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.