Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its report on the 2014 Review of the Official Languages Act and commends it to the House.

Introduction

The Standing Committee on Government Operations, the “standing committee” or “SCOGO,” is pleased to report on its 2014 Review of the Official Languages Act.

The Official Languages Act – A Brief History

In June 1984 the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories passed its first Official Languages Ordinance. Modeled on federal official languages legislation, the territorial legislation guaranteed that members of the public could

access government programs and services equally, in either French or English.

Additionally, the ordinance identified Chipewyan, Cree, Dogrib, Loucheux – Gwich’in, North Slavey, South Slavey and Inuktitut as the official Aboriginal languages of the Northwest Territories. The ordinance provided that regulations could be used to prescribe the use of an Aboriginal language for any and all of the official purposes of the Territories. This included prescribing the circumstances under which an Aboriginal language may or shall be used and declaring an area to be one in which the regulations apply with respect to the use of an Aboriginal language.

In 1985 the Official Languages Ordinance became the Official Languages Act of the Northwest Territories.

In 1989 a Special Committee on Aboriginal Languages was established as recommended by the NWT Task Force on Aboriginal Languages. The special committee report, dated April 1990, included draft amendments to the Official Languages Act that, with some modifications, were passed into law in 1990.

As a result of the 1990 amendments, in addition to English and French, the act recognized Chipewyan; Cree; Gwich’in; Inuktitut, which was specified to include Inuinnaqtun and Inuvialuktun; Slavey, which was specified as North Slavey and South Slavey; and Dogrib, now known as Tlicho, as official languages of the Northwest Territories. The Aboriginal languages were given equal status within all institutions of the Legislative Assembly and the Government of the Northwest Territories, as defined in the act and any subsequent regulations. In addition, the act was amended to establish the Office of the Languages Commissioner.

Mr. Speaker, I would now pass the reading of the report to my colleague Mr. Dolynny.