Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Minister responsible for the Official Languages Act, I can say that our department, ECE, I don't believe we are legislatively required to provide language interpretation training, but we have taken it upon ourselves to work towards that goal. Right now, there is a lack of Indigenous language speakers in the territory, as the Member knows. It makes it difficult to train interpreters when there are not enough people who speak the language to pick from. There are a number of things happening right now. A lot of those are helping us work towards training enough language speakers so that we can begin to better train language interpreters. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[Translation] When we are speaking in our language, without the interpreters, if we don't use our language, we will lose our language. I would like to ask the Minister at this time [Translation ends] [microphone turned off] ...partnerships in the past over the years, even through the Language Bureau back in 1990s, what is the responsibility of Indigenous governments or organizations on the language interpreter training? I understand that there are set allocated funds to these groups. Are there set targets on an annual basis, five-year, 10-year plan, to produce these qualified interpreters from the region?

I don't believe there are target numbers. It's a difficult area to create those sort of metrics for. There is money that flows through ECE directly to Indigenous governments, and they are free to do what they wish with it. They use it for language training, all sorts of different events. We don't have control over what targets they might set. We do have our action plan to help revitalize languages. In that, we lay out a number of steps we want to take to help get to that point.

The Minister alluded to an action plan. Obviously, I would like to see that plan of action from ECE, more specifically on interpreter training that is available to us. On another note, I talk about short-term, long-term goals of this ECE department with respect to working with the Indigenous governments' organizations. Question to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment: I understand that there is a five-year language plan. What is the status on this plan?

I can get back to the Member with more specifics on that. I actually have the second half of my languages briefing scheduled for next week. I know that we are partway through that plan. It was only a few years ago that the department really put together this division and created this NWT Indigenous languages framework and action plan because we recognized the need for concrete action. There are languages that, within 10 years, could just be not spoken anymore unless we take some serious action.

There are a number of things that have been done. We have scholarships for students who wish to learn languages. We have a mentor-apprentice program to help partner people together with fluent speakers to help them gain fluency. We are looking at additional programs that we might be able to develop. We have a partnership with the University of Victoria, which has a long history and a lot of experience in developing language programs, to help us get to that next step, as well. We support language programs in communities. I know in Inuvik, there is the Gwich'in immersion program. There are immersion programs in Fort Providence. There are immersion programs in the Tlicho area. There are multiple things going on around the territory.

This is one part of the department. There are some people who say that culture should be its own department; Language and culture should be its own department because it is very important. I want to assure the Member that it is an area I am focusing on. I think it's vital to the success of the territory as a whole. Language is the foundation of culture. I am fully committed to doing whatever we can to help revitalize it.

Masi, Mr. Speaker. I am glad the Minister is recognizing the importance of language and cultural preservation. It should be. I fully support a stand-alone department. My final question, basically, is: we do have interpreters here in our booths, as you know, with so many years of experience. Most of them are on the verge of retirement. I would like to know if there is a plan in place, either now or if the department is working on one, that can be provided to me. In the next five years, next 10 years, how is that going to look? We have valuable services here. They are going to be retiring sooner than later. We need to be ready for that for the community. Is there a plan in place, or is the department working on that, as well? Masi.

There is a plan. There is an action plan. I can get the Member more information. Just to let you know, the department is very supportive of this. In the 2019-2020 fiscal year, the GNWT provided $20.4 million for Indigenous language education initiatives, and 5.9 of that was federally funded. The vast majority of that comes from the territorial government. A quarter of the funding was distributed directly to regional Indigenous governments for language revitalization initiatives; $9 million was committed to implementing NWT action plan that I spoke of earlier; and $11.6 million was allocated to implementing the Indigenous language in education policy, which supports the development of Indigenous languages in schools. There is a lot of work that is happening. I wish we could say we were further along. One of the important things we need is partnerships. We need speakers. We need people to want to get into these programs and learn the language. Part of this is talking about the importance of it and trying to get our youth involved, as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.