One of the studies that you referred to in the annual report -- actually, we did two studies with employees.
One was where we contacted the policy sections of each department and asked them what policies they had in place for implementing the Official Languages Act. This was done almost immediately after I started my job. It was shortly after that we received our direction from GNWT that we weren't allowed to talk to the employees, so then we had to direct everything through the deputy ministers, but we managed to slip this one by before this change in policy came about.
We talked to people in the policy sections and we said, are you aware of the Official Languages Act, do you know that it exists, do you know what provisions affect your department and do you have any policies for implementing it?
In talking to all of those people - the report is in chapter six in the special studies report - it showed that some people cared a lot, some people didn't care at all and a lot of people were confused. Maybe they had heard that there was an Official Languages Act, but they weren't sure what was in there. They weren't exactly sure what their own obligations were as employees. Most of them said they don't have policies within their department for the implementation. So one of the things that we have pushed really hard for within government departments is to say, what are the policies within the department for implementing the Official Languages Act? So we have followed up that way, and by doing that policy section survey, we sort of brought the Official Languages Act to the attention of all of those policy sections.
The other thing that we did was that we sent out 5,000 questionnaires to government employees asking them, did they know that there was an Official Languages Act and did they know what obligations there were, what were the official languages of the NWT and that sort of thing, and the report of that study, again, is in chapter six.
We found again that a lot of people said they had some awareness but they were not really specifically aware of what that means for me in my job. Does this document have to be translated into eight official languages, or what is this about 11 languages; I thought we had eight? But I say, no, there are 11. We have eight, but don't forget Inuvialuktun, Innuinaqtun and Slavey comes in at least two versions, so we have 11. People are still not really clear on exactly what it means. How do we get information out to the public? How do we manage in an office where we have got one or two staff in the region but we have got four languages spoken in this community? How do we deal with that? There are still a lot of things that employees have questions about and the public has questions about, so by sending out 5,000 questionnaires to government employees, we made them start thinking about the Official Languages Act.
So that was part of our public information for employees within the government, and then outside of the government, we have done lots of things on radio and lots of interviews on radio. We now have a major public information campaign going on. All of the rights that are in the Official Languages Act have now been translated in three radio spots in every official language, 11 languages, and they will be playing on the radio for this next month because it is Aboriginal Languages Month and French Week from the 20 to the 26. So all the rights that people have under the Official Languages Act are now going to be on the radio in every community in the territories to let people know what their rights are under the act.
We are sending out information packages to all of the schools. I think all of the MLAs received them. If you haven't received it yet, it is in your mail.
So we have done a lot to try and get people to think about the fact that there is an Official Languages Act and to start asking questions. What does that mean? What does that mean for me as an employee and what does that mean for me as a member of the public?
So we do get a lot of people calling because of that public information that we are sending out. They will call back and say, what exactly is this all about or do I have a right to this or that, so then we explain in more detail to people.
So that is basically what we have done to try and inform people about the Official Languages Act.