Ms. Harnum.

I just received a letter from them saying that the situation does still exist. They still would like me to come and discuss the problem. The other thing I should point out is I do have many invitations. During that particular month, I had a number of other meetings with Francophone organizations. I don't make it a habit of doing this. This was one particular invitation that I cancelled, which was not a high priority for me because I was not being asked to talk about official languages. That was not a very important one for me as far as what my mandate is. You will see, from the list of duty travel invitations and speaking engagements that I tabled in December, that during the month of November I had a number of other meetings with Francophone organizations. If I wasn't able to attend, I made sure that someone else from my office was there.

I don't want to interject myself too much in the discussions, but the issue that has been raised is when you undertake to do something, inside another jurisdiction...You have taken a broad interpretation of your mandate as the Official Languages Commissioner, who works under an act, which applies to this jurisdiction. So the Member is wondering how you make a priority of something over which you cannot have control through the act? In our own system, we have a government that can control things on behalf of the people of the Northwest Territories. If you go to Alberta or Saskatchewan and become involved in language issues over which our act, and the powers we have as a Legislature, have no control, why is it that you consider this to be part of our jurisdiction? That is what I interpret to be the issue that has been raised by Members.

As I mentioned, the NWT Official Languages Act has clause 21(1) that says, "The Languages Commissioner shall investigate any reasonable complaint made to the Languages Commissioner..." and it goes on, "...if any of those complaints that deal with the status of an official language was not or is not being recognized, any provision of any act or regulation relating to the status and use of official languages was not or is not being complied with, or the spirit and intent of this act was not or is not being complied with." When I look at that, there are language provisions even in the Education Act and the administration of the affairs of the Department of Education, as it says in another section, deals with students going from here to other institutions. I guess I do take a very broad interpretation of that. If NWT students are funded by this government to go to another institution and they are having trouble there, if I can help them in some way, then I will, to promote an understanding by those other organizations. I approached it as an education issue and it was a language issue arising out of education. These were students funded by the Department of Education. That is why I felt if I could help

resolve a situation and have students avoid some sort of failure, that would be something I should try to accomplish if I could.

We are discussing Tabled Document 11-12(5). We have spent a long time discussing a broad interpretation of the role of the Commissioner. This is what we are still talking about, which is what the Commissioner opened with. Is there anything else that Members would like to raise? We are still dealing with this one issue of how broad this job should be interpreted. Mr. Gargan.

Mr. Chairman, the article from November 11 is with regard to Francophone Parliament that involves a large number of groups from western Canada. The invitation to her, I would believe, is out of respect for the office of the Languages Commissioner. I would be privileged if I was in that position to meet with such a group.

You also referred to section 20, but if you also refer to section 22, you do have several options and the Commissioner may refuse to investigate. Section 23 says that "Any matter should be referred to the government institute concerned for consideration, if necessary action." So you had other options. I don't know why you didn't exercise those other options to meet with a group that represents all of western Canada to deal with one particular issue. That's my question. I still don't know how far you indicate your jurisdiction, but you did use your broad interpretation. But you also had other options.

Ms. Harnum.

I don't know what else I can say. I just felt it was important for me to try to deal with the problem situation involving language. That was more important than trying to deal with something where I was not even asked to mention the word official languages. Yes, I was invited as Languages Commissioner because I speak French. But I was not asked to deal with official languages in any way. Other than the fact that I was going to speak French there, it really wasn't promotion or increasing anybody's awareness or anything else.

(Microphone turned off)...answer the question now to the best of your ability in several different ways. Have you finished, Mr. Gargan? Okay, is there anybody else who would like to pose some questions on the basis of this report, or any other tabled documents for the official languages? Mr. Patterson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to have this opportunity to discuss this important area. Mr. Chairman, I sense, reading the report, quite a degree of frustration -- there is moderate language here but I think I can read between the lines -- with government departments. Just a few quick examples. Page 66, despite the Languages Commissioner encouraging the GNWT to do a press release to inform the public and its employees about section 14(2) on services to the public being proclaimed, the GNWT decided not to announce the coming into force of this section. This is not an encouraging sign, the report said.

Later the report says, the Languages Commissioner has also pressed the GNWT to come up with some working definitions for significant demand and other phrases and service levels within the act. No success. There's been a suggestion referred to on page 68 that, official languages should be used on signs in Yellowknife. It has not been accepted. There have been a number of meetings to get the GNWT to draft regulations, and the report notes a reluctance to make those changes. And there are other invitations. With that background in mind, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the Languages Commissioner to describe, just generally, how are her relations with government departments? Are they as strained as I seem to detect even from the moderate tone of the report?

That's an invitation to explain several of your frustrations. Go ahead.

I appreciate the Member bringing this particular matter up because it is a frustration that I have experienced since I started in the job. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the authority of the Languages Commissioner is totally open for interpretation. I happen to think that unless the Languages Commissioner has authority to get information to require certain actions, that sort of thing, then it's useless. I'm just like another bureaucrat. Why do we have a Languages Commissioner?

However, I must say that the things that Mr. Patterson has raised are some of the areas where we did not make progress. There are some successes that we have seen in the last year and a half, almost two years now.

In the next annual report I plan to list them more clearly, what are our successes and what are our failures. What matters have we managed to resolve and which ones haven't we?

My relationship with some of the departments is very good. I want to commend, for example, the Department of Personnel. Every single issue we have brought to their attention they have resolved, without saying, no, that's not your authority, without saying we don't think you should be dealing with that matter, or that's an employee matter or anything else. They said, thank you for bringing it to our attention, and they corrected it.

I think there's only one other big issue and it's not just a Department of Personnel issue that needs to be dealt with, although it affects all of the personnel, and that's language of work. But that's a major policy decision, and major interpretation of the act that needs to be done.

My relations with GNWT, I should maybe explain how they've developed. When I was first appointed, I understood that I had powers to conduct investigations. To me, that meant when somebody complained about something, I should talk to the person who complained, I should talk to the other parties involved and get the information first-hand, so that I don't get second-hand stories. I started to do that. It was only a few months after starting to do that, that people noticed there was a Languages Commissioner, and GNWT decided that they wouldn't let their employees talk to the Languages Commissioner and a directive went out to that effect. At that point, I agreed with the official languages unit we establish a protocol that all of my correspondence about complaints or enquiries -- more complaints and enquiries are often just answered over the phone, very quickly. But for complaints, they would all be addressed to the deputy minister of the department and then a copy to the official languages unit, then the deputy minister would see that the investigation was done basically in their department and that I would be provided with a response.

I didn't really want to do that because I didn't feel then that I was conducting the investigation. I think the GNWT is conducting the investigation, and I'm likely to get only one side of the story. I can understand their concern that they don't want me to just talk to any government employee and get all sorts of information that may be inaccurate, or that may not represent the whole story for the department or whatever. But I need to get all of the information, both from the employees and from the overall policy makers, directors or whatever in order to put all the pieces together in order to effectively deal with problems.

I agreed to the protocol because there were two of us in the office, myself and a secretary. As I said, we opened 187 files in the first year. We're now heading up to 400. I can't possibly deal with every single one of those things myself. So I agreed to the protocol and it works quite well. I have to say that, for many things, we manage to resolve them that way. When I find that a department is not responding quickly, I bring it to our monthly meetings with the official languages unit and they go after the department and encourage them to hurry up and respond. We do have that good working relationship. However, in some cases, the departments are taking six or eight months to reply. I don't think that is reasonable. That is another layer of bureaucracy. I should be able to get on the phone and phone the people or write a letter directly to them, get the information, or meet with them, and get the information directly from them and resolve things more quickly. I think, being really efficient in our office and doing things quickly is what it should be for. Otherwise, we have people waiting a long time and still being very frustrated and, in many cases, very angry with government about a situation that could be just a total misunderstanding.

I must explain that, some of the things that we have resolved have been in GNWT's favour. We have done good public relations for GNWT, where we explain to people that, yes, the department is right. You don't have a right to that, or they don't have to provide that. You can try to persuade them, but they don't really have an obligation, because people have unrealistic expectations sometimes about the Official Languages Act. In some cases, we have resolved things and said to the person who was complaining that their complaint is unfounded. That is part of our job, too.

I feel some frustration about trying to deal with some of the complaints and some of the inquiries that I try to make about interdepartments. We have been told, in some cases, the Languages Commissioner cannot have that information because it is confidential or it is not public. I am not sure that we are the public. Perhaps an access to information law will help clarify this. I met with the Department of Justice when they were considering drafting the access to information legislation and said, it would be very helpful to people in positions like myself, commissioners or if the legislature is thinking of establishing an ombudsman position or access to information, it would be very useful within that access to information legislation to clearly state special powers of access to information for people who are granted the power or the authority or the duty to conduct investigations. Otherwise, I really think that the public will start to perceive this particular position as ineffective if we can't get the information that we need to be able to resolve complaints. Then, we are not any better than another citizen knocking on the door. I hope that this office will not come to that.

As I said, I have to say that some of the departments have been extremely cooperative and they are very happy when we bring things to their attention, but there are other matters with which I am really frustrated. The one that you mentioned about the press release. I was frustrated about that last year. Again, I asked them this year, the last two sections of the act just came into effect December 31. I asked again, "Are you going to do a press release, not only to inform the public, but to inform the employees that they have a new obligation?" They said no. So, I did it. I don't think that is really encouraging. The public has said to me and so have government employees, we don't have enough information about official languages. We don't know what is in the act. We don't know how it affects us as employees. What do we have to make available? The guidelines and directives are not there for the departments. I understand that there is a document that will be tabled pulling together some of these directives. I think that is a very positive step. We pushed hard for that. We have asked for regulations. That is very far off in the distance now, I can see. All I can do is recommend. That is the extent of my power in those matters. There is some frustration. I think that we have to also say that we have achieved a number of things that we tried to do and have to give credit to those departments that have cooperated.

Thank you, Ms. Harnum. That is a broad question. You have quite a few examples of difficulties. Mr. Patterson, do you have any further questions?

Yes, I will try to be brief, Mr. Chairman. I think the Languages Commissioner has answered my question when she said she was really frustrated, at least with some departments. I take it, then, that even though the protocol has been agreed to somewhat reluctantly about working through the official languages unit and the deputy ministers receiving complaints, recommendation 5 in the report is really asking the legislature to overrule that protocol and reconsider that practice. That is how I understand recommendation 5. It says, "consider the current GNWT practice," but if the Languages Commissioner was satisfied with the current GNWT practice, then she wouldn't have recommended that it be reviewed. If I understand it correctly, there is a frustration there with that. This protocol was worked out through the official languages unit, which reports to the Premier. Has she not thought of sitting down with the Premier, who is responsible for this area, seeking a meeting and just saying, I am having certain frustrations with certain departments. Others are all right. Can you fix it up? We are a small jurisdiction. Would that not be a way to tackle some of these day to day frustrations that I am sensing in the report and in the response to my questions? Thank you.

Ms. Harnum.

I did have two meetings with the Government Leader. At both of those meetings, she referred me to the assistant deputy minister responsible for official languages and

said that she was responsible for meeting with me on a regular basis and that is where our concerns would be addressed. I meet with them, now, once a month and we do address all of these things. A couple of months ago, I asked for this protocol to be reviewed and we decided to postpone it. They asked that we postpone it. We discussed it very briefly at the last meeting, but they said, because I was coming to the Assembly that, perhaps, many of these things would be discussed here and so, perhaps, it would be better to wait until after this discussion, so I agreed to that.

I will explain in a letter to them all of the reasons I have reservations about the existing protocol. We do meet on a regular basis and try to address these things. Sometimes they are addressed more quickly and resolved. Others seem to be taking a long time. This particular one about my being able to talk directly to government staff rather than going through deputy ministers, and that process, I know that the government has asked the deputy ministers to comment on that existing protocol, because we have been using it for a while now. They have asked them to comment so, with their comments and mine, we can look at it and come up with something more workable. I am afraid that I have to be true to the legislation. It says that the Languages Commissioner will conduct the investigation. Given the resources that we have, myself and now two other staff, we still have to be very much involved in those investigations and not just send off a letter and expect somebody else to do the work for us and then send it back to us. I have been dissatisfied with that method of investigation. I don't feel that I get all of the information that I need. Sometimes, I will get a letter back and it raises more questions and I have to write another letter and wait another few months. It is a very long, drawn out process.

I think GNWT is willing to sit down and review this protocol. They had agreed to review it after six months, but it is over a year now that we have been using that protocol. It is on our agenda for the next meeting. Hopefully, as a result of these discussions in the Assembly, there will be some better direction. Part of it revolves around what authorities the Languages Commissioner has to conduct investigations. There are no specific provisions in the act and that is part of where the problem arises. We may have two very different interpretations of what those powers and authorities are. If I think that I have the authority to contact government employees and the government doesn't so they tell their employees not to talk to me, how do we resolve that on an everyday basis? Without any clear direction or any clear definition of powers in the act, it could go either way. I suppose the only other way, if it is not clear in the act, is to go to court to ask for an interpretation of what the authority is if we can't come to an agreement.

Thank you. I will try to keep my question short because I am sure other Members want to say things. I guess what I am getting out of this discussion is the Languages Commissioner is talking about power and authority, and that without authority the position is useless. I see in this week's paper an ad for an invitation for proposals for legal counsel services for the commission which talks about legal action against the Government of the Northwest Territories. I would just like to say that it seems like we are headed for sort of a confrontational approach. It is honey and vinegar, I guess. I am not sure that those of us who worked on this provision had in mind using public money to sue our own government. I want to say that I would hope that the persuasive approach would be sought in every case and that confrontation and litigation should be avoided at all possible costs. I know it says in the report that it is a last resort but I am gathering from the answers here that there is a high frustration level and that this present protocol is not satisfactory. This has been an outstanding issue for a long time and now a lawyer is going to be hired. Being a lawyer, I want to warn you that is dangerous because they love to litigate but maybe it will be only the lawyers that will profit if we have litigation on this new legislation. I would just like to urge the Languages Commissioner -- and she can comment if she wishes -- to work more, even though it may be frustrating, on developing a cooperative relationship with the government rather than forcing a cooperative relationship with legal arguments. I like to think our government is small enough that we should be able to do that and I guess I am a little bit alarmed that we seem to be gearing up for a fight here. Thank you.

There is no question there, but if the Commissioner would like to comment on the statement from Mr. Patterson, then go ahead.

I should point out that right from the very first couple of months, our office has always had legal counsel. This is not a new development. As I said, when I get a complaint I review it very carefully to see if there is a violation of the Official Languages Act or any other act. Let me make it clear that the fact that we are advertising for legal counsel contract does not mean that we are planning legal action against the government. It simply means that we are renewing legal counsel contract, which we have always had, for the third year because I need opinions on the act all the time.

As I said, I think there are a lot of departments that have been extremely cooperative. There are only some that are not really willing to accept some of the initiatives that we suggest. If I feel that the department is reluctant, or if they are not willing to try to implement suggestions that we make, or deal with problems that arise, and if the only person I can talk to is the deputy minister, that makes it really difficult for me to get everybody's side of the story and see if there is somebody who is not supportive or whatever, to try and find out who that person is or if they are working under a misunderstanding or whatever. In a couple of instances, the deputy minister has said to me, go ahead and talk to the people in my department about this particular issue. When they said that, we resolved it immediately and they said thank you.

I must say, if you look at the section on complaints and enquiries in chapter five you will see that we dealt with a lot of issues. Many of them were resolved. We do sit down and talk about things a lot and we do resolve a lot of things.

I think one of the things we need to do in our next report, as I mentioned, is to list all of the things we have accomplished and all of the things the GNWT has agreed, yes, this is a good idea, we'll implement it, because we have had those successes. But on some of the major issues that go on and on and on, those are the ones where I feel more frustration. I don't look at court action as a solution at all. I don't want it to come to that. I don't anticipate that it will ever have to, but it is one of the things that legal counsel has to be aware of if they are going to work for our office, that the possibility is there. Even for the federal languages commission, they've existed for 25 years, they've only been to court I believe six times or something, not very many times. It is only when an institution absolutely refuses after all sorts of negotiations and there are violations of the act, that they would ever go that route. We have been able, I think, just in the short time that we have had the office, to negotiate a number of settlements for complainants and issues that have to be resolved. So we do use that approach as much as possible, but there are still a lot of outstanding issues.

I believe, Ms. Harnum, that the Member has raised the issue of hiring legal help because of a statement that you made that through this protocol. We are, in a sense, in violation of our own act which gives you power to conduct investigations. You, yourself, made a comment that we are in fact in violation of our own legislation. Is that correct?

Yes, the way I understand it, the way that the legislation is written, it says the Languages Commissioner should conduct investigations. Now, for the reasons I explained that there are only two people in our office and we could not possibly do all the investigations, I agreed to the original protocol. In some cases that works well so I don't have a problem with it. It is in the cases where it doesn't work, and I can't go any farther, that I have a problem with it because then I can't resolve it. Hopefully this legislature can provide some direction on what authority they mean for the Languages Commissioner. When they said conduct investigations, what did they mean? I don't think it should be simply up to GNWT, to the Executive, to decide what those powers should be. I think it should be up to the whole Legislature to decide what those powers should be. So I was not indicating that I am heading towards court to try to sort that out. It has been done in other jurisdictions where they have had disputes about it, but I hope I won't have to go that route.

I did not mean to interrupt the Member but, Mr. Patterson, do you have any further comments? Okay, anybody else then on the issue of the official languages report, "Meeting the Challenge" and other tabled documents related to official languages? Mr. Antoine.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. The office of the Languages Commissioner to the Legislative Assembly is an important one. Just going through the documents of the previous years, the first annual report of the Languages Commissioner, the executive summary hits on some key areas. There are a number of recommendations that were made there by the Languages Commissioner. Some of these recommendations are quite substantial and they are important for the development of the official languages in the Northwest Territories.

In other workings of the Legislative Assembly, we have standing committees that look at certain problems and develop recommendations on these problems, how to solve them and what the government should do about it. These recommendations are introduced in this Legislative Assembly in forms of motions. Therefore it gives direction to the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories to do work on these recommendations. However, in the Languages Commissioner's case there were a number of recommendations made last year which do not have a standing committee to report to or a body to report to so these recommendations could be put into the House and, therefore, we've given direction to the Legislative Assembly to deal with these important recommendations. There is something missing there, as far as I'm concerned, that the Languages Commissioner does not have a body or a structure to deal with.

We noticed that when we were dealing with it in the Legislative Assembly in the Standing Committee on Finance where the budget of the Languages Commissioner is attached to the Legislative Assembly. However, the Languages Commissioner is not required to be there to defend her budget, therefore we were not able to question her on how she could expend the funds that are going to be requested in the Assembly. So there is something there in the mechanism of the Legislative Assembly when it comes down to the Languages Commissioner.

In the Languages Commissioner's opening remarks, she also made mention of the fact that she makes recommendation to establish a standing committee on official languages, which the Languages Commissioner may report to as required. So there is a recommendation by the Languages Commissioner to form a standing committee on official languages. In her first annual report, she made mention of that as well. In there it was not specifically a standing committee on official languages, she also indicated that the Legislative Assembly establish a standing committee on official languages or assign this responsibility to an existing committee, and that the Languages Commissioner and official language unit report regularly to this committee, and that the annual report of the Languages Commissioner to be referred to this committee for review. This is one of the recommendations that was made last year. In her opening remarks she also makes reference to that. I think I would agree with that. I'm not too certain whether it be a standing committee on official languages. It should be an existing body, perhaps, that she could report to. That way her recommendations could be introduced into the House, made into a motion, and then the Legislative Assembly could take action on it, giving direction to the government to take on the direction that the Commissioner sees to be important.

I'm just making comments on what I think should happen, Mr. Chairman, in this area. If the Languages Commissioner would like to elaborate on those points that I'm making, I certainly will be interested to hear what the Languages Commissioner has to say about this. Thank you.

No real question as such, but the whole issue of the independence of the commissioner and the need to have some relationship to some body. Maybe you would like to comment on that.