Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The 2010-2011 budget for the office of the Languages Commissioner was $220,000, up by $77,000 over the previous year. Approximately $35,000 remained unspent because an administrative assistant position was not filled until close to the end of the fiscal year.

At the public hearing, the Commissioner noted that additional funds were received to create and publish a directory of interpreters and translators for all official languages. While some funds again remained unspent, Ms. Jerome said that all of the outstanding surplus would be taken up in the first quarter of 2012...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Committee Report 3-17(3), Government Operations Report on the Review of the Office of the Northwest Territories Languages Commissioner Annual Report 2010-2011; Committee Report 4-17(3), Government Operations Report on the Review of the Status Report of the Auditor General of Canada to the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly; Committee Report 5-17(3), Rules and Procedures Report on the Introduction of Electronic Petitions in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories; and Tabled Document 2-17(3), Commissioner’s...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to just explain this motion a little bit. Certainly, the Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission has made some improvements. They were audited, the first in this group of departments that were audited by the Auditor General. I think it was in 2006, if I remember rightly. So they’ve had quite a bit of time to look at the recommendations from the Auditor General’s report in 2006, and have had a fair bit of time to respond, and from the Auditor General’s remarks they’ve responded quite well. But that said, there were still some gaps, and this motion goes to...

Question has been called. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Any further comments to Tabled Document 2? Seeing none, does committee agree we have concluded consideration of Tabled Document 2-17(3)?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to make a couple of comments here. This finding of the Auditor General is quite disturbing, I think. It also is an opportunity for the government to recognize that we have sort of a systemic problem within the government that’s been identified by the Auditor General. The work that the Auditor General does is thorough. I find it fair and I find that they often see things that we don’t see ourselves, and that’s the value of having an outside organization look at our work and look at what we’re doing.

There are three key barriers that have been identified by the...

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.

Question has been called. Motion is carried.

---Carried

Does committee agree that we have concluded consideration of Committee Report 5-17(3)?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for his response. What the Minister has outlined is a good solution, to look internally first and then see whether or not you can accomplish it.

The other thing that isn’t mentioned in the actions that I have read, I don’t see a specific mention of prevention. I’d like to know from the Minister if that is a focus of this particular action plan and it just happens to be a word that isn’t in there. Is it represented by the particular actions in this action plan? Thank you.