Thank you, Mr. Ootes. The chair will recognize the chairman of the standing committee, Mr. Dent.

Standing Committee On Accountability And Oversight Comments

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight conducted a public hearing on Bill 31, An Act to Amend the Official Languages Act, No. 3 on October 7, 2003 in Yellowknife.

The committee would like to thank Ms. Sabet Biscaye, Ms. Dorothy Minoza, and Ms. Betty Harnum who were able to appear at the hearing despite the short notice. Members would also like to thank the NWT Literacy Council, the Gwich'in Social and Cultural Institute and the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre for their written submissions.

The committee recognizes that stakeholders were given a very limited opportunity to prepare comments on the bill. Had the government introduced a bill that responded adequately to the recommendations of the Special Committee on the Review of the Official Languages Act in the June 2003 sitting, the committee and the public would have had time to properly review it. Instead, the committee was put in the position of having to choose between proceeding with Bill 31 despite the limited time for public review, or leaving this important legislation to the next Assembly. Because Bill 31 in most aspects reflects the recommendations of the special committee, which undertook a very comprehensive consultation process, and because of concerns that the next assembly may not have an opportunity to revisit this legislation for some time, the committee chose to proceed with reporting this bill back to the House as the better of two less than ideal options.

Mr. Chairman, the most significant change in Bill 31 from the recommendations of the special committee is the creation of an official languages board in addition to an aboriginal languages revitalization board. Both Members and those who made submissions to the committee questioned the need for the official languages board, which was not part of the special committee's recommendations. The Minister indicated that this board is needed to provide all official language communities with the opportunity to advise and make recommendations to the Minister on the administration and delivery of services by government institutions. The committee was put in the difficult position of deciding whether to support the creation of this second board in the absence of research and consultation substantiating the need for it. Left with this choice, Members preferred to err on the side of providing an opportunity for all language groups to have representation on a board, and therefore did not propose any amendments to this part of the bill.

Ms. Minoza and the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre questioned the need for the aboriginal languages revitalization board, and suggested they would have preferred resources be directed to community or regional language groups instead. The committee respectfully disagrees with the suggestion that the board will not be a useful resource for community and regional language groups, and notes that the recommendation to have this board was arrived at after two years of research and consultations with all language groups by the special committee.

Ms. Biscaye and Ms. Harnum raised concerns that the responsibilities of the Minister responsible for official languages are not broad enough. For example, the Minister's responsibilities include the promotion of official languages education, but do not clearly include the promotion of official languages in other government institutions such as courts and health facilities. The Minister's responsibilities are also limited to GNWT policies and programs that relate to the administration of this act. The committee would like to see this expanded so that the responsibilities include all GNWT policies and programs that relate to official languages, whether or not they relate specifically to the administration of this act. At the appropriate time, Members will be supporting amendments that will broaden the responsibilities of the Minister.

Ms. Harnum raised some specific issues about how language funding is being spent and the accountability for that spending. The committee acknowledges that these are valid concerns, but believes they would be more appropriately addressed by other special committee recommendations rather than by amendments to this act.

The Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre expressed concerns that Inuktitut will be continued as an official language. The centre is concerned that there is a potential for Inuit specific language money that could otherwise be used for Inuvialuktun and Innuinaqtun to be diverted to a small group of Inuktitut speakers. The majority of Members agreed that it would be unfair to remove Inuktitut at this time without consultation with Inuktitut speakers in the NWT.

The NWT Literacy Council, Ms. Biscaye and committee Members questioned how the Minister will go about prescribing representatives from each language community. Ms. Biscaye underlined the need for representatives to be accountable back to their language communities, and for this to be reflected in policies or guidelines if not in legislation. Members and the NWT Literacy Council asked about how representation will be sought from the English language community in particular. The Minister and his staff advised that, with the exception of English, there are specific organizations for each of the language communities that have been working with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, and that will likely become the prescribed representatives under the act. The Minister and his staff admitted that more thought needs to be given to how the English language community will be represented. Members will look forward to hearing how this issue is resolved.

Ms. Biscaye also suggested there is a need to change the references to some of the Dene languages in the act which are not the proper names for those languages. She did stress that further research and consultation is needed before this can be done. Members were pleased that the Minister indicated his interest in pursuing this research, and would encourage the next assembly to ensure this does take place.

This concludes the committee's opening comments on Bill 31. Individual Members may have additional questions or comments as we proceed. Following the committee's review, a motion was carried to report Bill 31, An Act to Amend the Official Languages Act, to the assembly as ready for Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Does the Minister wish to bring in witnesses? Mr. Ootes.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Does the committee agree?

Sergeant-at-Arms, escort the witnesses in, please.

For the record, Mr. Minister, would you please introduce your witnesses. Mr. Ootes.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I missed the comment.

Could you introduce your witnesses, for the record, please?

On my left is Mark Aitken, legal counsel; and, on my right is Dan Daniels, assistant deputy minister responsible for education and culture.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. The chair will open the floor to general comments. Mr. Nitah.

General Comments

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to speak in support of Bill 31 and I also want to congratulate the Minister for bringing this bill forward. This late in the game we're still very happy that we're able to bring it in front of this House during the life of this Assembly. I spoke over the years of my satisfaction and the concerns raised by my constituents that the issue of language was really all over the place. Funding was kind of piecemeal, inconsistent. There was really no roadmap to follow. Nobody was in charge. With this bill it kind of puts the languages communities back into the driver's seat.

I had the good fortune of sitting on the Special Committee on the Review of the Official Languages Act. We did tour a lot of the Northwest Territories over the last while. We heard a lot of very emotional, very passionate statements being made. It was really good to meet all the people out there.

I think the report that the Special Committee on the Review of the Official Languages Act did was very thorough. We heard a lot of statements and messages, especially from the aboriginal people, that I think were very consistent. After a while you could pick out what was being said, right from the time we had our consultation hearings and meeting on the Hay River Reserve. We had an elder tell us that we couldn't separate language, we couldn't deal with language in isolation. We had to tie it to the land. It had to be tied to people. It had to be tied to history. Only then could we deal with languages.

So that was always in the forefront of our thinking. There are still many issues out there that were in our report that can't be covered under this act, but I'm hoping we'll see them come through in terms of policy or in the regulations. We also have some more research that has to be done in some areas. The Michif language is still out there floating in limbo. We recommended that it be recognized as a heritage language. It deserves to have some research done on it.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank some members of my community that came up. Especially Dorothy Minoza for coming to speak to the AOC. It was short notice and they managed to send some people.

In closing, I want to say that language revitalization has a long ways to go before we can consider it safe. Almost every aboriginal language out there, the use has declined. We have to do many things. We have to start looking at developing cultural centres, on-the-land programs, immersion programs. We need to start looking at language development. There are so many new words out there that need to be translated into an aboriginal language. We came across in the government a lot of examples of words that are circulating now in the English language that there are no words for it in the aboriginal languages.

We certainly have to focus on the youth and all this is going to require more funding. However, when we provide funding to the language communities we also have to realize that the language communities, the schools and this government have to be more accountable for language funding. It has to be spent on languages. Too often, we see the money being used for other things, for teachers, special needs teachers or things that have no real association with language. The first people that are let go in the schools once the money becomes a problem are the language instructors. To start with, the language instructors are underpaid, they're not given the credit that's due them.

We have a lot of things we have to do, but I think the passing of this bill will go a long way. It's a huge step and something that I will be supporting. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. General comments. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a Member of the special committee that travelled around the North to hear from language communities, to hear from interested residents, I have to say that it's particularly gratifying that this legislation has come before us now and will likely be passed before the 14th Assembly fades and goes off and the 15th Assembly takes over where it left off. This was one of the things that I felt was very important for us to finish so that we could have some sense of completion, so that the people of the Northwest Territories could recognize that after this 10-year review there would be an effort to improve the use of languages in the Northwest Territories.

I have to say that, I think, in our travels the one thing that I was most struck by, maybe, was the level of interest around the Territories, particularly in small communities. Particularly from aboriginal language groups. The concern about the loss of language and the realization, for me, Mr. Chairman, that there are generations of people who do not have use of the language anymore. The elders are typically hanging on to the language. But, Mr. Chairman, as they leave us, oftentimes their children have not kept up use of the language and, therefore, their children as well, in turn, do not have the language.

We are starting to see some revitalization of the languages in schools, but it's very difficult for the youngest children, school-age children, who come home and have parents who have lost their language.

The francophone community, it was also interesting, was very concerned about accountability of language funding. How it was being spent, where it was being spent and whether there was adequate reporting going on so that this money could be tracked and accounted for. They also, I think, were insistent that there be a Minister responsible for official languages; somebody that could be held to account. It was interesting to see for me that the francophone community was really concerned about the provision of services in their language, whereas some of the aboriginal language communities I think felt that it was much more important to concentrate, acknowledging that we have limited dollars, on revitalization of language. I can't remember who talked to us about this, but somebody made the point, a number of people made the point, that provision of service is fine and it is important, but there will be no one to use these services in these languages if we don't do something about revitalization of languages.

Mr. McLeod spoke of Daniel Sonfrere who spoke and presented to us on the Hay River Reserve. Indeed, he did feel that the focus couldn't be limited to just language, that in fact we had to ensure that it was linked with culture. The two could not be separated and government and the people had to make efforts to acknowledge this and recognize it.

I think for our part we had a lot of discussion as a committee about making sure that our recommendations were doable. There were many things that could have been done and I think we wanted to focus and concentrate on the things that we knew the government could achieve and would not get lost. We were very conscious of not wanting to have a report with very nice sounding, but seriously expensive recommendations that would gather dust on a shelf somewhere. I think we've achieved that. I think this bill is ambitious, but it's also reasonable in its scope and reasonable in its attempt at dealing with our language challenges.

As Mr. Nitah, I think, said, there are consequential amendments to come. We hope they will come to other bills; the Education Act, most notably. It will be up to this Assembly and the next Assembly to keep the Minister's feet to the fire to ensure that those actions are taken so that we can have a comprehensive overhaul of our language system and work and do what we can to make sure we don't lose our languages and make sure there are provisions of service in the official languages where it's required.

I think that's about all I have to say, Mr. Chairman, except again to reiterate that it's very gratifying as a Member of the committee to finally see this come forward. I want to thank, certainly, our committee chairman, Mr. Nitah, and all of our colleagues on the committee. We did a lot of hard work over the last two years. I thank all the people who showed real interest in coming out to make presentations to the committee. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Bell. General comments. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll keep it short, but I wanted to state for the record the concerns that we heard in committee through those presenters that were able to appear and those that sent in written submissions. Although we heard in the chairman's remarks to this bill, a concern we had to decide as a committee if because of the lack of time to consult with individuals on the addition of a second board, it was either we proceed with this or we decide if the 15th Assembly should do further work on it. But, as stated by many of my colleagues here that were on the committee, there was a lot of work done on this and it would be a shame to see it not move forward. As stated by other Members, it was good to see that the majority of recommendations made by the special committee are in this act and deserves to move forward and see completion, at least to the stage it's at, by this government.

Mr. Chairman, I myself, being Inuvialuit, fall into the category that Members speak about. My ability to speak my own language is very limited. I can understand when my parents would talk and I could repeat some words to them, but to actually carry on a conversation I'd be lost, Mr. Chairman. That's something that is of a concern when you look at the population of Inuvialuit left in the Northwest Territories. We are a minority amongst aboriginal peoples and it's important that we do continue to strive to ensure that our children have the ability to pick up the language, as well as the history and the culture of their people. I'm happy to say that through the education systems in the community of Inuvik they have language classes where I can have my children in there learning at a young age to speak their language. Hopefully at some time they'll be able to beat me in my ability to speak Inuvialuktun and maybe have a good conversation with their daduk, as we say in our language, and go forward from there. It especially hit me this past summer when my mother had said to me, speak to me in Inuvialuktun, and I couldn't. Not a complete sentence.

It's something that is timely and important for our children. So, excuse me, I must congratulate the government and the committee for their hard work. I apologize for this. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Roland. General comments. Does the committee agree to clause by clause?

Bill 31, An Act to Amend the Official Languages Act, No. 3, clause 1.

Clause 2.

Clause 3.

Clause 4.

Clause 5. Mr. Lafferty.