Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, members of the community, who have come forward to speak to us today, and bring forward some of the background and some of the suggestions you've made to this House on this vitally important subject. I want to say that I was encouraged by the presentations and the moves that are being made, not only by the interest groups that are working with victims of violence in our society, but also the moves that are being made, to some degree, by this Legislature in taking the stand that we are. At least this is the beginning phase of a serious step towards zero tolerance. There are commitments that will be made by individuals, as time goes by, toward the acceptance and application of zero tolerance to violence. I know, for one, that I not only support the concept of it, but will practise what I preach.

I think one of the problems that have plagued us for so long is exactly that. There are people who say things, senior people and leaders, who say to their people that you can't do such and such, you can't abuse alcohol, yet they continue themselves. They say it's unhealthy to smoke, yet they smoke. It's unhealthy to let yourselves be run down and yet they let themselves be run down. So not only do we have to say these things but we also have to practise these things.

I know this is not the time to go into examples like that, but I was encouraged by listening to things that were said, certainly what Bertha had to say. We have talked about it for a long time. We've studied it and the studies still go on. But maybe it's time now, that we start making some concrete steps, start doing some things, start showing that it's time to get on with it and do something.

But what exactly can we do? This is where I have a problem. I've looked for solutions to the problems that society has for dealing with violence. We have laws. We have laws that say you can't do certain things, you can't be violent to other people, you can't steal and harm other people. We have many enforcement people. We have many enforcement officers who are there to look after the law. There are already all kinds of social workers. We have shelters, but the problem still persists. It's still there. There is public condemnation of violence in our society, but the problem still persists. I've looked for solutions for this and I've looked for reasons, and I fear myself that the cycle of violence will continue. Why? I think we have to look at the things that people are facing today. Society is changing and changing rapidly. Here, in the north, when I was a kid we didn't have very much, but what we had we shared with everybody else. We did things for ourselves. We built our own houses. We worked hard to put food on the table and to put clothes and shoes on. All those things kept us busy. Today, we don't do that as much. We don't build our own houses for one thing and we don't help as much. Why? It's because I think society has encouraged people not to do those kinds of things. We're influenced not by what happens here and what may have happened in the past, so much as we're influenced by what we're being told. A lot of our kids are confused now as to what their role is. They are being told to be independent. They're being told they don't have to do certain things. They don't have to dress. I guess it would be considered to be proper to go to school dressed in anything you want. You can cut your hair any way you want. You can do anything you want. You are an independent individual. I think kids are confused as a result of this and that leads to adult confusion as well, because adults, in some cases, don't know what their role is any more. A teacher doesn't know what their role is in the school because they can't tell their students what to do. Parents even have lost control over certain responsibilities of their own children. That loss of control comes from society in general, because other people think the ways we did things in the past aren't good ways. It leads to confusion. It certainly leads to frustration and frustration leads to the consequences of violence.

If something does happen, the law is such that I'm not sure who gets the most protection any more, whether it is the victim or the perpetrator. I was on a committee this summer that went around to the different communities to talk about health and social services issues. In one of the communities, someone said that out of five sexual assault trials held in that community that had a jury, there was not one single conviction. The message is out in that community that if you do anything wrong, elect for trial by jury and your chances are 90 per cent of getting off. That is not a very reassuring condition for the victims.

I worked in social work for awhile and one of the things that used to happen was that social workers got called out to deal with an altercation in the family. The social workers would move in to assist the individual and a couple of days later, before the charges were laid, or even when charges were laid, nothing came of it because the victim was encouraged by the community to drop the charge. They were encouraged, through one means or another, to drop the charge, by the perpetrator, with all kinds of promises. It was really frustrating for social workers when this would happen.

I think we've made some degree of progress in that area by having the RCMP step in and lay charges. But, in another community we visited, we were told that maybe social workers are part of the problem. That if we left them alone, let people look after their own affairs and let the family get back together, there wouldn't be a problem. I started off saying that we are faced with a lot of things outside of this circle of violence that influences us and adds to the problem.

I know we have a long way to go and, as I said earlier on, I'm encouraged by the steps we've already taken in that direction. I commit myself to working with groups that want to and can put forward some suggestions that this Legislature can implement to alleviate the problem. One of the things I would like to close with is that sincerity is subject to proof. If we, as legislators, are sincere about this, then we should -- as some other Members put it -- put our money where our mouth is and set an example. Thank you.