Mahsi cho, Madam Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, going back to my Member's statement on language. Can the Minister share with us what work is being done to having more official languages on NWT signs and landmarks? Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Currently, we have official language guidelines, and these guidelines lay out the signage rules for government buildings. In addition to English and French, exterior building signs are to be translated into the local official languages. For the main directory board signs, the ones you see inside, the official Indigenous language appropriate to the local area should appear before English and French. Currently, the department under the Indigenous languages action plan, there's so many different names here, I can't keep them straight, but the Indigenous languages revitalization action plan, essentially, there's a lot that's going to be happening within the next two years. I just looked at the guidelines, actually, and the copy I found was from before division, and it's my understanding that that is the most recent copy. Some of the work we're going to be doing in the next two years is updating those, as well as updating the regulations. Infrastructure is doing work to update their guidelines around signage on buildings. The standing committee, with the assistance of the department, is going to be looking at the Official Languages Act. In the next couple of years, there's going to be a lot happening in terms of updating the way we display Indigenous languages in the territory. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you for the response from the Minister. That's encouraging. I think, if our ancestors are watching, I think they would be very, very happy to hear that. My next question is: would the Minister be open to having an interactive "welcome" and "good-bye," so to speak, in all our official languages at our points of entry? What I mean by that, our visitors' centres and our border at the NWT-Alberta border as well?
I am not quite sure what the Member means by "interactive," if that's the people working at the centres or if that is like a touch screen type thing. That would really be up to the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment who runs those. I would definitely encourage it. I know that at the north of 60, for the 60th parallel visitors' centre, when you enter the park, we have the big sign, which is strictly in English, but then, as soon as you enter the park area, the sign includes all the Indigenous languages.
Thank you for that response from the Minister again. Encouraging. My last question for the Minister goes to language workshops. It's applicable to all of our interpreters who are assisting right now as I speak. Can the Minister commit to having more workshops for our language interpreters, especially assisting with legal, medical, and scientific terminology in the life of this Assembly?
The interpreters at the Legislative Assembly do an amazing job, and I'm sometimes in awe of all the languages that are spoken in this building. It is really like nowhere else. No other legislature around the world, I'm sure. To the Member's point, one of the additional actions that I discussed under the action plan is going to be updating the different terminologies. ECE is going to undertake that with Indigenous language experts and update the different terminologies for the legal terms, medical terms, et cetera, and are going to provide support to interpreters and arrange training opportunities. Just the kind of work that the Member is talking about is the kind of work that we look forward to doing in the next couple of years.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
