Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I thought I would say it's a good piece of legislation overall. I think as Members have stated, it's something we can use and it can be a tool that we can use as a Legislature and those who carry out the business of fulfilling these laws. But in everything we do, we have to be cautious about what we are doing and what end we are trying to achieve. For the most part, again, it's a good thing, but as Mr. Dent said, if proper training isn't given to those who will be implementing this law, then we could create more problems and difficulties in the process of people going and doing what they think is the way to do it. We have examples of that, Mr. Chairman, in laws that we have put in place in this government. Unfortunately, we have examples of families being taken apart because of somebody's interpretation of how things go or how they should be fulfilled or how an individual should be dealing with other family members.
So we have to ensure that the training is done for those people who are implementing the law. I could just say what we see here and what members of committee have heard, that this is what it is intended to do. I find through my experiences as a Member who has brought in laws, sat before Ministers, asked questions and been told this is the intent of what we are doing is meant to do and, unfortunately after it becomes law and it starts to be put into practice, people who aren't trained, they see the law and they have their idea of what it means and begin to implement it that way. It doesn't match what we've heard as legislators during the process. So I think it's key that education and training comes into it. Not to say that we shouldn't be careful in dealing with how situations occur. The definition of "family violence," for example, can incorporate a whole lot of things that one is going to have to put this into effect will have to be aware of. Some of them are straight forward, forcible confinement, sexual abuse, intentional recklessness, threatening act, things like that are very straightforward and clear to deal with.
What could be a little more difficult is in a place with what could be considered emotional abuse or things like that. We've heard that the seniors are in support of that and that's a good thing. I guess as a society, we think that everything is good and dandy until it actually becomes very apparent and drawn out in the courts. I think we have to ensure that with this law coming into place, we have the appropriate training put into place and understanding and intent of this law, so we don't have our courtrooms filled and applications being made that could cause more family disruption and the pulling apart of families. I am a big supporter of families and trying to keep them together. Unfortunately there are times when the best thing is to pull families apart for a time to deal with their differences. Sometimes, unfortunately, it is something that is more permanent. At the same time, we don't want to find ourselves in a position or place where we end up pulling families apart for reasons other than those that were genuine, when an application was putting something forward or something of that nature.
With laws like this, we are continuing to put more authority into hands of those outside of the family and into those that would deal with the situation when it comes to this point and someone being called in. By doing that, we better ensure that our training is done to the appropriate level so we don't have individuals coming back to this Assembly complaining that we've put a law in place that has torn their family apart for no other reason than somebody being disgruntled in a family. That's not to be taken lightly and not to take the other situation of someone going to a point where they feel they have to call someone to bring the law into action. I have also seen the other side where trying to do what we think is best, sometimes we go beyond what many people have thought of or when the training isn't done. We leave it to the individual who is applying the law to start bringing in an interpretation of their own and that could lead to some problems of its own. It's a good thing as far as coming forward as we have heard, but at the same time we must ensure there is an adequate amount of training for those individuals who are going to be in the field and applying this law. Thank you.