Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The words "zero tolerance" have been used quite extensively over the last several months and certainly I believe that people accept the idea that this is a good way to describe what you would like to have as an attitude throughout your society, but when you use the word policy -- it's our policy -- policy normally means a commitment of a service to the public that you serve. So, whenever you enact any kind of policy you have to know what it means. What does that mean if you do that? Does it mean that it imposes something on the public service? We are talking here about the government adopting a policy so you are assuming, therefore, that it has to do with the way public servants within the public service behave.
Before we can vote on something like this, we have to have an understanding of what exactly a policy of zero tolerance means in active, real, concrete terms. What is expected to be done to those people that don't practice zero tolerance? I want to be sure we are adopting more than just nice sounding words. To me, and I used the example today, that we have zero tolerance towards violence in this Assembly. If somebody decides to strike somebody, they're history, they're out of here. That is zero tolerance. In this Chamber, there is zero tolerance towards violence; you know that if you practice violence something will happen to you. So what does it mean when the governments adopt a zero tolerance policy? Does it mean, for example, that if somebody strikes somebody in the workplace, in a government workplace, that they will be fired automatically? Or does it mean that they will be sent home for a week without pay? If we talk about words, they may sound good but are there any teeth to it? Does it mean anything? Is it more than just something that sounds nice and sounds right? I know that the public very often feels that words used in any kind of political arena are just that, unless you really put teeth into it. You must mean what it is that you are committing yourself to do, if in fact violence continues in the workplace or violence continues in communities or whatever. I would like to have an understanding from the committee chairperson or any other Member of the committee as to what is meant by it. What do we mean by zero tolerance adopted by the government? What does the government intend to do in the area of policy making on this particular issue?