Yellowknife (Oct 20/04) - The territorial government is targeting April 2005 as the start date for new legislation designed to combat domestic abuse, Minister of Justice Charles Dent announced last week.

The Family Violence Protection Act, passed in the assembly last fall, has been sitting on the shelf while officials develop an implementation plan. Among other provisions, the act will provide 24-hour access to court sanctioned protection orders. The orders could grant victims sole use of the family home, allow police to seize weapons and ban abusers from communicating with their spouses and children.

But certain aspects of the Act - including the emergency protection orders - could force dozens of men from their homes, said Salvation Army major Karen Hoeft.

"You have to remember, these men have not yet been convicted of a crime," said Hoeft. "That's not to say the act doesn't have its merits. I just think we need to be careful about how we implement it."

Dent said the legislation was necessary to deal with a "significant problem."

"The rates of family violence in the NWT are much higher than the rest of Canada."

According to Statistics Canada, women and children in the NWT were nine times more likely to spend a night in an emergency shelter than their counterparts across Canada.

In 2000-2001, there were an average of 23 women and children in shelters every day.

Thirty-five per cent of the women admitted to shelters were victims of violence. More than 30 per cent of those women returned to their abusive partners.

"We don't want to sit on this forever," Dent said. "We made a commitment to follow through."

Hoeft said it's not uncommon for legislation like the Family Violence Protection Act to take several months to go from the drawing board to implementation.

"You don't want to rush into something like this," she said.

"It has many impacts."