For the past nine years, Al McDonald has been willing and supportive of the anti-bullying message in the city of North Bay.
McDonald signed a proclamation today to once again make this week Bullying Awareness Week.
It’s the 17th straight year for the local event.
McDonald signed the proclamation in the Mayor’s office alongside a handful of students from Odyssee.
“I think we have all been bullied at some point in our lives, I mean it is more than symbolic that we pass the proclamation but also to show that leaders want to speak about bullying and that it goes on and now we are really starting to see it with cyberbullying and I think that’s probably challenge and concern right now,” said McDonald.
Gabriel Cadieux was one of the students who attended the proclamation signing.
“I think it is a very sad thing and we have done a lot of initiatives to try and take care of and we have done amazing progress but it still needs to be taken care of and obviously it is something you have to stand up for,” said Cadieux.
Sylvie Vannier, from Odyssee, has been a vocal local leader in addressing the bullying problem in the city.
She believes society is moving forward in the bullying battle within the past decade, but it is still an ongoing process.
“We will never be able to say that bullying is completely eradicated,” she believes.
“If anything it is more present, at home, at work, in schools, in politics. It just gives us a clear message that we still have to have a mission, we still have to be better, we still have to be kind. We have to establish a climate of mindfulness wherever we are, as adults, as youth, as children. We have to be mindful of the words we use.”
Vannier believes that sometimes bullying is done without the bully even knowing what he or she is doing.
“Something is maybe said that the person forgets 10 seconds later, but the person who heard the comment about them has not forgotten about it, and won’t forget,” she said.
“That could lead to long standing effects for that person.”
Vannier says a number of bullying awareness events will take place at Odyssee throughout the week.
She hopes that other schools in the district will follow their anti-bullying lead this week too.
