Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to also speak in favour of this motion. As most of my colleagues have already stated, the number of factors that come into play in the context of this motion, whereby this government has to make a commitment to put more resources towards addressing the issues that are involved in family violence. As an individual that has come from a very large family, I feel very fortunate and very rich as a human being to be able to sit here and say I can recall at no time that family violence has had any impact on my life.
I will say that I did experience some of it in families that were very close to us and it was extremely hard to deal with that. Even when family members wanted to be open about it and break the silence, it was very restrictive and a very dangerous situation for them to do it in. I know that is a hard area to address, but it is something we have to do.
One of the things I think we cannot forget is to support and mention the people and the organizations that are doing a lot right now, today, to address family violence. This motion is not new. We have had motions like this before and there are individuals and organizations out there that are trying to do a lot to break the cycle in family violence. I think we have to support that and acknowledge the fact that there are groups out there that should not give up and work harder and know that we are supporting them in their efforts.
We also have to look at the laws that control family violence and how they are hampered in trying to get into situations, knowing situations of family violence. In a lot of cases, their hands are tied as well as to what they can do to deal with that situation. So a lot of the laws we have will have to be looked at. As a person, I have no problem standing here and saying I fully support zero tolerance in family violence. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
-- Applause