Section 20 says that for the purpose of soliciting the advice of representatives of each official language, the Languages Commissioner shall, not may, but shall meet not less than once per year with the representatives of such organizations as prescribed. I think we spotted it in section 7. You have not met with them. You have not created an advisory body for each official language. Have you created an advisory body yet? Have you met already, whether it is for this calendar year or for the coming fiscal year?

Thank you. Languages Commissioner.

First, I should point out that under that section it says to meet with organizations as prescribed. This prescription means, usually, by regulation and the Languages Commissioner is not really responsible for making regulations to the act. I can certainly suggest to the government what I think should be in those regulations and they can heed or ignore my advice, whichever they choose to do. There are no regulations naming those organizations so what I have done is try to meet with as many organizations as possible. In my interim report, I did provide a list, on page three and four, of some of the organizations I have met with or had discussions with.

Aside from those organizations I have talked with personally, there are all of the organizations we have consulted through the telephone survey and the mail-in survey. We have a very long list of organizations with which we have consulted. I have not even had a chance to tally all of that information yet.

The other thing that I will point out in my interim report is that I have to research the formation of an advisory council for the Languages Commissioner. What I have been doing is discussing with as many individuals and organizations as possible how that advisory council should be shaped. Should there be, for example, one representative for each official language? If there is one for each official language, I understand that to be 11 representatives because, even though the act says eight official languages, we have within Inuktitut: Inuvialuktun, Inuvialuit and Innuinaqtun. They are included in the interpretation section and Slavey means North and South Slavey, so I would expect a separate representative for each of those languages.

If that is the way that this advisory council were to be formed, who would appoint those members to the advisory council? Should there be certain organizations that are asked to have a member sit on that advisory council? Should I hand pick them? Should I ask the Legislature to appoint them? There are a lot of questions that I wanted to address in this first year about how to go about establishing that advisory council.

When the Special Committee on Aboriginal Languages tabled its report in April, 1990, when this act was amended, there was some discussion in it about having an advisory council. It was recommended that the Languages Commissioner have an advisory council and I would very much welcome that. At this point, I am still in the process of trying to figure out exactly how I will go about setting that advisory council up with all of the questions that I just mentioned. I would be happy to have any advice, from anyone, on that. I have sought the advice of a lot of organizations that I am taking into consideration, whether or not there are certain organizations that would insist on having a representative on that advisory council.

The other big question is, will that advisory council take the place of my meeting with all of these other organizations as prescribed? Will that advisory council be the prescribed organization that I will meet with? Those are the kind of questions I have been discussing with a lot of people as I have been meeting with them to find out how people feel about the formulation of an advisory council. I did not want to rush into it because, as soon as I determine that, I assume that advisory council will stand for a certain period of time and I want to make sure that it is representative and that people have had some input into the formulation of it.

Thank you. Member for Deh Cho.

You indicated that it is not your responsibility to draft regulations. Who is doing those regulations then?

The Languages Commissioner.

I have had a number of meetings on that particular issue and it is something that I discussed at length with the legal counsel. My original understanding, when I started this job, was that it was the Minister of Culture and Communications who was responsible for the Official Languages Act. I was wrong on that, apparently. There is a section in here referring to the Minister, it does not say which Minister, having the power of signing agreements such as the Secretary of State Agreement for the purposes of carrying out this act. What I have been advised is that it is the government's responsibility to come up with regulations.

Now that the official languages section is within the Government Leader's office, my understanding is it has some responsibility for drafting those regulations and that would have to be done in consultation with the departments and with the Department of Justice. However, I also have some advise that it would be appropriate for me to draft some regulations to give to the government. I have been consulting with a lot of people about what should be in those regulations. I have not put anything on paper yet. I am still waiting to find out whether anything is actually going on within the official languages section. That was just recently reorganized and I know that they are working on a lot of things.

I am not sure that I can answer the question on where that unit is with the preparation of regulations, but it is an issue that I have brought to their attention a number of times this year because I think it is very important. Section 14(2) comes into effect in a couple of weeks, at the end of December. I do not know if you have the act in front of you but I will just read section 14(2). It says, "any member of the public in the territories has the right to communicate with and to receive available services from any regional, area or community office of an institution of the Legislative Assembly or the Government of the Northwest Territories in an official language other than English or French, spoken in that region or community where there is a significant demand for communications with and services from that office in any such language; or, due to the nature of the office it is reasonable that communications with and services from that office be available in such language."

There are a number of phrases in there that require clarification. What is a significant demand? Does that mean that you have a certain percentage of the population in that community that never asks, but might ask for a service? Does it mean that the people in that office have been keeping track of how many times they have been asked for that service and they can say, we have documented ten instances this month where we have been asked for that service, therefore, we have to provide it.

There are no guidelines and I, myself, have actually been asked by a number of government departments for guidelines on that. The people in the community offices are wondering, do we have to provide this service or not? When we say we have to provide that service, what does that mean? What exactly do we have to provide to people, all of the material in our office, only an interpreter or what? So there are a number of clauses in there.

The other one is, due to the nature of the office, it is reasonable that communications with and services from that office be available. What is the nature of an office? Does it mean that they have so many documented contacts with the public in a certain period of time? Those are the kinds of things that I think could be clarified by regulation. Under the federal Official Languages Act, they just went through a very lengthy process in developing regulations on exactly these things. What is significant demand and what is the nature of the office? I gathered those regulations and made them available to the official languages section so they could have a look at it to see what sort of issues have to be addressed and what kind of considerations they might make in trying to draft those regulations. As far as I know, by December 31, there will not be any regulations in place for defining the terms in that section. I have had a number of meetings and urged the government to do that. It is going to be something that will have to be done very shortly.

Thank you. Mr. Gargan.

Thank you, Mr. Gargan. Ms. Harnum.

I report to all the Members of this Legislature at any time. Any one of the Members can contact me directly and ask questions. They do not have to wait until the House is sitting to raise questions. I was asked for an interim report earlier than this by one of the Members, and I provided it to him. Other Members have contacted me and brought some of their constituents to me and said, "Here, deal with this problem." I welcome that sort of relationship. I want to develop that relationship. I report to each Member. I report collectively to the Members through the Speaker just as a simple reporting relationship. I did offer to do a quarterly report, just like this interim report, to give it to the Members so they had some idea of the activities of the office. I was told that, under the act, I report once a year in an annual report. I do not mind reporting more than that. Within the act it says to report once a year. I volunteered to do this interim report because I feel there are a lot of questions, and there is a lot that people want to know about. Any one of the Members can contact me at any time.

As far as vacation or other leave, I have to get approval through the Speaker's office. That is the only reporting relationship that we have. Other than that, I am accountable to the Assembly when it sits and to the individual Members if they want to ask me questions.

I did ask this of the federal Commissioner of Official Languages in Ottawa. When I was asked to appear here, I asked him whether or not it was appropriate for me to appear before the House. I wanted to make sure that I was not doing anything contrary to the existing legislation. He advised that it is very unusual. Normally, they have a Standing Committee on Official Languages. The Commissioner is called to report to that committee. I would like to make that as a recommendation to the House. It will be in my annual report that there be a committee that I report to on a regular basis and that I receive advice from.

I have felt isolated. I do what I think is the right thing to do, but I need as much advice as possible from the Members. This is your piece of legislation, and I am there to assist you in making sure that the government carries it out. I am more than open to having any kind of dialogue with Members during the year at any time. That is my reporting relationship. It is meant to be at arm's length from the government so I do not report to a government Minister. I have to investigate those departments. I even have to investigate things going on in the Legislative Assembly. You have had letters from me asking about things. I have to have that arm's length relationship that is set up in the legislation. I do report to each Member at the same time.

Thank you. General comments, Mr. Gargan.

In your opening statement, you said that you have already over expended your money with regard to support staff. Can you outline the channels that have been established to ensure that you carry out your duties in the most efficient, effective and economical way? Who evaluates you to see if the Legislative Assembly is getting value for its dollars?

Thank you. Ms. Harnum.

I would say that both my annual report to the Legislature and any other interim reports or interim inquiries that are made of me is the evaluation process that is set up.

I receive financial administration assistance from the Legislative Assembly. It does the paperwork for our budget. I make the decisions and they go through the Assembly. They will tell me if I can do that. If there happens to be something that I want to accomplish and it is not possible, they will say that I cannot do it that way and suggest another way. I do have that kind of fiscal management applied.

Other than that, I do have the responsibility of deciding whether or not the money is being spent the way it should be. It is a big responsibility. There are a lot of choices I have to make all the time. I have overspent on the casual budget. I was given a quarter of a person year. For a start up year, it was unreasonable to try to accomplish things like gathering base line information. We had nothing to work with. It was an empty office with no information. I could not just write to a department and say, "Send me that." I needed to gather information. That is why we overspent on the casual budget.

I sat down with Myles Moreside many times and went through the budget to see what was left in each area. We decided what money could be transferred from one task to another. Whenever I have made those decisions, I did them with financial guidance to make sure I had not done anything contrary to the Financial Management Administration Act. I followed the guidelines. As far as the actual expenditures and whether this government feels that it is getting the best bang for their buck, it is for the government to decide when it gets my annual report or any interim reports. I would welcome advice on that any time.

Thank you. Are there any general comments? Mr. Gargan.

Mr. Chairman, the Languages Commissioner has already said that where it is reasonable, that language should be used. In her opening statement she introduced her staff. I do not see any staff there that speak the Dogrib language, nor the South Slavey, nor the Chipewyan language. Those are the people who are being affected by the Languages Commissioner's office. Why did she choose to do the opposite of her mandate with regard to reasonable use of language in this case?

Thank you, Mr. Gargan. Languages Commissioner.

I would not say that I have gone contrary to what I should be doing. I have made a point of trying to get staff in the office who do speak an official language. We have a fair representation of aboriginal languages in the office. I do

not have enough positions to have one person who speaks each language. We have had a number of short-term casual employees which means that I can constantly change the languages that are available in the office. It has been a concern for me that I am Commissioner of Languages and there is no way that I can have staff in that office that speak every language. I have problems with the message on my answering machine because it is in English and it has a few other languages thrown in as hello and thank you. I have to deal with those sorts of things to. I have limited resources to hire staff. It is not that I have avoided any language group, I am trying to have as many different speakers of different languages in the office as possible. We have had North Slavey, French, Innuinaqtun and Inuktitut. We have had some aboriginal people in the office who were of Chipewyan and Cree background but did not speak their language because they were young people who lost their language. I have made an effort to have staff in the office that speak various languages. If it appears that I have been trying to avoid an particular language, I think that is a misunderstanding because I have not tried to do that at all. The other thing is that I do have a lot of people working in the communities doing these surveys in all different languages. I have made use of the people in the communities to do the surveys for me, and we are using people who speak all those different languages.

Thank you. General comments. Mr. Gargan.

One other clarification, with regard to travel. The Member for Thebacha asked a question on that, but I do not know if you were able to respond to it. With regard to the signing of the Nunavut accord in Iqaluit, did you travel to that and for what reason? Did you have a language complaint about the accord itself?

Thank you, Mr. Gargan. Ms. Harnum.

I am sorry, can I ask you to repeat the last part of your question, I did not hear it.

Mr. Gargan, rephrase your question, or repeat it.