Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Scheduling statutory reviews
Bill 63 would match the timing of statutory reviews of the Act with the schedule of the Legislative Assembly. This means a review would happen within the first two years of every other Assembly rather than every five years.
Several stakeholders were worried about the change. The FFT believed it could delay a review indefinitely if the Assembly sat indefinitely. However, the territory's Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act says the Assembly can only last for four years so a review would still happen regularly, about every eight years.
The Languages Commissioner was concerned that waiting so long between the reviews might not give enough chances to improve the law. But committee believes that doing the review in the first two years of an Assembly will help make sure any changes suggested during the review can become law in the remaining two years of the Assembly. Committee does not want to repeat the experience of the last two reviews, neither of which led to legislative changes.
Other suggestions to support official languages
Committee heard several other ideas to improve the Official Languages Act including:
- Ensuring the Languages Commissioner, the Minister, and the Languages Board develop policies collaboratively;
- Requiring government to take steps to support official languages communities;
- Requiring each public body to have performance measures on how well they are following the Act; and
- Making the Premier, rather than the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment, responsible for the Official Languages Act.
Committee also received a suggestion that would not necessarily require legislative change. A member of the public recommended that the government to set up a language resource center in the large communities. These centers would document and preserve each Indigenous official language, and such resources for future generations to revitalize the language.
While these suggestions were out of scope for the review of Bill 63, committee hopes they will be studied the next time the Act is reviewed.
Committee Amended one Clause
Clause 10 of Bill 63 requires the Languages Commissioner to provide more information on her annual report. The goal of the clause is to ensure useful information is available to the public. One subclause, as originally drafted, would have required the annual report to disclose "what recommendations, requests and applications were made by the Languages Commissioner respecting each complaint."
The Languages Commissioner was concerned that this wording could cause a complainant to be identified in an annual report and, if so, discourage residents from making formal complaints. Committee was also worried that the Languages Commissioner could be led to make her recommendations more broadly worded to protect the complainants' privacy. Committee felt this was not a desirable outcome, potentially undermining the effectiveness of the recommendations.
Committee therefore agreed to and passed a motion to amend the subclause. The amendment required a summary of recommendations, requests, and applications, rather than the exact text respecting each complaint. Committee believes this change will allow the Commissioner to make specific recommendations but then summarize those in the annual report, reducing the possibility that a complainant might be identified.
Mr. Speaker, I'd like to hand this over to the MLA for Yellowknife North. Mahsi.