Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of this motion, as well. What I found really interesting -- I supported this program since I first heard about it, and I had the pleasure of attending their session last night and we were able to get a whole bunch more information to help us understand even further the importance of it. I was a former JP, so I understood what emergency protection orders were and why that was important, and that was prevention, stopping it. Well, here's a great program that is all about prevention.
The Government of the Northwest Territories states that A New Day is part of the commitment to address the call to action put forward by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada, so the government has already said that it's part of that.
Mr. Speaker, 83 per cent of people are self-referred, 83 per cent. People come off the street and go there to help themselves, 83 per cent. That means 83 per cent may or may not be in the system. That's amazing. How can we not support something like that?
Mr. Speaker, I was honoured to listen to the messages and that, and what I want to do is I want to put a voice to this. It's not my voice that I'm talking about here. Here's the voice of the people that are part of the program. This is how powerful this is, and I'm only going to read certain ones. I could we here for a while, but I just want to read about five of them. The first one:
"I wish all people had this knowledge that you guys have here so violence among our people would stop." Wow. What does that say?
"Now I understand abuse can be verbal, mental, emotional, spiritual, physiological, sexual, financial, and physical." That is what EPOs talk about. Abuse is not just physical; it's a whole area.
"I'm so proud of myself for facing the charges and going to court. I'm okay if I go to jail. That's how I will take responsibility, help others feel safe." Taking responsibility, that's what we're trying to do. That's why we're trying to educate people is taking responsibility, and they're learning that from this great program.
"I notice when arguments are going to come up, and I can stand up for myself in a good way and avoid it getting worse. This will stay with me as long as I use it. I just walk away if it gets to that point. I'm learning as I go." Human nature, how we learn to deal with issues, wow, that, to me, is amazing. We all should be able to do that, and this program is teaching people how to do this.
The last one I'm going to say is, "I don't know, but something clicked with him. He went to this program and switched his shifts so he can spend more time helping me with the kids. This program really works. Thank you." This is coming from a lady who wasn't prompted to bring this up. She spoke at a meeting and said how well this program is.
Mr. Speaker, it's about families. We talk about over 350 people being impacted by this, but we're not talking about all the families and the repercussions going on afterwards and how it has an impact on that. That there is huge. We want to look after our people? This program is looking after our people.
The 2.5 staff, the volunteers, the students, they've made an impact, not just on the 350 people but the families and 11 of our colleagues and seven of them over there. They've had an impact on us, and society has said, "Great job." It's recognized nationally. We should be supporting it. So I will be supporting this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.