Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First, I would like to acknowledge the hard and passionate work provided by my colleague Ms. Bisaro. She shares many of my concerns on this particular issue and she has raised them quite eloquently today. Mr. Speaker, the problem about following a very eloquent speaker is they tend to take all the good stuff. It is very tough following them without trying to repeat exactly what they said.
Mr. Speaker, some of the highlights that I would like to point out, that she didn’t touch on, is the fact that this is one of the most reasonable things we can do to help continue to protect people on our roads. This is one of the most reasonable things we can do to help protect pedestrians, by having drivers not use cell phones. Mr. Speaker, I spoke to Darius Elias last week and I complimented him on his initiative from an opposition point of view, somewhat familiar to us here some days, on trying to raise an issue that, when you are trying to convince government on an idea and many of us have come to this House and we always said, well, we propose ideas and try to treat them as why should we do them as opposed to why we shouldn’t do them. This has been somewhat of that type of steep climb up that giant hill. There have been many detractors to this. I have to admit -- I will be quite honest -- I was one who some time ago felt that one’s personal rights should weigh ahead of what one thinks the public duty should be considered as an issue of action.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is time we start putting our perspectives in order and realize, as said earlier, five jurisdictions have already considered this and when speaking to Darius Elias, he emphasized they didn’t want the Yukon to fall behind what is considered a national safety issue. I think he is quite right. The Yukon doesn’t want to seem to be last. The sad thing is I am watching them drive by us on this issue. It is almost a shame, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, there have been many things cited before that could be considered distractions to driving. We have all heard that drinking your hot coffee could be a distraction. Anybody who is a parent knows what it is like to have screaming kids in the back seats, and realize that is a distraction to driving. What I said at the very start of my statement really was this is about reasonable things government can do.
As highlighted by Ms. Bisaro, there have been changes over the years to driving, what is considered no longer acceptable. Mr. Speaker, there was a time when even seatbelts weren’t considered acceptable and people exercised their liberties by saying there is no way the government is going to tell me what to do in my car. But, Mr. Speaker, it didn’t take long for people to start to realize the benefits certainly outweigh the negatives.
Mr. Speaker, this is not an unreasonable road for us to travel down and to be looking forward to putting safety first. Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out about distracted driving, it could be anything. But again I am stressing this is something simple we can do.
A few years ago in a campaign in Alberta, Ralph Klein was on the road waving and saying, “Vote for Ralph Klein,” and one right after the other they were having accidents. If I recall clearly, there were about three of them within a small 10 to 15-minute span. It just goes to show how easy people can be distracted. Can we stop people from waving on the side of the road? That is not reasonable. Can we stop maybe screaming kids in the car? That is not necessarily reasonable, although it would be preferred if you were a parent, I can tell you that. This is a reasonable step that this government can do with its eye on the ball continually to say what is important.
Mr. Speaker, since raising this issue from my perspective over 18 months ago, I have endeavoured to even change my behaviour even though the law does not require it today. Mr. Speaker, quite often what I do is I will turn the phone right off completely so I am not tempted by that distraction. If I am to stand here in this House to say how important this safety issue is, I certainly have to lead by example. Mr. Speaker, if I forget to turn off my phone and it rings -- and it sits right next to me -- I pull over and I take the call if I so choose to. But the option really is there. What is really stopping us? Our roads aren’t that busy. Are our lives too busy that we have to take a moment to pull over if that call is that important to us? I don’t think so. What we describe as a major inconvenience today I think will be sort of something we laugh about down the road.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, I am just going to emphasize that it is not…We have to look beyond what we think is important to us and look towards what we believe is best for everyone. I think that is why many of us are here, to want to make sure that we are providing the best direction that we can provide. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate everyone’s time.