Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not sure Ms. Peterson was here when I made my Member's statement this morning. If she was, she will be aware that I have expressed my appreciation for this. In many ways I think that this is a very good report and I agree with a great many of the advisor's findings and recommendations. I want to make that clear now, because I want the honourable Members to know that I am supportive of the work that has been done.
However, I do want to start off my general comments with a couple of concerns that I have about this sort of review process. I would like to begin by commenting that there is always a danger with a review process that attempts to identify issues that are specific to one gender.
I think that all of us are aware that, through the years, people have tended to look at such issues as day care, nuclear arms and spousal assault as women's issues. They are not women's issues Mr. Chairman, they are everyone's issues. I feel that in many ways there is a danger that we face when we tend to look at certain types of unfairness in the courts as affecting women.
In my review of "The Justice House" I noticed that at least half of the special advisor's findings are just as applicable to men as they are to women. Mr. Chairman, it is clear that there are many instances in which the Canadian justice system which has been imposed on our northern community is unfair to both men and women.
There are recommendations about the need for plain language in the court rooms. There are recommendations about the needs for more control of judges conduct and recommendations about the need for more public education. These are all recommendations that apply equally to men and women. They should be looked at that way rather than as women's issues. As you see, Mr. Chairman, it is unfortunate that as soon as you label something as a women's issue, people tend to regard it as a feminist issue. There are certain attitudes and reactions that almost always come forward. In the 1990s, there are sectors of the population that tend to trivialize important matters as soon as they hear them labelled as feminist concerns or women's issues. That is unfortunate and should not happen. I believe it does and that the R.C.M.P., lawyers and judges referred to in this report are just as likely as other members of society to react to this labelling in a negative way. Let us not forget that the kind of insanity that makes a man attack and kill female engineering students in the tragic Montreal massacre arose as a result of a tendency to group women scientists as feminists. This action was both crazy and sinful. It reflects some of the attitudes which do exist and will always exist in our modern society. I wonder if we might have done a disservice to women in the Northwest Territories by trying to label shortcomings in the justice system as gender equality issues. They are shortcomings that we should all be aware of because, if the justice system is unfair to one of us, it is unfair to all of us. I will stop here, Mr. Speaker, and give the special advisor a chance to comment.