Thank you, Madam Speaker. The section I will be presenting to the House is responsibilities of the government and of the Languages Commissioner.

Madam Speaker, the second major theme of the report is that of the responsibilities of the Government of the Northwest Territories with regard to official languages. Many of the report's recommendations direct the government to take action with issues that have been identified by the Languages Commissioner. In most cases, the Languages Commissioner identified these issues because they were the subject of complaints or inquiries to the office.

The Languages Commissioner directed recommendations 4, 5, 6 and 7 to the Legislative Assembly. Recommendations 4, 6 and 7 ask for clarification regarding the act, and recommendation 5 asks for a review of the protocol for relations between government boards and agencies and the Languages Commissioner.

Committee Members expect that the government will address the issues of language of work, services to travellers, and application to third parties in the proposed official languages handbook, which will be discussed on page 8, and that negotiations between the government and the Languages Commissioner will address the issue of protocol. Therefore, the standing committee feels that it would be appropriate to await the government's approach to those issues before making any recommendations to the Assembly.

There are two other recommendations which committee Members feel would also best be dealt with through negotiations between the Languages Commissioner and the government. Recommendation 14 suggests that the government have the sole responsibility of informing the public when there are changes or additions to acts, regulations, guidelines or policies relating to official languages, and recommendation 29 asks the government to conduct a thorough study of literacy and fluency in the Northwest Territories. While these are both important issues, the standing committee wants to see the Languages Commissioner and the government negotiate the responsibilities for these tasks between them. Certainly, the public should be made aware of legal and regulatory changes relating to official languages. But it should be simple enough for the Languages Commissioner and the government to work out a publicity strategy which would allow such information to be published without it being caught up in a turf battle. Similarly, if the Languages Commissioner and the government have disagreements about the need for studies related to official languages in the NWT, they should be able to work them out and come to a satisfactory solution.

The Languages Commissioner made a number of recommendations which direct the government to take action in various areas related to the act. Most of these recommendations demand that the government provide better information to the public, and even to government departments and agencies, regarding the services available under the act. For example, recommendation 8 asks the government to, "clearly identify to which institutions...the Official Languages Act applies..." This is something that should have been done as soon as section 14 of the act was proclaimed at the end of 1992, along with making those institutions and the public aware of this identification.

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask if you can have Mr. Ballantyne carry on with the report.