Paul Delorey

Thank you. The Official Languages Commissioner will report to the Assembly, of course, but we can do that once we meet with the Languages Commissioner.

I might just mention that the budget for the Official Languages Commissioner used to be a lot higher but that office was very quiet for a lot of years and we have somebody now in that office that’s really wanting to promote official languages and her role in it. So when she requested the funding, we were more than happy to give her some more money to promote that office and we’d like to see the Languages Commissioner do a lot more with official...

We looked at her whole budget request and identified some areas where we thought that the request that she was wanting to initiate was maybe outside of her mandate, so some of the initiatives that she had -- and I don’t have a list of them right in front of me here -- the initiatives that she had proposed to want to take on, some of them fit clearly within her mandate, so that’s what we want to do, is help her out with the ones that are identified as fitting within her mandate and giving her the money to do it. We had lots of supports from Members that want to give her more money so that she...

Yes. We’re going to go over with her the list of initiatives that she had proposed and maybe try and give her a hand in identifying which ones fit within her mandate and encouraging her to take on a lot of initiatives that promote her office and what she can do for official languages that fit within her mandate.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have on my left Mr. Olin Lovely, director of corporate services, and to my right is Tim Mercer, Clerk of the Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present the 2011-2012 main estimates for the Legislative Assembly.

The upcoming fiscal year is perhaps the most unique in the four-year cycle of the Legislative Assembly. It will be marked by the last five months of the 16th Assembly and the first six months of the 17th Assembly.

This year the Assembly is requesting operational funding to the tune of $18.9 million. This constitutes an increase of just over 9.7 percent compared to last year’s budget of $17.22 million. This year’s increases are the result of several important initiatives.

By far the most...

Yes, we can look at doing that. When we met with the Official Languages Commissioner, in presenting her budget there was also concern raised of why there’s a lack of interest. I think that she made it quite clear that she thinks that there’s a lot of room for education and educating the public about what the role of the Official Languages Commissioner is and how the public can issue complaints and that sort of thing. We buy fully into her thoughts about the ability to be able to promote her office and educate the public, maybe, as to what her office can do for them. But we will commit to...

I missed that last question that the honourable Member had.

We’re working with her. She was hired as an independent Commissioner of the Assembly, but we’re going to work with her and we want to give her the funds to be able to do the work that she should be doing as the Commissioner of Official Languages. We’re going to be working with her; however, it’s her role to take on her own mandate because she’s an independent Commissioner, so we can’t tell her what to do but we want to work with her.

Good afternoon, colleagues. Welcome back to the Chamber. Colleagues, I’d like to draw your attention to the visitor’s gallery to the presence of our Clerk, Mr. Tim Mercer, and his lovely little daughter Mira visiting today.

---Applause

Good afternoon, colleagues. Welcome back to the Chamber. Before we begin I would like to draw your attention to the visitor’s gallery to a face that’s probably familiar to many of you. Mr. David Hamilton is in the House today, former Clerk of the Assembly.

---Applause