Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The concept of this act, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, is a very good one. It is an act this Legislature has been working on for a number of years. I agree with the concept. But, I don't fully agree with the way the act is written and, in listening to the Minister who has appeared before the committee, I don't agree with what the government is going to do in terms of making information available to the people of the Northwest Territories.
For one thing, the Minister has stated -- and it also says this in the act, I believe -- that information should be available equally to all people in the Northwest Territories. It is not going to be, since the Minister and the department have said that if the information being requested is in English only and the person requesting it is a unilingual Inuk person from my community, that person will not be given an Inuktitut document, if that information is not translated. If the person wants it translated, he has to pay a fee. That access is not equal to everybody else's, in my mind.
Also, there are quite a few people of the western Arctic who are not able to read English or their language, because their language is not written or it is written, but they can not use the written form to get information. There is a clause in here which I don't get. It is under record document. It says
"Record means a record of information in any form and includes information that is written, photographed, recorded or stored in any manner." So far, so good. Then it says "But does not include a computer program or other mechanism that produces the record." Before hand, it said they'll use any kind of written, photographed, recorded and stored in any manner, then later on says no. I don't understand that. Does that mean if the information is recorded on tape or video tape, its not acceptable under this act? Or does that clause say the information is only available in written form or photographed? I don't quite get that clause. Before I go on, I have a few more. Maybe I could get more clarification on that interpretation section. Thank you.