Paul Delorey

Yes. We’re going to go over with her the list of initiatives that she had proposed and maybe try and give her a hand in identifying which ones fit within her mandate and encouraging her to take on a lot of initiatives that promote her office and what she can do for official languages that fit within her mandate.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have on my left Mr. Olin Lovely, director of corporate services, and to my right is Tim Mercer, Clerk of the Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present the 2011-2012 main estimates for the Legislative Assembly.

The upcoming fiscal year is perhaps the most unique in the four-year cycle of the Legislative Assembly. It will be marked by the last five months of the 16th Assembly and the first six months of the 17th Assembly.

This year the Assembly is requesting operational funding to the tune of $18.9 million. This constitutes an increase of just over 9.7 percent compared to last year’s budget of $17.22 million. This year’s increases are the result of several important initiatives.

By far the most...

Yes, we can look at doing that. When we met with the Official Languages Commissioner, in presenting her budget there was also concern raised of why there’s a lack of interest. I think that she made it quite clear that she thinks that there’s a lot of room for education and educating the public about what the role of the Official Languages Commissioner is and how the public can issue complaints and that sort of thing. We buy fully into her thoughts about the ability to be able to promote her office and educate the public, maybe, as to what her office can do for them. But we will commit to...

I missed that last question that the honourable Member had.

We’re working with her. She was hired as an independent Commissioner of the Assembly, but we’re going to work with her and we want to give her the funds to be able to do the work that she should be doing as the Commissioner of Official Languages. We’re going to be working with her; however, it’s her role to take on her own mandate because she’s an independent Commissioner, so we can’t tell her what to do but we want to work with her.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Official Languages Commissioner had requested a budget for around $300,000 for a number of initiatives that she wanted to get going. We looked at some of the initiatives that she had. Some of them were maybe outside of her mandate. We intend to meet with her shortly after the budget is approved to go over some of the projects that she has lined up. Basically, there has not been a lot of complaints activity in that office and some of the initiatives that we’re encouraging her to do and that she wants to take on are more informing the public of what the role is and...

Yes, I will.

Good afternoon, colleagues. Welcome back to the Chamber. Colleagues, I’d like to draw your attention to the visitor’s gallery to the presence of our Clerk, Mr. Tim Mercer, and his lovely little daughter Mira visiting today.

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Good afternoon, colleagues. Welcome back to the Chamber. Before we begin I would like to draw your attention to the visitor’s gallery to a face that’s probably familiar to many of you. Mr. David Hamilton is in the House today, former Clerk of the Assembly.

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