Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was a Member of the ABC committee that reported to this House on the work of the Languages Commissioner. Members will recall that many of the comments that we made in fact substantiated the sentiments just expressed by the Member for Yellowknife North, that this was a very important place and the use of languages in this Chamber was an example to the rest of Canada and to the rest of the world, in many ways.

When I looked at Mr. Patterson's motion asking for a review of all our language programs, he was looking for the seconder of his motion. Being somebody who doesn't always have his feet in concrete and is prepared to look at things or re-examine, I said sure, I don't mind seconding the motion to examine the things we do because I think we should always be reviewing the things we do to see if there is a way of doing them better.

I believe it's in line with the sentiment expressed sometimes that we are very, very quick to impose discipline on all other kinds of people but we never look at ourselves. I thought that the report of the Languages Commissioner never really gave us good, concrete reasons. It wasn't a real review, if you like. It was just a catalogue of sentiments about what went on here and whether it was the best use of money, and whether we could be doing things with that money in other program areas. That's not the purpose of this motion, as it has been amended, Mr. Speaker.

What it does is say that, as a responsible Assembly, where we have new realities to face with regard to our funding and the ways we have to serve people, it is always good to review. In light of the statement just made by our Premier, if you recall when we looked at the main estimates for the executive offices program of the Executive, we were told about the tremendous struggle that is taking place with regard to the Canada/NWT official languages agreement, the fact that we were asked to take a more realistic look at our demands. The $30 million we asked for and the $9 million counter offer made by the federal government has led us to a position now where we don't have the kinds of money that we would like to have to solve all our problems.

I agree with all the sentiments that have been expressed about the importance of language as it is used in this House, but I'm not the kind of individual who says, in light of everything that happens around us with regard to the way we're funded, that we shouldn't always be examining, reviewing and seeing if we can do things better than we do.

It's for that reason that I have no problem in seconding Mr. Patterson's motion and also will be quite happy, in fact, to support it when it comes to a vote. Thank you.