Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have many comments to make. Anything I have to say will be in relation to the proposed declaration on family violence.

I think all Members would agree that when you seek and hold public office, your commitment is to make sure that within your society, the weakest people are not going to be abused by the most powerful. That's the definition of an uncivilized society, when you get chaos and violence where the most vulnerable people become victims. For that reason, I think, today we have people who have talked to us about the most vulnerable people in our society: children, the elderly and disabled people.

My question, Mr. Chairman, is to the Minister. Since the basic principle here is that within families there are vulnerable people...Although we recognize that the abuse essentially takes place when men exert power over the most vulnerable, we seem to exclude in the declaration any reference whatsoever to disabled people and to the elderly. I think a small correction could be made so the other vulnerable groups are also included in this, without reducing the main focus which is the major one I think we want to outline, which is that family violence consists predominantly of violence by men against women and children. I think we can leave that there, if that's the sort of main thrust of what we want to do.

It seems to me that if we're talking about the family and we're talking about our society, the reason we've invited the four people here today is to hear the complete story. I think we would be doing a disservice if we don't recognize that the main function of a legislature is to make sure we are fair to all our people, and we pay specific attention to the most vulnerable people in our society so they are not exploited.

So I would propose that, at the appropriate time and place, we include reference to the other vulnerable groups. For example, maybe in the first portion here, where we talk about violence, we could say violence against women, children, the disabled and the elderly, then violence within the family in particular, then carry on with the sentence. You would still have your second sentence which deals with the main issue, the fact that men are the greatest perpetrators of this violence against the more vulnerable people.

I think we could do the same thing at the end when the declaration is made, that we will include the other groups as well. I'm very much in support of what you have done to take this as an initiative, to bring it to the House. I certainly was impressed by the four witnesses, particularly Mrs. Allen. I was impressed with everybody but I was very moved by what she had to say, and I certainly would support adopting such a declaration.

I also believe that the point that Mr. Dent has made is probably even more crucial. Because the major criticism of any group of people who adopt a declaration...It sounds great, wonderful words and so on, but unless you can find some way in which you can identify what zero tolerance is...How do you identify it? How do you show it? How do you demonstrate it? It's not going to be effective unless there are some things that you can measure whether what you've agreed to do is achieving the effect that you want. That would be something we would have to look at after adopting this declaration, to give it some teeth by looking at what things we have in our statutes that would give us the teeth we would need so that the public would be convinced that we are not just uttering fine words in this House. Thank you.