Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we know, Wednesday, February 29th , is Pink Shirt Day

across Canada. Since the House will not be in session on the 29th , Members are acknowledging

the importance of that initiative today. And we’re not alone, Mr. Speaker. In the gallery today is Ms. Carrie Heldman and her Grade 5 class. They walked here from N.J. Macpherson School wearing their pink shirts to join us today and to highlight bullying along with us in the House.

I’ll use the words of one of my constituents, Michael Elms -- Michael is in the gallery today – to explain the importance of maintaining or starting anti-bullying initiatives in our schools. Michael said, “Bullying is a huge problem around all schools. I know this because I have friends in the other schools. There are a lot more types of bullying, there’s physical, hurtful and through Facebook and so on. My friends were being pushed and kicked by one of the girls, and his little sister had a bigger kid sending her mean messages on Facebook. When someone bullies someone, they want to know what it feels like, so someone bullies someone and it keeps on going. In the end, everybody’s feelings are hurt.” Michael goes on to say, “To stop bullying, we need to do things like how Pink Day started. In the end, the entire world ended up doing Pink Day, so there are almost four consecutive pink days. It shows that bullying is not okay. Bullying is mean and no one should ever bully anyone.”

We have to also consider the issue of bullying in the larger context. We must look at the work of schools, and district education authorities, and education councils and what they are doing to combat bullying, and use their strategies to combat family violence as well.

Minister Lafferty stated in the House on Monday that we needed to have a coordinated approach. Well, we don’t need to look far to find a coordinated approach to combat bullying and family violence. The Alberta government has committed to end family violence and bullying. They have developed websites for residents, they support a bullying hotline and they have enacted legislation to combat bullying and family violence. Nine government ministries are working collaboratively with communities and implementing a cross-ministry strategy that will provide coordinated responses to family violence and bullying that will help Albertans live violence free.

What are we doing here? The good news is that we have a good start. We have what we need to make a difference. We have the will of our residents like Michael and his classmates. We have the anti-

bullying strategies that are practised and promoted by educators across the NWT.

I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted