Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its Report on the Review of the 2007-2008 Annual Report of the Languages Commissioner and commends it to the House.
Introduction
The Standing Committee on Government Operations met on September 28, 2009, to review the 2007-2008 Annual Report of the Languages Commissioner and the special report Speaking of Health: Official Languages as part of Quality Health Care in the Northwest Territories. The committee would like to thank the former Languages Commissioner, Ms. Shannon Gullberg, for presenting these reports. The committee would also like to thank the recently appointed Languages Commissioner, Ms. Sarah Jerome, for attending.
In 2008, the committee urged the Languages Commissioner to conduct more outreach and visit
more communities in order to promote her role and office. In her 2007-2008 Annual Report, the Commissioner noted that she had completed a number of radio interviews; however, she personally visited only Behchoko. The committee was disappointed with this limited amount of travel and is pleased to see that the current Languages Commissioner has already begun attending public functions and offering presentations in communities.
The committee looks forward to hearing more about her activities in future annual reports. The committee is concerned that members of the minority language groups may not be aware of the Commissioner and her role. Her responsibility is to ensure that the rights, status and privileges of the speakers of each of the 11 official languages in the Northwest Territories are protected within government institutions. One of the mandated activities of the Languages Commissioner is to investigate complaints from NWT residents on language issues. The Commissioner received only two complaints in the past two years and relatively few inquiries: 11 inquiries in 2006-2007 and 21 in 2007-2008. One committee member observed that, in his role as MLA, he had received five or six complaints on language issues in 2007-2008. The committee would like to see the Commissioner promote her role so that people with language concerns would bring inquiries and complaints directly to the Languages Commissioner.
I will now turn the floor over to my colleague, Mr. Glen Abernethy, to finish reading the rest of the report. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.