Yes.
Evidence of meeting #45 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aboriginal.
Evidence of meeting #45 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aboriginal.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
You have a school system there, with probably one school from grade...?
9:50 a.m.
Commissioner, Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories
Yes, to Grade 12.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
But the aboriginal languages, some of them--
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
One of the other things you mentioned was that.... First of all, congratulations on having three bilingual children. That's amazing. Can you tell me...? You and your husband don't speak French?
9:50 a.m.
Legal Advisor, Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories
My husband is fluent. He went to Laval.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Okay. That explains it. Because I have a theory that if you don't have the support in the home, it sometimes makes the education quite difficult.
9:50 a.m.
Legal Advisor, Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories
If I can add to that, my husband would speak to the kids in French for a certain time, but overall, I really do give credit to the school.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
I was afraid you were going to debunk it.
Can you tell me how many complaints you've had in an average year, say, as commissioner?
9:50 a.m.
Legal Advisor, Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories
Probably we could both answer that.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Yes, particularly about the minority language, which I guess in this case would be French.
9:50 a.m.
Legal Advisor, Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories
I think if we both answer that, you'll get a good sense of it.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Very quickly, because I have to give some time to my friend.
9:50 a.m.
Legal Advisor, Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories
Okay: few complaints in any given year.
At the time I came in--Mr. Bélanger referred to it as tumultuous--I was the stopgap while they figured out what to do with the legislation. The Fédération had launched its lawsuit at that time, so really, I think complaints stopped, because that was the bigger issue: what are the rights? That really helped solidify some of the things the government needed to do, so we weren't getting complaints, and that was part of it.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Was it the same for you, Mrs. Jerome? There weren't too many complaints?
9:50 a.m.
Commissioner, Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories
There were not very many. Right now, I'm dealing with two French complaints, and none for the aboriginal languages.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Royal Galipeau Conservative Ottawa—Orléans, ON
I thank you very much for coming here to educate us, especially those of us on this side. I haven't been to the Northwest Territories since 1977. It's the first time I've come to your capital city. As you might well imagine, we're all interested in the issues of official languages, but as they pertain to how you deal with them, we're still virgins on this side.
But we're interested.
Unlike the people on the other side, we don't think the people of Canada made a mistake in the last election, so we're the government.
I'm interested to know how it works with nine official languages, plus English and French. When a citizen of the Northwest Territories deals with his or her government in any department--let's say social services--does this mean that inside that department, and in all departments, there is a capacity to communicate with the citizen in any of those eleven languages? Does that capacity exist?
9:55 a.m.
Legal Advisor, Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories
I'm going to say no, it doesn't. The ability to access that interpretation or translation service exists, yes, so there are interpreters and translators available.
In an ideal world, where you're coming from, I think, is where should really be: “Oh, here's who we come to talk to when this issue comes up”. There's someone departmentally who becomes familiar with the work of that department and what's going on and who gets a better feel for it.