The campaign to have the provincial government change the Limitations Act to remove timelines for legal action regarding physical abuse found its way to the legislature yesterday.

Newfoundland and Labrador is one of only two provinces in Canada to have a statute of limitations on physical abuse. People have a strict timeline to come forward with lawsuits—either two years after the abuse happened, or in the case of child abuse, two years after the victim turns 19.

Jack Whalen, who’s now in his 60’s and suffering from cancer, made the trip from Ottawa to St. John’s this week to submit a petition to politicians in the House of Assembly calling for change.

Whalen spent over two years in isolation at the Whitbourne Boys Home in the 1970s. He built a replica of the tiny cell on the back of his pickup truck but left the truck in Ontario.