Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment work closely with the Standing Committee on Government Operations to revise and bring forward its legislative proposal for amendments to the Official Languages Act in the life of this Assembly;
And further, if the department has received any legal opinions related to the issue of federal concurrence with changes to the NWT’s Official Languages Act, this information should be shared in confidence with the Standing Committee on Government Operations, so that the department and the committee are working with a shared understanding of the factors affecting legislative change.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. A motion is on the floor. The motion has been distributed. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the Minister for bringing some clarity to the House and bringing some clarity to the committee with the report. I know the Minister has made offerings a number of times in his dissertation earlier about coming back in 120 days with a more fulsome report to us. That said, there was and there is a bit of a strained relationship currently, and I think our report factored that in with the standing committee. There were a lot of moving parts in the last couple of years since 2009, and our attempt was to try to find at least some commonality where language was going.
Now, this motion, if I may, Mr. Chair, I’d like to quote just a very quick passage out of our report that puts into context the motion we have before the House.
“The standing committee is deeply troubled by the department’s apparent lack of concern for the fact that it’s operating the Official Languages Board and the Aboriginal Languages Revitalization Board in contravention of its own legislation.”
What transpired, according to chronology of the department, was the fact that the revitalization board was brought into play, which really, in essence, de facto, breached the legislation that we have before the House. Now, I know this may have been done as a result of expediency or a need to put a layer in order for preservation. However, again, this is not a defence that we should ignore, the law that governs a land, and language, like any other component of life in the Northwest Territories, is governed by its own legislation.
This motion basically asks the department to please, in the very near future, bring legislation current, so that we’re not working de facto against the very same legislation we’re supposed to uphold.
The second point has to deal more with a sharing of information. Legal opinions bear a lot of weight, and when one party is privy to a legal opinion and a mandate such as a standing committee is not privy to such information, it does strain the relationship between department and standing committee. Like anything else, we’re looking for commonality, we’re looking for a common goal, and we’re looking to have resolve, and I think it’s a fair ask, and I know the department has always been very good at adhering to that. We’re just quantifying that ask in the form of a formal motion.
Again, I do appreciate all the work the department and the Minister has done over the years in language. It’s apparent the passion that the Minister has and the department has to put language and revitalization back in the hands of community governments, and I believe the people are probably sometimes smarter than we are. They want less bureaucracy and they want more programs, and you know what? That’s exactly what I feel and I think it’s exactly what a lot of Members feel as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the committee for allowing me to bring this motion forward.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Committee, I’ll go to Mr. Moses.
