Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to update my constituents and those in the House on some of my activities prior to the session.
The weekend before the session I was invited to speak at the front-line community justice workers conference and workshop entitled, Working the Trenches, in the town of Hay River. I felt honoured to be asked to do this and it was a great learning experience for me to meet and talk with front-line workers from all over the South Slave and Deh Cho areas. This was especially meaningful because in my life before, about 10 years ago, I had a brief stint working at the Department of Justice and one of the things I did was work on the start of the whole community justice and corrections area.
Parts of the sessions were highly emotional as the issues often evolved around people's experience of victimization, justice and restitution. It was also heart warming to see how far we have come in this area and to see the commitment and enthusiasm expressed by the front-line workers and how they shared with each other their experiences in starting up a community justice committee, and maintaining and progressing in the important work in this area.
Mr. Speaker, while it is subject to a lot of criticism, I think we should recognize the good work that has been done by the Department of Justice over the last 10 years. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to recognize and thank the excellent organization done by the people involved. They had excellent facilitators and special guests from all over the country, especially aboriginal leaders and healers from some of the aboriginal communities down south. I would like to congratulate Brenda Hall and the board chair, Helen Hudson McDonald for their excellent work. I would also like thank them for inviting me to be part of it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
-- Applause
