Actions and Commitments

Call to Action # 14: Language and Culture (13-17)

Review of Official Languages law

March 13, 2019

The law governing official languages in the Northwest Territories is ill-suited for the territory and ready for an overhaul during its upcoming review, the territory’s languages commissioner says. “We’re at that point,” said Shannon Gullberg, the languages commissioner. “We’ve been operating under a model that really mimics the federal model for a long time. “The federal legislation doesn’t work when you’re dealing with rural, small, Indigenous communities with dying languages,” Gullberg said. “It doesn’t work. It does nothing to promote those languages.” CBC