Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I welcome this bill wholeheartedly. The people of the Northwest Territories wanted a tool to assist them in keeping their languages alive, the aboriginal communities, especially. This may not be the best tool, but it's the best tool we could come up with. Languages do belong to the people. The governments of yesterday had a lot to down with the loss of aboriginal languages, especially in this country and in the Northwest Territories. Our government saw fit to change some of the rules to improve the act to assist the aboriginal language communities to revitalize their languages.
At the end of the day, Mr. Chairman, all this bill is a tool and a commitment form this government that they will assist the language communities in retaining the languages, revitalizing the language that are on the brink and develop new languages consistent with the devolution of the English language, the dominant language in Western society.
Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to be a Member of this Legislative Assembly and the opportunity to chair the special committee that worked on the review of the official languages and making the recommendations that this House accepted, all 65 of them. In record time, if I could mention that, Mr. Chairman. Again, I'd like to thank the language communities, the special interest groups and all those people we consulted with and who took the time to consult with us. I'd like to thank the committee Members; my colleagues, Mr. McLeod, Mr. Bell, Mr. Krutko; Minister Allen and his staff; Benoit Boutin; the Clerk, David Hamilton, and his office; Denise and all the other people who have put their hearts and souls into the work that took two years.
I look forward to giving you the territorial assent for this bill and make the new Official Languages Act a law in this territory so that we could put in stone the commitment of this government to assist the language communities to ensure that the diversification of cultures and languages will thrive in the future of the Northwest Territories to make it truly a multi-cultural society. I think that's one thing as Northerners we all aspire to and this bill will assist in doing that. Mahsi cho, Mr. Chairman.
---Applause