Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Nadli.

Past Reviews of the Official Languages Act

In 2000 a Special Committee on the Review of the Official Languages Act, SCROLA, was established by the Legislative Assembly to undertake a comprehensive review of the Official Languages Act.

As a result of this review, the 14th Legislative

Assembly amended the act in 2003, clearly identifying Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey and Tlicho as the official languages of the Northwest Territories. These amendments changed the roles of the Minister responsible for Official Languages and the

Languages Commissioner and established the Official Languages Board and the Aboriginal Languages Revitalization Board.

Section 35 (1) of the Official Languages Act, as amended in 2003, obligated a committee of the Legislative Assembly to review the provisions and operation of the Official Languages Act at the next session following December 31, 2007.

That review culminated in a report by the Standing Committee on Government Operations of the 16th Legislative Assembly entitled “Final Report on the Review of the Official Languages Act 2008-2009 – Reality Check: Securing a Future for the Official Languages of the Northwest Territories,” “the 2009 report.” The response of the GNWT to that report is a matter of great concern for the current standing committee and will be addressed in this report.

The Committee’s Mandate

The mandate for the Standing Committee’s review of the Official Languages Act comes from the act itself. Section 35(2) mandates that the review shall include an examination of the administration and implementation of the act, the effectiveness of its provisions, the achievement of the objectives stated in its preamble, and may include any recommendations for changes to the act. Simply put, the committee is obligated to examine program management and delivery, the strength of the legislative and policy framework and how effectively the roles defined in legislation are contributing to achieving the vision articulated in the preamble to the act.

Section 35(1) requires that a review of the act be undertaken in five-year intervals following the December 31, 2007, date. Accordingly, a review of the act should have started in early 2013. Due to mitigating circumstances, the current review did not take place until 2014.

The Committee’s Approach to the Review

Although the act prescribes what the standing committee must consider under the review, it allows great latitude for the committee to determine how the review will be undertaken.

Previous reviews have focused largely on the management and delivery of official languages programs and services. In the 2009 review, the 16th Assembly’s Standing Committee on

Government Operations chose to focus on the following areas: strengthening legislation and policy; improvement of management and accountability; effective and adequate financing; enhancing service delivery; building human resource capacity; supporting research and development for official languages; increasing and improving Aboriginal languages education and promoting official languages. This approach resulted in an exhaustive review of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment’s, ECE,

official languages program management and delivery, which resulted in over 70 recommendations and sub-recommendations for improvement.

In designing the 2014 review, the committee was cognizant of the massive amount of work that went into the 2009 review. This review spanned two years and involved extensive travel, consultation and expense. The committee did not want to duplicate the efforts of the previous standing committee by doing another review of the same magnitude, particularly in light of what the committee views as an inadequate response from the GNWT to the previous review.

The committee was also aware that the department conducted not one but two language symposia, involving the key language stakeholders in the Northwest Territories, in the period since the 2009 review. The committee was, therefore, concerned about consultation fatigue in the language communities.

The committee also felt that the timing of such an expansive consultation was not optimal. When the committee began its review, ECE was in the process of establishing an Aboriginal Languages Secretariat. The committee saw little advantage in consulting with the Aboriginal languages communities before the completion of this initiative.

Instead, the committee chose to pick up where the 2009 review left off and build upon the work of the previous committee by ensuring accountability for the work that was previously done. The committee conducted in-depth assessment of the work done by ECE in response to the 2009 report and held an in camera briefing with the Honourable Jackson Lafferty, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and his officials regarding the committee review of the Official Languages Act.

Mr. Speaker, through you, I’d like to pass this report on to my colleague Ms. Bisaro. Thank you.