Julie Green on Committee Motion 91-18(2): Committee Report 7-18(2), Standing Committee On Rules And Procedures Report On The Review Of The Members’ Conduct Guidelines – Five-Year Limit On Eligibility For Candidacy, Continuation

In the Legislative Assembly on March 9th, 2017. See this statement in context.

Committee Motion 91-18(2): Committee Report 7-18(2), Standing Committee On Rules And Procedures Report On The Review Of The Members’ Conduct Guidelines – Five-Year Limit On Eligibility For Candidacy, Continuation
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

March 8th, 2017

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

I would like to thank my friend and my colleague Mr. Nadli for his words. I know that they are spoken in truth and from the heart. I also know that the voters of the Deh Cho made the right choice in returning him to this Assembly as their MLA because he is a very good MLA. I very much appreciate the wisdom that he brings to our debates, as he has done here today. That said, we are not on the same page.

I want to talk about a couple of things. The reason that we are talking about family violence and not drunk driving or theft or a number of other crimes is because of the prevalence of family violence and because of its destructiveness. There is hardly a family in the NWT, and mine is included, that has not been touched by the scourge of family violence. Once touched, it marks families forever. There has to be a way out of this. Our predecessors here have taken a stand on family violence before. It is time for us to do that again. This report was the way in which the committee on rules and procedures decided to address this issue.

I want to tell you, Mr. Chair, that family violence is worse now than it was in 2006. Not only are the rates higher, there are an additional eight women who have been murdered since the end of 2011. This is a problem which is not going away. We are not making any inroads on it, no matter our good intentions and efforts and those of the people who serve both the women and the men who are caught up in this tragedy. This is the crisis of our time. It affects half the population directly and all the population indirectly. It is not acceptable. It is preventable.

We have an opportunity, as role models in the Northwest Territories, to say to our constituents and to everybody who is listening that family violence is not acceptable, and we are prepared to be role models not accepting it.

I appreciate that this is not a view that is widely shared here. I know I am going to be disappointed by most of you. You are going to vote against this strong statement on family violence. I very much regret that. You can't unsay it. You can't make it go away by not talking about it. If it is not going to come to you in this form, it will come back again. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

See context to find out what was said next.

Julie Green on Committee Motion 91-18(2): Committee Report 7-18(2), Standing Committee On Rules And Procedures Report On The Review Of The Members’ Conduct Guidelines – Five-Year Limit On Eligibility For Candidacy, Continuation

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