Mr. Speaker, today marks the start of Family Violence Awareness Week across the NWT. This year's theme is Healthy Relationships and Healthy Communities. Teaching healthy relationships between men and women, and fostering respect for women, through public programs and traditional values learned from our elders can help curb family violence in the NWT, and I encourage everyone to play their part. Together, we can bring an end to family violence.
Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of critical importance and urgency. Families are the basic unit of our society, and the relationships between grandparents, men and women, and children form the fabric of our communities. When people ask for help, this government must ensure that programs and services are available.
Here in the NWT, we have the second-highest rate of police-reported family violence and intimate partner violence in the country. NWT women, our fellow citizens, are victimized at a rate seven times the national average. This violence can take many forms. There is physical harm, but abuse can also be emotional or psychological, or take the form of threats or isolating victims from resources, friends, and opportunities. In the wider community, lateral violence such as intimidation, gossip, and bullying also takes a toll.
It is clear that we are all affected by family violence, but, Mr. Speaker, Indigenous people are affected the most. The family bonds that I spoke of earlier were broken by the residential school system. Our parents and grandparents suffered abuse there, and we were not taught the traditional values, the love and respect, that is vital to our traditions.While Canada's overall crime rate is going down, the incarceration of Indigenous people is increasing; a population that represents roughly 4 per cent of the national population represents 36 per cent of women and 25 per cent of men held in custody. First Nations people, marginalized after years of colonization and cultural oppression, are more likely to experience violence, including family violence.
Now, what can we do? Mr. Speaker, this week I must also speak from my own personal experience, as I have done in this House before. The society we live in has strict ideals for what it means to be a man. Men are proud; they want to do things for themselves, and reaching out for help is rare. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement. Mahsi.
---Unanimous consent granted