it was until Social Services began to investigate me.”
Mr. Speaker, Social Services actually interviewed the mother’s business contacts, her family, her fiancé and her son. Eventually they offered to pay for her daughter to stay in another home with responsible adults, if the mother could identify one. She did not think this was the right thing to do, and who can blame her? She wants help; she’s not trying to foist her daughter or her troubles on someone else, but she didn’t get help from Social Services when she asked for it as an honest, forthright mother with nowhere else to turn. Instead, they put her livelihood at risk and multiplied her stress level.
Mr. Speaker, this mother knows what she’s talking about. She’s a recovered addict herself, drug-free for 13 years.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Right now there’s no solution in sight. Her daughter is falling through the cracks in our support system and it could happen to anyone. Believe me, it is tearing families apart in this city. It is happening to many others.
As a government we must do a better job at filling in these gaps and services before any more youth are lost to the streets of this city. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
