Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A number of people have reached out to me recently and asked what was happening in regards to the Department of Health and Social Services' commitment to traditional names being allowed on NWT birth certificates and other forms of GNWT identification. Can the Minister advise us where the status of this commitment is? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. November 4, 2016, this Legislative Assembly passed Bill 5, which was a bill to amend sections of the Vital Statistics Act that would allow us to use traditional fonts on legal documents such as birth certificates and other vital statistics documents. This is a commitment we made. This is a commitment we intend to and will live up to. Our ultimate goal is to be able to have traditional names on our birth certificates, on our vital statistics documents, using the traditional font, which is truly the only way to recognize a traditional name. At that time, I said it's going to take a while for this to happen because there are multiple things that need to happen. One of the first things that we need to do is to develop a transliteration guide which will allow us to work with other jurisdictions like the federal government so that we can use our traditional font and our traditional names and have them used on things like passports, documents, and other things outside of our jurisdiction, outside of our responsibility.
Mr. Speaker, one of the biggest challenges of doing this work, and it's the right thing and we need to do it, is not producing documents with Aboriginal or traditional fonts, but it's actually the systems that we use, things like EMR, things like PeopleSoft, things like student financial assistant systems, our database systems that track information and allow people to get registered for health procedures and education, these types of things. Every one of those systems will need to be updated to recognize the traditional fonts in the Northwest Territories. Health and Social Services alone has over 40 systems that will have to be upgraded to recognized traditional fonts, and, across the government, over 400 systems will need to be updated to recognize traditional fonts. This is an incredibly expensive undertaking. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be done because personally I believe it should be done, but we need to make sure that we do it right and we get it right. We are making progress. The transliteration guide is under development. ECE has taken the lead on that. They have pulled together language experts to help them with that work. They are hoping to have the draft transliteration guide done in 2019, at which point we can present it to the federal government, and then we will begin the negotiations about trying to make sure that they can accept it and use it, so that we can pursue other documents. So it's still under work. We are still making progress. It is going to take a bit of time to realize this important commitment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for that detailed answer. That's greatly appreciated. One of the things he talked about was an acronym, EMR. Can the Minister explain what EMR is, because I didn't understand what that acronym means.
Sorry, I was just using that as one of the examples of the systems that are used by the Government of the Northwest Territories. EMRs are electronic medical records. Right now, EMR and every other system we have only recognize the Latin alphabet, so if an individual were to be using their name and using the traditional font, which is where we want to get to, those systems would not recognize those names, and that's a problem. It means we could inadvertently adversely affect somebody's care, their ability to go outside this territory to receive care. This is something we don't want to happen. We want to make sure our residents have the supports they need and that they can receive their services, so we need to work on the transliteration guide. We are also going to have to update many of our systems over time so that they can recognize the traditional fonts, which, like I said, we know is the right thing to do. We're committed to it. It's going to take a bit of time to get this work done.
The Minister talked about a lot of work being done, so does the Minister and the department have a timeline of when things are going to be completed?
We have timelines on when we will complete the portions that we are working on at this point, but to roll out on the bigger level, to make sure that people can get passports and other things using their traditional names with the traditional fonts, I can't dictate that timeline. We will have the transliteration guide drafted with our partners and Education, Culture and Employment in 2019; we are thinking mid-year. From there, we will be able to present it to the federal government. That could take some time, to actually bring that to reality and make it reality. In the meantime, we will continue to figure out what capacity our systems have in this territory to recognize the traditional fonts so that we can continue to move forward. I can't tell you how long it will take to work that process through the federal government and other partners.
We need to be careful to make sure that, once again, we're not adversely affecting our residents. By way of example, when I travel, I always hear the people at the front of the counter saying, "Your passport or your documents must exactly match the ticket." If your document uses traditional fonts, but the airline has no ability to use traditional fonts, you're not getting on that plane. We want to make sure that that doesn't happen.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister elaborating and giving us the information here today. People have been asking: in the meantime, is the department able to look at having birth certificates display both names, whether they be in traditional names in brackets or underneath the bottom there somewhere, so that they can actually have the person's name in there? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I have directed the department to do some additional work in this area to see if that is a possibility. It was a question I asked when I brought forward the legislation the first time, recognizing that it is going to take a bit of time to operationalize this and make this official. At that time, the concern was having a legal document that had two names on it could be problematic, especially when it came to being out of jurisdiction or working with the feds on things like passports. I have asked the department to explore that and seek a second opinion on that because, in my mind, it's not two names; it's one name. It's one name that is using the traditional font, which is a true representation of the child's name, or the person's name, and a Latin interpretation of it. It's not a different name; it's a font issue. So I have asked for a second opinion on whether or not we can put the name twice, the same name twice, using two different fonts on a document.
That's not a solution, Mr. Speaker. I feel that that's a step to getting us to where we need to be. Ultimately, we just want to be able to have the one name using the one font, but, given that that is going to take time, I've asked them to explore the possibility of having the name on there twice, in two different fonts. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
