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.