This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
This enactment provides, among other things, that
(a) the Government of Canada recognizes that the rights of Indigenous peoples recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 include rights related to Indigenous languages;
(b) the Minister of Canadian Heritage may enter into different types of agreements or arrangements in respect of Indigenous languages with Indigenous governments or other Indigenous governing bodies or Indigenous organizations, taking into account the unique circumstances and needs of Indigenous groups, communities and peoples; and
(c) federal institutions may cause documents to be translated into an Indigenous language or provide interpretation services to facilitate the use of an Indigenous language.
The enactment also establishes the Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages and sets out its composition. The Office’s mandate and powers, duties and functions include
(a) supporting the efforts of Indigenous peoples to reclaim, revitalize, maintain and strengthen Indigenous languages;
(b) promoting public awareness of, among other things, the richness and diversity of Indigenous languages;
(c) undertaking research or studies in respect of the provision of funding for the purposes of supporting Indigenous languages and in respect of the use of Indigenous languages in Canada;
(d) providing services, including mediation or other culturally appropriate services, to facilitate the resolution of disputes; and
(e) submitting to the Minister of Canadian Heritage an annual report on, among other things, the use and vitality of Indigenous languages in Canada and the adequacy of funding provided by the Government of Canada for initiatives related to Indigenous languages.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the goodwill that went into making the bill, but I think we need to recognize that it is far from perfect.
My colleague talked about the co-development process. It is important to note that one national organization is opposed to the bill. I wonder if the member could speak to that particular issue. To me, co-development, when presenting something to Parliament, should mean taking a consensus approach.
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my friend for her hard work in support of the bill.
This legislation was, indeed, co-developed with three national indigenous organizations. The member is right. At this point we still do not have full consensus from all three organizations. However, we are very hopeful. We continue to have conversations in order for that to materialize.
The urgency of time is important. Over the last two years, we have consulted with over 1,200 individuals and organizations, and at this stage, we really do need to get this done.
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Madam Speaker, I was glad that the parliamentary secretary mentioned fluency and the danger presented by the fact that many of these languages are on the verge of extinction in Canada. Those languages are at the core of culture and reconciliation.
In my riding in the Okanagan Valley, the territory of the Syilx people, the language spoken is Nsyilxcen. There are fewer than 50 fluent Nsyilxcen speakers left in Canada. One program in Canada, of very few, is teaching people to be fluent in it. It is trying to bring the language back from the edge of extinction. I think the only other two programs like this in Canada teach Mohawk and Squamish.
These programs take a lot of effort, time and money. I do not see any significant funding earmarked through the bill or in the government's budget for programs like these. We have left this to the very end, and we need serious funding to do this across the country.
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
Madam Speaker, across the country there are some very important programs like the one my friend mentioned. There are some very unique experiences, and work is being done by communities to preserve language.
With respect to the budget question, $335 million has been allocated in budget 2019 over a five-year period. This is a significant improvement from the $89 million over three years that our government put in place, and a vast improvement from the $5 million a year provided by the previous government to support indigenous languages.
This is a step in the right direction, and as the framework develops and unfolds, the government will provide significant support to advance languages.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, it is interesting to reflect on some of the comments my colleague made about how government policies or cultures from the past that tried to impose one language have affected both indigenous Canadians and new immigrant communities.
He talked about the importance of language for culture. Sometimes there are ideas, sentiments and experiences that do not translate very well. They can be explained in one culture and in one language, but it is very difficult to put those ideas together in a different language.
Just to develop that, I wonder if my colleague can share examples of that from his own experience as a Tamil speaker to help us understand that with respect to ideas and experiences, translating words is not simply automatic. There may be something in the original language that is not understandable outside of it.
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
Madam Speaker, obviously the context in which heritage, multicultural language and education are taken in Canada is quite different from that of the need to protect indigenous languages. It is fair to say that many of the multicultural languages that are here have enormous international strength and receive support from other countries and institutions, whereas indigenous languages simply have not had that, do not benefit from it and, in fact, in terms of the speakers, are quite limited. In that sense, the responsibility to revive a language does not rest with a community of 1,500 or 2,000 for multicultural languages; it rests with 30 million to 50 million people. Therefore, contextually it is different.
However, the struggle, in terms of the emotion of not being able to understand the language and the real fear of losing it, lies with most people who are living in areas dominated by another language and other language groups.
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Madam Speaker, can the parliamentary secretary comment on what Canada has actually lost as a result of not having properly preserved indigenous languages throughout the years and, arguably, at times throughout our history worked to oppress them?
What are the benefits of properly preserving these languages going forward, in terms of the cultural identity of Canada?
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
Madam Speaker, we can never imagine what we lost with respect to languages over several generations and spanning over 152 years as a country. The loss of language is also attached to the loss of many people. I think the best way to describe it is with what the former chief justice of the Supreme Court said, which is that what happened in Canada was cultural genocide, and it occurred as a result of federal government policies.
We can never recover from it, and I do not think that many people who have faced this type of struggle and violation could ever recover from it, but it is important that we start the process. That is why, overall, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action are important, and that is why language revival is so essential.
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Madam Speaker, as a fluent Dene speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to still do that. I was involved in the committee process, and many witnesses who came forward talked about improvements and the importance of making this the best legislation ever for Canada, yet there are so many disappointments.
I have one important question to ask the government, which I have asked outside of here. The amendments we brought forward were based on the witnesses who came forward wanting to make some amendments to strengthen the legislation. The proposed legislation is just a small step. It does not look at the whole, at the big picture.
Why has the government not taken into consideration the amendments and the hard work the witnesses have done in coming here and speaking to members of Parliament and the committee?
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
Madam Speaker, that is not correct. In fact, many amendments that were put forward were adopted and are reflected in the report that came from the committee. The legislation before us, as amended, has come a long way from the initial legislation we put forward.
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to stand and speak to Bill C-91, the indigenous languages act, at third reading.
It is important for people who might be watching to note that we just had a vote at report stage, and there was unanimous support in this House to move this bill forward. That in itself speaks to how important this particular bill is.
Having said that we see it is important to move the bill forward, the expression “The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement” is very appropriate. This is by no means a perfect bill. There are many things that will still be looked at in more detail in the Senate. I certainly perceive that we will be seeing more amendments coming forward. It was seen as a really important step. It was seen as something that we should all support, at least as a movement in the right direction. It is an improvement, for sure, but does it get us where we need to go? Absolutely not.
I was just talking to my colleague, who was at a dinner last night with the ambassador for New Zealand. There was a delegation here from New Zealand. I understand there was some drumming and a welcome in Cree at this particular dinner. What was more interesting was when he described to me how the entire delegation that came, MPs from all parties, spent over a minute or so talking in Maori. All the people in that delegation had some grasp of the indigenous language of that country.
I thought that was a very interesting story. I know we have a few indigenous language speakers in this Parliament, but we are a significantly long way from anything that resembles what my colleague described. Obviously, with its many languages and their many dialects, Canada is in a very different position.
This bill is important. Many witnesses came to the heritage committee and shared how vital the protection and revitalization of languages was for them. As they spoke, they shared research in terms of the importance of language; they shared lived experiences, and they shared suggestions for how we could make this bill better. I would like to thank them all for taking that time to come to committee to share their thoughts about this bill. We know that some of the suggestions were taken into account. At this time, others would be difficult. This needs to be an evolving process; it needs to be a bit of a living tree, and it is certainly a framework.
To go back a little, in the debate at second reading I shared a personal story. I would like to share another story in terms of what I witnessed back in the 1980s: elders who were very fluent in their language at that time, and how destructive some of the government policies had been, not only in terms of the residential schools and the loss of language.
I can remember visiting an elder who was very fluent in her language and being told that I was not supposed to visit this elder because she was no longer one of them. She had married a white person who had passed away. I thought that was strange, because she was of the community; she spoke the language and she was emblematic of the culture of the community. However, the government had decided she was no longer a status Indian, because she had married a white person who had since passed away. She could not ever retrieve that status.
It was a really unusual circumstance. That was one of the first times I saw the impact of government policies. As a nurse I was not supposed to visit an elder, because at the time I was called “the Indian nurse” and in the communities I was allowed to be responsible only for people who were status Indians. We all ignored those rules, and those rules certainly made no sense.
If we look at all the elders at the time and their fluency in speaking and we compare them with the children who had returned home from the residential schools, who at that time were in their fifties and sixties, we would see that very few of them could converse well with their parents with the language skills they had, and many of the elders were very limited in their English. Imagine how difficult that was for the communities.
To look back, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was part of the 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which recognized that the school system had a profound, lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language. At that time, the Right Hon. Stephen Harper and the previous Conservative government acknowledged these harms and delivered a formal apology in the House of Commons to the former students and their families and communities for Canada's role in the operation of these schools.
Again, this was a time when Parliament came together. We were government and we delivered the apology, but I remember NDP members were instrumental in that and I also know that the Liberals welcomed that particular day.
At the time, he said:
The Government of Canada built an educational system in which very young children were often forcibly removed from their homes and often taken far away from their communities.
Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed. All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities.
First nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools.
Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools, and others never returned home.
The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian residential schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language.
As we all know, the commission did its work across this country and delivered its calls to action. Calls to action Nos. 13, 14 and 15 specifically looked at the issue of language, and that is part of the reason we are seeing unanimous consensus in the House to move forward with this bill.
This is an important bill. We have said it is not perfect. I am going to talk about some of the challenges and concerns that I continue to have about the technical pieces of the bill, as opposed to the more aspirational component.
My number one concern is about something I have never seen before in all my time as a parliamentarian. Committees hear from witnesses, who make suggestions. Then we have the opportunity propose amendments to the legislation to improve it or to fix errors. Amendments typically are introduced in time for all members of the committee to reflect on them and make decisions about whether these amendments make sense, where they are supportable, or whether they might have other implications.
We went through that process. Many amendments were submitted. They were submitted from independent members as well, and there was a good opportunity to reflect on what those amendments would mean in the context of the whole bill. Then there was clause-by-clause consideration, when we looked at the clauses as they existed and the amendments that were proposed.
The current government table-dropped 23 amendments. In all of my time as a parliamentarian, in considering many bills in clause-by-clause study, I have seen independents table-drop amendments and other parties have table-dropped amendments, but I have never, ever seen a government having to drop 23 amendments to its own bill with no time for consideration. Essentially, we had to make a decision on the spot, on the fly, in terms of the ramifications of these amendments.
That is what I consider to be an incredibly sloppy practice, and it is a serious concern. As the Senate looks at this amended bill, I am hoping that it will be able to catch any challenges that were left there as a result.
The other thing that is particularly interesting about the bill is something that Canadians might not be as aware of. There are two bills before this Parliament that are in some ways partner bills. One is the bill we are talking about today, and the other is Bill C-92, which is the indigenous child welfare legislation. In both these bills—and for the first time ever, as was confirmed by Ms. Laurie Sargent from the Department of Justice—Parliament has decided to speak to the recognition of section 35 rights in legislation, as opposed to going through a court system.
As Conservatives, we have often said that we should be the ones legislating and the courts should be interpreting. To some degree it is very appropriate that in consultation and collaboration with indigenous peoples in this country, we try to do some work in relation to section 35 rights.
The unanswered question is still about our Constitution, which is absolutely a work that includes our provinces and territories. For the federal government to be addressing section 35 in a language bill makes sense, because it is not going to impose on the provinces; however, in Bill C-92, the child welfare bill, the government is again defining some section 35 rights but is also going to be asserting to the provinces some paramountcy. It has been unwilling, so far, to talk to the provinces about that. When we are talking about putting some definition to some issues in the Constitution, not having conversations with the provinces is going to lead the government to some real challenges, particularly in the next piece of legislation we are going to be debating. I am very concerned that the government has taken such an approach.
I do not think I have ever seen things so bad in my time as a parliamentarian in terms of provincial-federal relationships. Things seem to have broken down, and I hope we can retrieve the situation. To propose legislation on which conversations have not even been had with the provinces is a challenge we need to deal with.
As I was going back in my notes, I noticed another interesting thing. This bill was originally tabled on February 5. At that time, the Minister of Heritage gave his speech, and I congratulated him on his speech and on this particular piece of legislation. However, February 5 was a very interesting date: it was the day a Globe and Mail article gave the first inkling of the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
I can remember the article had just come out, and I asked the minister a question about that, of course, and for the next two months we never did get satisfactory answers to any of those questions. What we learned in that particular article and in the two months that came afterward was that the government speaks many fine words about its commitment to indigenous relations and reconciliation, but that far too often its actions fall far short of what is expected.
I know that the former attorney general of Canada, who is now sitting as an independent, feels particularly concerned about what the government is doing and where it is going in terms of its commitments and in terms of the indigenous file.
We also saw how willing they were to throw a female who was the first indigenous attorney general in Canada under the bus. How quickly they did that, just two months later, to someone who was well recognized and well respected. We need to call them out on that particular piece.
Bill S-3, a bill about gender equity, is another piece of legislation that was tabled in the House that is related to this file. We had department officials come to our meetings. It sounded as though they had responded to the court decision in a reasonable fashion, yet the first witnesses and then other witnesses were able to point out serious flaws in the bill that the department officials had not noted. The minister had said everything was fine and that the government was taking care of the court decision, but the bill was so bad that they had to pull it and go back to the starting point. Then they had to pass a flawed bill, and we have been hearing recently that there are still concerns that the issues around gender equity have not been resolved.
Those are my particular concerns over the legislation that the current government has tabled. We have Bill S-3, which was flawed and had be to be pulled back. We have Bill C-91, which required 22 amendments to be table-dropped. In the case of Bill C-92, there are only six weeks left in this Parliament. The Liberals made significant commitments that they have not been able to meet, so they are in a rush, and particularly with Bill C-92, the child welfare legislation, they are trying to rush things through.
When I started my speech, I talked about things not being perfect but moving in a good direction. However, there might come a time when, in the Liberals' rush to get things done, things will be so flawed that they will just have to backtrack, as with some of their other bills. Unfortunately, we will have to see if they can get through it in time.
In conclusion, it is heartening to see unanimous consent in this House. It is heartening to see the work that has been done, although it is only a step. I am optimistic that there will be new technologies. One of the witnesses talked about how artificial intelligence can help with some language preservation.
We need to work soon and we need to work hard, so we are very happy to support this bill in terms of moving it to the next step.
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Mr. Speaker, as the chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, I want to first reach out to the member across and say that I was equally frustrated by amendments being brought by members at the last minute. I acknowledge that it was in fact a very frustrating part of the process. I understand her frustration about that, and she is correct that members should not be bringing amendments at the last minute. That was very frustrating.
The timing of the process issue was very frustrating, but the substance of many of the amendments did improve the bill, and the amendments were based on the evidence that I thought we had heard from the witnesses.
One amendment that was particularly important was to try to build in a broader vision as to what we consider to be indigenous languages. That responded directly to one witness, who talked to us about indigenous sign language, which is something I was not even aware of. For me, it was one of the most interesting parts of the evidence we heard, and it let us see things in a very different way.
Maybe the member opposite could talk about that part too, about how there was an expanded vision of what we might consider as language and how that was adopted through the amendments, as late as they may have been introduced.
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Mr. Speaker, out of 23 amendments, there were some that were appropriately made, but late to the game. The bigger issue is that, as we know, legislation is complicated and sometimes when a change is made to one section, it has ramifications. There were many amendments at the last minute, and maybe some were good, but the committee was voting for things without being able to look at the full scope of the legislation. I would never say that all of the amendments would not improve the bill, but certainly there were significant concerns. As I indicated in my comments earlier, I would not be at all surprised if this bill comes back from the Senate identifying some of the mistakes that might have been made.
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Mr. Speaker, I will take this opportunity to clarify. This legislation is very important to me, as a Dene speaker, and to the people in my riding and across Canada who fluently speak Dene, Cree, Michif and other languages. I find the committee process frustrating. I will ask the member what she thought when I and my colleague put forward the amendment that the language commissioner should be indigenous, which was voted against by the governing party. What is her feeling on that?
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Mr. Speaker, there was a lot of debate around the office of the commissioner and the role of the commissioner. To me, it makes sense that the indigenous language commissioner would be indigenous. There was also a lot of debate about how many hours the commissioner would work, which seemed beyond the scope, and what role the commissioner would play. I perceive that this might be one area that will be reflected upon as we see what works, what does not work and how the government moves forward with it.