Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have listened to the presentations with great interest. The Commissioner for Official Languages comes across as a person who has done a great deal of work on the detail of the Official Languages Act, who has looked into the legalities and organization and seems to be a very kind person. I believe that we are looking for this person to be the champion of aboriginal languages in the Northwest Territories.
Some advice that I would give to the Commissioner is when she makes her first annual report, I would encourage her to use what authority she does have which is based on the power of public opinion and her independent status.
I would urge her not to question whether she has the legal authority to enforce government departments to take this legislation seriously, and take the concerns of the Legislative Assembly seriously, but rather not to hesitate to demand compliance with the spirit of this legislation. I would suggest to her that she should not hesitate and she will have the full support of this Legislature. If she is aggressive and forceful, she should not hesitate to criticize or even slam government departments that are not making the efforts.
Mr. Chairman, with the greatest of respect to the Official Languages Commissioner, I know that having worked in government she may well be quite sympathetic to departments that are having to deal with limited budgets and staffing problems in meeting their commitments, I do not think this is something she should worry about, that is the department's problem. The Languages Commissioner should not worry about how they meet their obligations or how to force them to meet their obligations. She should be telling the public and the Legislature it must be done.
I hope that departments will come to be afraid of this report. Fearful of being criticized and having their shortcomings revealed in no uncertain terms about their commitment to aboriginal languages. My free advice to the Languages Commissioner, and I understand that she is just getting going and getting organized, is to as quickly to put aside those administrative problems and be careful of lawyers and legal opinions.
We will expect your report to breath fire and to shake up the departments who are not complying, to light fires under them and to challenge and if necessary to shame the bureaucracy. I would encourage the Languages Commissioner to go for it, Mr. Chairman, with all our blessing. This does not require a reply. These are only comments that I wished to make. Thank you very much.