Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Finance. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Standing Committee on Government Operations put forward its report on official languages. One key recommendation from that report is to transform the GNWT as an employer into a creator of Indigenous languages speakers. This would be a game changer.
Mr. Speaker, the GNWT seems to have already started moving in this direction. The Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Action Plan includes a goal to develop an Indigenous language professional development program. So can the Minister provide a status update on this program, including targets for how many employees will receive training and when the training will become available. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it so happens as that report was being read in yesterday, I asked for a status report on action 2.2. I can say that the Department of Finance and ECE are working together with the Indigenous or interdepartmental Indigenous languages committee. We are on track to have that delivered sorry, to have the program ready for delivery third quarter of 20232024. So basically that would be this fall. I don't know obviously yet how many residents or how many employees would be participating in that, but would certainly be looking forward to promoting that to the public service in due course. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. Mr. Speaker, this is a good start but to reverse the decline of Indigenous language communities, the GNWT needs to do so much more. One key area for improvement is around the bilingual designation policy. The Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Action Plan talks about celebrating and recognizing employees speaking an Indigenous language but there's no reference to modernizing the bilingual designation policy, including to ensure that employees who speak or are learning their language are properly remunerated. So will the Minister make a commitment to revise and modernize the bilingual designation policy so that it better supports language revitalization as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what I'd like to say is I'm going to make a commitment to looking at the impact of the policy. I don't know exactly yet what the parameters of it or a full review would be or where it might fit. But I certainly agree that if a public servant speaks one of our official languages, they should be receiving some sort of recognition for that. And if right now we're not achieving that through the way that the policy is being applied, then from what I understand of the policy and its overall intent, then I certainly do think that we can look at better achieving that so that everyone that speaks an official language are being recognized and that employees are encouraged to improve their skill set to be able to be recognized as speaking an official language. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And just so that I'm clear too, and I think that sometimes different words mean different things to different people, and one of my concerns there is that the word "recognition" could be, you know, we recognize and appreciate that you speak your language, and one of the things that I want to make sure is that the language spoken is valued by the GNWT in the form of remuneration. So, Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to state that there.
But will the Minister also consider committee's recommendation to create a new category of bonuses for Indigenous employees who are learning to speak their language. So they might not be considered completely proficient right away, but they might because in order to be considered proficient, you need to be able to speak the language as well as write in the language. And there might be tiers or levels of where people fall as they're relearning their language and reclaiming their language. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not in disagreement and I don't think the department's in disagreement. I just want to figure out how to roll that out. As I said, I was listening, and the department was listening, I and was in conversation with them as we were listening virtually. So right now it's a $1,200 bilingual bonus paid to employees who have Indigenous language skills. But it's indelible employees, so someone who's in a position or a role where they can see some sort of benefit of speaking that official language.
Mr. Speaker, there's always a benefit in speaking that official language, and that's I think the point that we want to convey. That's the place we want to get to, is that when the policy's applied that that bonus can be applied to anyone that's speaking a language. And then where in terms of the language learning state that an individual might be at, when they should get some sort of recognition financially or otherwise, I certainly would like to take that away and look at it. I think we can do better to encourage employees to go out to get training, to participate in ECE's programs, to participate in mentorship, and ultimately to participate in the programs that we're looking to develop here so they could start to speak their own languages. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final sort supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I'll try to be very, very short. Does the GNWT plan to identify positions that can and should be staffed by Indigenous language speakers? Right now there are some French specific positions within the GNWT. There might also be a small number of Indigenous language specific positions but there's not a large number of them. And I'd like to know if the GNWT plans to be a lot more proactive in identifying positions where they'd like to see Indigenous language speakers and grow them in those positions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't know that that's a specific action item right now under the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework, but it is certainly in keeping with the spirit of that framework. So certainly, as I've said, we do right now track, through ECE's official languages guideline, a list of communities that have different needs for languages but our understanding of the role of language and the place of language as part of delivering public service, I think is only ever improving. We can certainly continue to do a better job of that and to expand. So I'll certainly take the committee's recommendations away and the Member's questions away and hopefully have a more robust place to go with this in the life of the Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
