Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. During the 16^th Legislative Assembly, I actually participated in the review of our Official Languages Act here in the Northwest Territories. At that time, we did travel throughout the Northwest Territories and talked to different languages groups and heard the frustrations that they were expressing with respect to the loss of their language. We do know in the Northwest Territories there are some languages that are in critical condition, very close to being gone completely. We know that the Gwich'in and the Inuvialuit are struggling and the Tlicho is quite strong and doing well. We need to learn what's working in one area and find ways to translate to another area.

As a result of that report, we came up with a significant number of recommendations. I know, to date, not all of the recommendations have been implemented and we need to go back and reflect on the recommendations and then the follow-up recommendations from the 16^th Assembly to help the communities revitalize the language. Like my colleague said, it has to come from the languages groups. We need to be there as a support; we can't be a barrier. We've got to work with them in the ways that they feel are going to bring back the revitalization. I don't think the government should stand up and say you shall do such. In this case, it's definitely got to be a push back and we've got to be partners.

If Premier, I'm committed to going back and looking at some of the recommendations and make sure that we're still on track. If we haven't been moving on some, we'll certainly be able to find out why. I'll share that with Member so we can have discussions on how to move forward. We need to find ways to work with our communities and hear from them on how they intend to help revitalize our languages. Then we need more Members in the House speaking languages over time. There are a lot of great apps out there where you can go and you can learn words and phrases, and I would encourage all the Members to go to those apps and start using the languages in this House.