Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to say thanks to the students in Yellowknife and Norman Wells, and the Diamond Jenness students. I didn’t go to the one in Hay River, but I understand that they had some good discussions. It’s the first time that we’ve taken this piece of legislation to the ones that we are mostly gearing this to that affects them, the students, and to the students for being brave enough to allow us into their schools and speak to us. I haven’t seen this ever in my life growing up and going to school in

Inuvik. I never saw legislators come into our school at Samuel Hearne High and talk to us. This is pretty cool. Going into the schools, Madam Chair, I realized how old I am. Sometimes I think we are still in high school. It brings a lot of memories back to us, getting together with friends.

I want to say thank you to the committee and to the students for this opportunity, and certainly the parents for sending us notes or talking to us when we’re in the communities. We certainly had that in Norman Wells. They thought that was right on that we were going into the school to get feedback and talk to the kids, even though they were shy, but they certainly told us. That’s something that is bothering society.

My colleague Daryl Dolynny says it’s a society issue, something such as this word we call “bullying” that’s happening. I think there was a different name for it when we grew up in our time.

Our parents or grandparents usually got a good old willow out and straightened us out pretty fast. We didn’t really have time to hurt other kids. We had to work because our lifestyle was different. We had to either haul wood or pack water up the hill or feed dogs or clean the house. We had a lot of work to do and look after little brothers and sisters. We had a lot of things to do. The school of hard knocks was pretty enforced and implemented. So we had some things we had to pay attention to or otherwise mom and dad would come down on us on how we should behave as brothers and sisters or even within the schools.

I certainly want to say to Mr. Minister that we have to give hope to those children and parents. We need to support teachers who are going to be in this environment mostly. I’m not too sure what the graduate teachers that are coming out of university to expect this, the life in the classroom. I’m not too sure if they’re trained for that or if they know about that, or how much they know about the culture and psychological issues of addictions and impacts of the grading process and all these wonderful things, and they’re aspiring to be a good teacher on top of that. They have to deal with that. We have to really help the teachers when they come into this environment. We’re putting this legislation in force so that little Johnny can come to school and not be so concerned about something that is happening to him, like being pushed around. We have to really help the parents. It has happened even in our own homes. It’s not out there. The legislation is about us, about legislators and how the students spoke to us about this, because they’re carried on in life.

I look forward to looking at one day erasing this word, when we put the word “respect” back in there. We need to erase that from our vocabulary and put the word “respect” and “goodness,” have a strong teaching in a learning environment, give some leeway and flexibility. Like I said, when we were

young, there were nine of us in my family and mom ruled. If you did something wrong, like I said, the willow came out. But you know what, Madam Chair? I never did that again. It was good. That’s what we need. I know it’s a different lifestyle today. I may sound rough, but it certainly saves a lot of headaches. My mom didn’t sit me down and say, well, quiet time, how did you feel then? No, it was wham, wham. That’s it. We’ll talk about this later when you think about what you’ve done. That’s counselling. The counselling was done by what she thought was good for us. We need to think that again, because we are helping the students. We are helping by it’s not okay to do this to other students or other people. It’s not okay to be this kind of person. You’re going to have a hard life when you grow up. That’s really hard, especially when it comes close to your own home. That is very difficult.

I like this legislation. I think that it still needs to be fleshed out and there are some really good, dynamite teachers working in our system. Sometimes we just like, come on guys. I think they went to university to become a good teacher. I’m not too sure if they went to university to become rich. There are lots of entrepreneurialships they can get into. They have good minds, so they have a really honourable profession and career and they believe that. They went to university to get their degree so that they can pass on something. Someone inspired them to be a teacher. And you know what? You can become a good teacher and you can also make good money. That’s the payoff, the discipline. This legislation is a bigger picture. Like someone said, it’s a societal issue. We’re just focusing on the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We need to really help the students who are willing to help us, and they are.

This legislation is good legislation. I do hope that, with your staff, you do look at it very, very seriously and look at it as to one day maybe there will be a territorial code. I always thought about this and had some good discussions with my significant other on a territorial code, even for something that is as radical as a dress code for our students that brings pride and you don’t have to worry about expensive brands of clothes or whatever. Just like us. We come in here; we have a code. Why not have that in the schools? That will save a lot of parents a lot of money to not have to buy expensive runners or jeans or pants, and have the schools in our communities celebrate that in our regions and in our schools. It works wonders when we are together as a team. That may be helping out in some of the incentives to this thing here about bullying. I don’t know, but I’m willing to do anything.

I would like to say, once again, thank you to the school here, Sir John Franklin, Diamond Jenness School in Hay River and the Mackenzie Mountain School in Norman Wells for allowing us, as

legislators, to come in and listen to them on this legislation. Thank you.