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(Updated)
The father of Rehtaeh Parsons says silence is what led to his daughter’s suicide after she was abused online for months.
On the first day of anti-bullying week in Ontario, Glen Canning spoke with teens at a Mississauga high school with a goal that no one has to endure bullying alone ever again.
Mr. Canning is hoping that cyber bullying is one day treated the same way as drunk driving. Where it’s not seen as cool to harass or abuse someone online, the same way it isn’t smart to drink and drive. He feels that the best way to accomplish that is to inform our youth first: “I look around here and I see her face, I do, y’know, and I just hope that there’s no other parent that has to face what I had that morning.”
What Glen Canning faced was the decision to take his 17-year old daughter Rehtaeh off life support after she tried to kill herself following months of abuse online. But he says it wasn’t just the bullies that drove her to that point: “She ended up with this believe that, ‘It was the silence of her friends that hurt a lot more than the words of her enemies.” And it’s very true. And I just hate the fact that a 17-year old girl had that as a quote for her life.”
According to Statistics Canada, 41% of children age 12-13 and 26% of kids age 14-15 have reported being cyber bullied.
Canning told students at St. Joseph’s Secondary that it’s time to speak up: “They need to know how important their words can be. Their words can have a huge impact. When I think of Rehtaeh and all the stuff she went through, it may have been a few people. But it was the majority of people who didn’t do anything that hurt the most.”
Canning helped kick off the, ‘What if Everyone did Something’ campaign to get kids involved to stop cyber-bullying: “I hope I can say something that resonates with the kids, I really do. I think that’s where all the change is going to come from, it’s going to come from high school. If there’s a person who’s cyber-bullying someone, I wouldn’t be friends with them – you can never be a bystander and you should always help the people who feel that there’s no way out.”
The campaign is asking students in Peel region to do two things: One of them is design a poster one year that will help spread the word on how to prevent cyber bullying. and the winner will have their poster spread throughout the region in city buses.
Students are also involved in a short-film contest, where the winning anti-bullying video will precede movies in theatres across Peel.
Gian Soriano, 2013 video contest winner: “If we not only help those who suffer but stop the abuse from occurring in the first place, we would become one step closer to a brighter future.”
