Kanata South Councillor Allan Hubley released a statement on his son's death.
Here's a piece:
Although James had a great many people who loved and supported him, something in his mind kept taking him to a dark place where he could not see the positive side of life, which led him to this drastic and tragic decision on Friday. Jamie is free of his pain now and there is a new angel, but we have paid too high a price.Please go here for the rest of the statement.
There are some reports in the media and on social media that James was bullied. This is true. We were aware of several occasions when he felt he was being bullied. In Grade 7 he was treated very cruelly simply because he liked figure skating over hockey.
Recently, when Jamie tried to start a Rainbow Club at his high school to promote acceptance of others, the posters were torn down and he was called vicious names in the hallways and online. We had meetings with officials at the school and were working with them to bring an end to it but Jamie felt it would never stop.
We will not say that the bullying was the only reason for James’s decision to take his own life but it was definitely a factor. As his family and friends, or even if you never met him but want to help, we must do whatever we can to wipe out bullying for any reason in our society and especially in our schools.
1 comment:
V, you honor Jamie and all the others we lost this month who died and received no attention at all.
As I said before this is an area the GLBTQ need to seriously address with much more time and money. Our advocacy and outreach are making a difference, but we could do much better.
Most of us spend so much of our life healing from the horrific mental and physical abuse of our youth, we want to forget what it was really like for us at their age. That is a huge liability and one reason why I think so many of our progeny suffer and finally take the most desperate solution.
We must remember, we must find them, and we must protect every young GLBTQ and our allies. They deserve nothing less.
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