Special Committee to Review the Official Languages Act Final Report Sixth Session First Legislative Assembly Legislative Assembly of Nunavut December 2003 Rebekah Uqi Williams, MLA Donald Havioyak, MLA Chair Co-Chair www.assembly.nu.ca Members Rebekah Uqi Williams, Chair Donald Havioyak, Co-Chair Hon. Peter Kilabuk Ovide Alakannuark David Iqaqrialu Alternates Enoki Irqittuq Hon. Peter Kattuk Jobie Nutarak Committee Staff Committee Clerk – John Quirke Committee Researchers – Leetia Nowdluk and Siobhan Moss ISBN: 1-555325-052-4 EWv swox7{, w5y?sb6 Rebekah Williams, Chair vtmpC`Mavw8N6gk5 eu3DJ5nk5 wobE/smJk5 scsy3k5 Wd/u4 Special Committee to Review the Official Languages Act HAVAKHITAOHIMAYOK KAMITEOYOK UVUNA IHIVGEOKNIGAGUN ILITAGIYAOHIMAYUNIK OKAOHILIKINIKUN MALIGAKYOAMIK Comité Spécial de Révision de la Loi Sur Les Langues Officielles December 2003 Hon. Kevin O'Brien, MLA Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Office of the Speaker Legislative Assembly Building Iqaluit, Nunavut X0A 0H0 Dear Mr. Speaker: On behalf of the Members of the Special Committee to Review the Official Languages Act, I have the honour of presenting the Special Committee's Final Report. Although the life of this First Assembly will soon draw to a close, the Special Committee feels sure that the hard work represented within the pages of this Report will not be left unrecognized. We urge all Members of the Second Legislative Assembly of Nunavut to act on this Report as soon as possible in order that the goal of developing and enacting a made-in-Nunavut Official Languages Act becomes a reality. Respectfully submitted, Rebekah Uqi Williams, MLA Chair Final Report of the Special Committee to Review the Official Languages Act “On July 9, 1993, the agreement was ratified that we’re going to be establishing our own government and our own territory. For those of us that are middle aged, a lot of years have gone by. It has been approximately ten years since that agreement was signed. “From that time on, we hoped to see the Inuktitut language being used in the workplace. But we have yet to see this within the government and other places… “I’m sure we won’t see it right away, but it’s something that we hope to see, the proper usage of Inuktitut in the work environment.” Community member, Iqaluit December 2003 1 Final Report of the Special Committee to Review the Official Languages Act Introduction Along with the majority of legislation used in Canada’s newest territory, Nunavut’s Official Languages Act was inherited from the Northwest Territories upon division on April 1, 1999. Given the desire to review legislation inherited from the NWT to better meet the needs and aspirations of Nunavummiut, a number of Nunavut’s statutes have already undergone review and amendment. The review of Nunavut’s Official Languages Act, in particular, is closely linked to an underlying objective of the creation of Nunavut -- to ensure the preservation, use and promotion of the Inuit languages used in the territory. The Special Committee to review the Official Languages Act was created by a motion of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut on February 26, 2001. The Committee’s mandate was to review the provisions and operation of the Official Languages Act in accordance with Section 29 of that same Act. The Committee is made up of five Members of the Legislative Assembly. Rebekah Uqi Wiliams, MLA for Quttiktuq, is the Committee Chair; Donald Havioyak, MLA for Kugluktuk is the Co-Chair; and the other members are Ovide Alakannuark, MLA for Akulliq; David Iqaqrialu, MLA for Uqqummiut; and the Honourable Peter Kilabuk, MLA for Pangnirtung. The Honourable Peter Kattuk, MLA for Hudson Bay, was a member of the Special Committee from February 2001 to February 2002. The Honourable Jack Anawak, MLA for Rankin Inlet North, was a member of the Special Committee from February 2002 to June 2003. The Members of the Special Committee would like to express their appreciation to Ministers Kattuk and Anawak for their work on the Committee and the insights that they brought to the Committee’s deliberations. This Report concludes the activities of the Legislative Assembly’s Special Committee to Review the Official Languages Act. It should be noted that one of the objectives set out in the Committee’s mandate remains to be completed. It is the Committee’s hope that the Second Legislative Assembly of Nunavut will take this report into consideration and complete that final objective by introducing a new made- in-Nunavut Official Languages Act as an early goal. It should be noted that for clarity and completeness, some of this document was previously included in the Committee’s Interim Report of March 2002. December 2003 2 Final Report of the Special Committee to Review the Official Languages Act Background The Legislation The concept of language rights first established itself in Canadian legislation in 1969 when the Government of Canada adopted the Official Languages Act declaring English and French to be the official languages of Canada. When the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect in 1982, it further specified a number of rights and principles relating to language communities in Canada, such as equality of the two languages and the protection of minority language education rights for French and English-speakers. In 1984, the federal government introduced an amendment to the NWT Act which would have established French as an official language of the NWT. The Government of the NWT successfully argued that legislation on official languages should fall under the jurisdiction of the Legislative Assembly of the NWT and passed its own Official Languages Act (OLA). On the same day of the passage of the NWT’s OLA, the NWT’s Government Leader and the Secretary of State for Canada signed funding agreements for the implementation and delivery of GNWT programs and services in French and for the preservation, enhancement and development of Aboriginal languages across the territory. Similar funding agreements with the federal government have been negotiated at various intervals since that time. When the Government of Canada amended its Official Languages Act in 1988, it also introduced an amendment to the NWT Act which allowed the Legislative Assembly of the NWT to amend its OLA only if it increased the status of languages. Any other amendments would still require the consent of Parliament. Indeed, in 1990, the NWT amended its OLA to add Cree, Chipewyan, Dogrib, Gwich’in, Inuktitut and Slavey as official languages and also created the Office of the Languages Commissioner. The NWT’s Official Languages Act was inherited by Nunavut on its creation in 1999. At the present time, Nunavut’s Official Languages Act serves a number of purposes: it recognizes certain languages as official languages in the territory; it specifies what languages shall or may be used in the debates and proceedings of the Legislative Assembly; it specifies what languages shall or may be used in the courts and in the final decisions, orders and judgements of the courts; it specifies the language rights of the public in receiving services from, or December 2003 3 Final Report of the Special Committee to Review the Official Languages Act communicating with, government offices; it establishes the position and responsibilities of the Languages Commissioner and it specifies the languages in which laws and other government documentation must be printed. Nunavut’s Language Communities Today I speak in the While the Official Languages Act recognizes Arctic Bay dialect, I used to speak the Clyde River Inuktitut and includes, by definition, Inuinnaqtun and dialect and we had to Inuvialuktun under the term “Inuktitut”, it may be learn the local dialect argued that this name does not adequately apply to when we moved here. all Inuit languages spoken across Nunavut. In But my dialect is still in my brain. I even forget considering languages and dialects that are spoken it now sometimes. I in Nunavut’s communities, the Special Committee used to teach using the recognized the existence of three major language old Inuktitut. I like to groups: speakers of English, speakers of French hear Inuktitut and so I listen to the radio. Our and speakers of an Inuit language. grandchildren are speaking differently so Research by a prominent Canadian linguist that we should try to keep focuses on Inuit languages has identified seven our old language. We 1 are treading now in dialects commonly used in the communities that danger I feel and now make up Nunavut. These include dialects of sometimes I worry about the Western Canadian Inuktun group (Inuinnaqtun my grandchildren. and Natsilingmiutut), and dialects of the Eastern ― Arctic Bay Canadian Inuktitut group (Aivilik, North Baffin, South Baffin, Nunavik and Kivalliq). It should be noted that, for historical reasons, speakers of Inuinnaqtun write their language using the roman alphabet – the same type of script used by English and French speakers. All other speakers of an Inuit language in Nunavut use the syllabic writing system to write their language. Speakers of Inuit languages outside of Nunavut use both roman writing systems (as in Greenland) and syllabic writing systems (as in the Nunavik region of Northern Quebec). The importance of dialect for individuals, families, communities and even regions cannot be under estimated. Dialect is an important aspect of identity, a link to Inuit culture and history and a source of pride. At the same time, the variations in pronunciation, grammatical usage and vocabulary across the dialects of Inuit languages pose significant challenges to Nunavut-wide policies and practices that relate specifically to the use of language. Based on Louis-Jacques Dorais’ research on Inuit languages, the following table provides a general overview of the distribution of dialects spoken across Nunavut’s twenty-five communities.