Upper house wants clarification

Members of the Senate decided last week to spend a few days studying Nunavut's revamped Official Languages Act before submitting it to a vote of concurrence June 11.

The Nunavut Act states that any new Nunavut official language law must receive a vote of concurrence in Parliament before it can take effect.

The new Official Languages Act, which Nunavut MLAs passed June 4, 2008, sped through the House of Commons June 1, when all parties supported a motion made by Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq.

But when it hit the Senate June 2, some members of the upper house said they want time to properly understand the new law before they say yes to it.

Senator Serge Joyal, a Liberal, said the bill should be submitted to the Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee for more scrutiny.

He said, for example, that he wants to clarify what the Nunavut bill means for third parties that provide services on behalf of the Nunavut government, such as the RCMP.

Joyal tabled a lengthy letter on the issue from Graham Fraser, the federal official languages commissioner. He said he wants Fraser to appear before the Senate committee, along with a representative from Nunavut.

Senator Joan Fraser, a former editor of the Montreal Gazette and a Liberal, said the Senate has a special duty to act as a watchdog on minority language issues.

"I believe that if this chamber has an abiding principle, it is that we do not consent lightly and without examination to the diminution, however slight, of minority languages because that precedent can come back to haunt us, our children or our grandchildren. I do not want to go there," Fraser said.

But Conservative Senators Hugh Segal and Gerald Comeau each said the bill needs no more study.

Senator Willie Adams, a Liberal, was to have retired from his Senate seat June 10.

He said he's unhappy that he wouldn't be there June 11, when the concurrence vote was expected.

Nunavut's other new language law, the Inuit Language Protection Act, doesn't require a vote of concurrence in Parliament.

This week, Nunavut MLAs passed a motion calling on the Senate to approve their new official languages law.