Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. First off, for the principle of substantive equality and the idea of Indigenous language rights being remedial in nature is something committee stole from the federal Indigenous Languages Act. They've actually surpassed us in the way they are treating rights. And right now the vast majority of complaints to our Official Languages Commissioner are about French language, they're not about Indigenous languages. And the right is, you know, it's -- you will have significant demand in the area and then it depends on the nature of the office which to me, Madam Chair, is just not really a right. It's really hard to know even if you have a right, let alone if you are able to complain about it. I know there is hesitation on the GNWT to create, you know, all-encompassing rights similar to French but I believe we can do this better with technology. There's a way to make sure interpreters are available all the time to people when they walk into a hospital, when they walk into an office, when they're dealing with child and family services. It needs to be clear that they have that right, and there's an interpreter centre set up. It doesn't -- and I think with technology we could make sure that is occurring. And we can give Indigenous languages the same right to service that French has. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Rylund Johnson on Committee Motion 446-19(2): Committee Report 49-19(2): Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the 2021-22 Review of the Official Languages Act - Right to Receive Language Services, Carried
In the Legislative Assembly on March 30th, 2023. See this statement in context.
Committee Motion 446-19(2): Committee Report 49-19(2): Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the 2021-22 Review of the Official Languages Act - Right to Receive Language Services, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
March 30th, 2023
Page 6109
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