Bill C-91 (Historical)

Indigenous Languages Act

An Act respecting Indigenous languages

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.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

I had my staff do just a bit more research on “Indigenous governing body”. I asked them to do a search on where that term also exists.

The term exists in Bill C-35, the early learning and child care in Canada act; in Bill C-23, an act respecting places, persons and events of national historic significance or national interest, archaeological resources and cultural and natural heritage; the Corrections and Conditional Release Act; Bill C-91, an act respecting indigenous languages; Bill C-92, an act respecting first nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families; Bill C-68, an act to amend the Fisheries Act and other acts in consequence; Bill C-69, an act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts; and Bill C-97, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019.

I haven't looked at how these might differ from each other.

Having said that, have you been able to assess whether or not there are similarities or differences between what's in this act and what these other acts might be?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

It's like Bill C‑91, which you referred to earlier. I was there when Bill C‑91 got jammed through, right at the end. How long did it take to appoint the three commissioners for that?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Absolutely. We do it in different ways.

For example, for indigenous people, one of the things I'm most proud of is that when I was heritage minister the first time, we put in place Bill C-91 on indigenous languages. That passed and became reality. Now the office is in place and we are supporting it, and we now have bills with the three NIOs, the national indigenous organizations for the Métis, the first nations and the Inuit, to support them in their efforts, in some cases simply to have their language survive.

This will help us not only to teach the language but also to have more music, more television and more films for indigenous people. This will help young indigenous people to be prouder of who they are, because they will see themselves in all of those productions. It is the same for racialized people. Bill C-11, for example, is asking for some of the contribution, the money we're getting, to go to racialized, indigenous and different under-represented groups. Why? It's because it's the right thing to do.

[Sherap Therchin, Executive Director, Canada Tibet Committee]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. I deeply appreciate this opportunity to speak with you on this important matter of Tibetan language and education.

The Canada Tibet Committee is an independent, non-partisan association of Tibetans and non-Tibetans from across Canada. Founded in 1987, its mandate is to promote the human rights of Tibetans living under Chinese rule.

As committee members will know, the right to education is protected in both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Both of these treaties explicitly guarantee that minority groups must not be denied the use of their own language, either in the community or otherwise. Further, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states that individuals “have the right of self-determination”, including “social and cultural development”.

Here in Canada, the federal government supports efforts by indigenous peoples to reclaim and revitalize their linguistic heritage, in part by adopting the Indigenous Languages Act in 2019. In the province of Quebec, it has been more than 40 years that all children in the province have to be educated in the French language until the end of their secondary studies.

It is also interesting to note that the Government of China has adopted its regional national autonomy law, which clearly states in article 37 that “The organs of self-government of national autonomous areas shall independently develop education for the nationalities” and “shall, whenever possible, use textbooks in their own languages and use their languages as the media of instruction.”

Despite such guarantees, however, a suite of policies imposed across the whole of China by the central government under the pretext of poverty alleviation or ecological protection have reinforced the ongoing assault on the Tibetan language and cultural traditions. Such policies include various nomad relocation schemes, the school consolidation policy and the bilingual education policy. These policies have, in effect, reduced the ability of Tibetan children to access schooling in their own language, as witnesses explained in detail before this committee in the previous meeting.

A few years ago, Global Affairs Canada funded a project to support efforts by the Tibetan exile community in India and Nepal to deliver quality education in the Tibetan language. Notwithstanding the many differences in the broader context, the project provided valuable lessons about challenges faced when promoting Tibetan language in the face of a different dominant language. For this reason, Canada is well placed to take the lead on this issue.

Therefore, in conclusion, we wish to make the following recommendations for the committee's consideration.

Number one, open the dialogue with the appropriate counterparts from the National People's Congress on the matter of minority languages and education in Tibet.

Number two, invite visiting parliamentarians from China to indigenous communities and to Quebec in order to share Canadian experiences regarding the protection and promotion of minority languages.

Number three, support academic research aimed at identifying the impacts that resettlement and education policies in Tibet have had or might have on the vibrancy of Tibetan language and culture.

Number four, encourage the Canadian embassy in Beijing to develop Canada fund projects related to Tibetan language education, including support for Tibetan-language lending libraries or the training of Tibetan-language teachers.

Finally, number five, advocate on behalf of Tibetan human rights defenders who uphold linguistic rights.

Thank you.

National Indigenous Languages Day

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House today on National Indigenous Languages Day. This is a day to bring attention to the critical endangerment of indigenous languages and to celebrate the rich and diverse heritage they bring to our country.

Today, there are at least 70 distinct indigenous languages spoken in Canada, and every one of them is fundamental to the identity, culture, spirituality and self-determination of first nations, Inuit and Métis. It is an inherent right to pass their knowledge, their stories and their histories in their own voices to all future generations.

This is a goal we are working toward in partnership through Bill C-91, an act respecting indigenous languages, to protect, preserve and revitalize indigenous languages throughout this great nation.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Pelletier. Thank you, Minister.

If you have those numbers, you could send them to the committee.

I mentioned some of the problems. We've been told that it's hard for people who want to make requests to have direct contact. Of course the matter of human resources is important, as are the delays. People told us that they had tried to get in touch with someone, but that it was impossible. It took far too long. In some instances, it was up to 11 months or even a year. That's a problematic situation.

There is also the whole issue of resources. I know that the will is there. Things improved from 180 projects to approximately 1,000. That covers all the Inuit and Métis projects. Nevertheless, people are talking about the situation, including the communities themselves, which were making requests through organizations. They don't have the resources that a very large band council would have, for example. I have even seen disparities on the North Shore, where I come from. These people need more than resources, and that's the reason for the question. I thought to myself that might be one of the first things to take into consideration if we want to give people access to the available funds.

I'd like to raise a completely different subject with you, Minister, about dormant languages.

I am aware of Huron-Wendat, a language which is not being spoken. I know that we're going to return to the review of the Indigenous Languages Act, but would nevertheless like to know how, in Bill C‑91 or in the indigenous languages and cultures program, the issue of research or revitalization will be dealt with. That's really pushing it, given that this language is not even being spoken. Several activities will be funded to get people together so that they can talk about it. But in some communities, people are no longer speaking their language, even though they want to reclaim it.

How will things proceed? What will be the minister's responsibilities? We have seen interest and determination from the commissioner, but we know that it will require effort over the long term, as well as enormous resources. I've discussed it with him. However, it would appear that there are only three people at the Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages at the moment. Clearly, between now and full implementation, all of the emphasis will be on the department itself.

[Dr. Kevin Lewis]

[Witness spoke in Plains Cree, interpreted as follows:]

I would like to commend you for asking these questions. I thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

If you look at mental health, that's the mind. How do we heal our minds? There are two things that we're looking at. When we look at the Maori, they call neurodiversity tânisi êtikwê. There is no term in our languages. We don't have it, but this terminology says we have to ask—we have to resort to our elders—how do we heal ourselves? If a person is not mentally or physically...when you look at the four quadrants, this is when we run to the elders in terms of healing.

When we went to Auckland four years ago, we went to listen to their languages. We went to do our research. We had the researchers, professors, directors and all of them, whoever was involved in all those universities in Auckland, and every one of us, every one of them, was looking at the mental health aspect. How do you heal your people mentally and physically? How do you approach the elders? How do you do that? Even the Hawaiians were looking at us. They were asking the same questions.

It's us, but it's us with the first nations elders and how we are sitting here together and how we are looking at this legislation, the Indigenous Languages Act. This is how, if we start gathering and having these types of engagements, we will lift our language and this is how we will lift ourselves.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut]

[English]

I want to thank all of the witnesses. Normally I'm able to speak in Inuktitut during these sessions. I've very much welcomed having my space, my interpreter, replaced by a Cree interpreter so that we can hear you speaking your language. I've very much enjoyed hearing what you've had to share.

I also thank you, Claudette Commanda, for welcoming us to your territory.

To you as well, Dr. Williams, thank you so much for your testimony.

I'll just ask one question. Could I ask each of you to respond to my one question?

What I'm finding is missing in the Indigenous Languages Act is that nowhere does it talk about the importance of healing. It does provide a bit in the preamble, and in later parts of the act it acknowledges what Canada has done. It acknowledges that reconciliation is important, but nowhere in the act does it talk about the importance of healing and how relearning indigenous languages can be a form of this healing that helps to make sure that we have a better sense of self to improve our sense of identity as indigenous peoples.

I wondered if you had thoughts on whether it would be important to incorporate an amendment into the Indigenous Languages Act about the importance of healing.

Qujannamiik.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm very grateful to our witnesses for being here today in person and joining virtually to share their wisdom. It is such a privilege to hear so many indigenous languages today already.

The first question I'd like to ask is for Dr. Williams. You were very instrumental in setting up one of, if not the first, band-run school in the country. Then just last year the Líl̓wat Nation signed an agreement with the federal government to have full control over how education is delivered for the nation, including control over curriculum, teacher certifications and graduation requirements.

I was hoping you could share with our committee here the importance of this path in being able to sustain and revitalize the language of the Líl̓wat Nation and what other nations—such as the Squamish Nation, in my riding, which is very interested in this—can learn from this process and what we as a committee can learn as we look at the future of the Indigenous Languages Act.

[Dr. Lorna Williams, Chair, First Peoples’ Cultural Foundation]

[Witness spoke in the Líl̓wat language]

[English]

Lorna Williams is my English name. Wánosts’a7 is the name that my people call me. I come from the land of the Líl'watul, in a place called Mount Currie in British Columbia. I taught at the University of Victoria and retired from there.

I am the current chair of the First Peoples' Cultural Foundation. I'm the past chair of the First Peoples' Cultural Council. These are organizations that work on revitalizing, recovering and maintaining the indigenous languages in British Columbia.

My work with our languages began when I lost my language at residential school. I attended the St. Joseph's Mission in Williams Lake and had to relearn my language. It was fortunate for me that the language in my family was strong, and that I lived in the old part of our village where the old people had never been to English school. I was able to recover and to recover my language. I learned English while I was in the hospital.

As a child, I came to see the challenges and the beauty of language and communication. I feel that's where I began my education.

In 1971, 1972 and 1973, my village of Mount Currie was the first community in B.C. to take over its own education. This was a change in government. One of the things that our community said was that they could see that our language was beginning to shift. More and more people were speaking English than our language, which was really different, and they said, “We have to stop this.”

One of the challenges they gave us was to figure out how to keep our language thriving. This was in the early seventies.

I'm sharing this with you so that you know what my background is. I've been involved with K-to-12 education, both at the band-controlled school level and at the public school level. I was a consultant for the Vancouver School District for 15 years. There, I saw children from across Canada in Vancouver. They were children who no longer had a connection to their homelands. A few did, but many didn't. I saw the challenges there that need to be overcome to help us follow our right to our languages. I then went to work for the Ministry of Education in B.C., and then to the University of Victoria, where I finished my employment career.

In 2019, I was present at the UN when it became the International Year of Indigenous Languages. There was so much hope and positive talk about indigenous languages around the world. In 2019, I was so pleased that, finally, the country of Canada was acknowledging and recognizing that our languages exist, and putting into place a process of our being able to work together to do something, finally, in a legitimate way for our languages.

The challenge is a big one for Canada, which has two official languages, both colonizing languages that continue to colonize our people, not just here in Canada but in many places around the world. One of the challenges for the government to make something of this act is to determine whether it has the courage, the audacity and the zeal to look at itself honestly and to look at how all of the policies, the practices and the habits that have became entwined and entrenched to protect English and French keep indigenous languages down. You have to be brave to look at what those practices are, at what those policies are, because they have to be addressed to shift and to change what we have become so habituated to in this country.

We also need to be able to look at the impositions of the Indian Act and be brave enough to change it. What has it done? It has divided us, making some status and making some non-status. It's dislocated, dislodged and relocated people, indigenous people. This act has to be able to serve all indigenous people. That's what you set out to do. It's important then for us to know what it is and what the challenges are that we face. For example, today there are children who have half-status. There are children who have quarter-status. Do they have a right to their language? Will they be served under this act? That's what you have to be able to look at.

We need to be able to look at the infrastructures that are supposed to serve the revitalization, the recovery, the maintenance and the sustaining of languages. I want to speak here about education, because the institution of education has been the instrument that has been used to destroy, to annihilate, our languages and our people. We also need to know that education is a powerful institution and that it can serve to support the work that we need to do, but it can only do that if we're brave enough to redesign it, to question it and to learn from indigenous people who've devoted their lives to trying to strengthen this.

For example, we need indigenous language teachers in schools. There's a demand for them. Schools have used fluent speakers, our elders in our communities. They've never been recognized, acknowledged as teachers, but they do the work. They have figured out how to do it with no post-secondary training.

There is not one single teacher education program in Canada where indigenous language teachers can get the education they need, the learning they need, to do this challenging task, to get a credential and to be recognized and paid as teachers.

Right now, Mr. Garneau, across this country there are many teachers of indigenous languages, and they're paid a pittance because they're not recognized as teachers. That's why I say that we have to look at much of the infrastructure that's in place and make the changes that are needed.

We have some opportunities currently that I want to highlight. One is that the Province of Ontario a few years ago put into place the possibility for indigenous institutions to be degree-granting. That is a huge step. It's a positive step. It could be a very important contributing force to making this Indigenous Languages Act work. We have in British Columbia many years of experience in working with every first nations language—34 languages and their dialects. This is complicated work. It requires lots of support from communities, partnerships and collaborations, but it also counts on the kind of research that needs to be done and that right now does not exist. We have some examples.

It's important, then, to look at yourself in government, at how you stop the work, but also look at what people have been doing across this country to keep our languages alive. When you think about all the things that have happened and that have tried to silence us, our languages continue. They continue because of the passion and the commitment you heard from the former speaker, who talked about the commitment from our elders, our knowledge keepers, to protect our languages of the land. We need to be able to use that, learn from it, go forward and work together.

Thank you.

[Claudette Commanda, Chief Executive Officer, First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres]

Thank you.

Good evening. I am Claudette Commanda, member of the Kitigan Zibi Algonquin First Nation.

I welcome you. I'm honoured to make this presentation on the ancestral territory of my people.

I hold various titles, responsibilities and roles, such as chief executive officer for the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres. I am an Indian day school survivor. I am a representative plaintiff for the survivor class federal Indian day school settlement; a special adviser on reconciliation to the dean of the faculty of law; elder-in-residence; professor; and chancellor of the University of Ottawa. I am a mother of four and a kokum—or grandmother—of 10; this is my most cherished role and responsibility.

Despite the various titles and roles I hold, today I am here as the chief executive officer representing the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres. I have been with this national first nations grassroots organization since 2000.

The FNCCEC was established in 1972. We are a non-profit, national, first nations grassroots organization born out of Indian control of Indian education. Our organization is community-based and grassroots-driven, and we are inherent and treaty rights holders. We are independent from the Assembly of First Nations or any other political entity.

The organization is composed of 46 cultural centres, which are located in every part of the country and represent the language and cultural diversity among first nations. Our elders guide our work and support our community-based and national role as language advocates and language experts. The organization provides technical and program assistance to communities in their development and delivery of language and culture-based education programs.

As rights holders of our languages, the FNCCEC and its member centres understood the need for languages legislation: legislation to guarantee financial support for communities to develop immediate and long-term sustainable solutions for language revitalization and protection, and our right to educate our children in our ancestral languages.

For 47 years, FNCCEC was entrusted—and continues to have that trust—with a national mandate on the promotion, protection, revitalization and maintenance of first nation languages, cultures and traditions. Despite our organization's expertise in language development and program delivery for our communities, FNCCEC was not called on to be codevelopers in the drafting of the languages legislation known as Bill C-91.

However, our organization supports the Indigenous Languages Act. We were pleased to see our vision, our efforts and our actions for language protection become a reality. For decades, with steadfast determination, the FNCCEC advocated for language legislation. Language champions such as Ron Ignace, Verna Kirkness and Amos Key, to name but a few, remained constant in their support of FNCCEC and our mission for legislative language protection.

Why is the act important? What does it mean for the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres?

We see the Indigenous Languages Act as a validation of our languages. It validates the importance of our languages and the richness of our languages for cultural identity and healing. In building self-esteem for first nations children and youth, the validation of our languages for the intergenerational transmission of knowledge is so critical and so important, because our languages are who we are: our identity, our culture and our life, and that connection to land, to spirit, to the creator and to all of our teachings.

The Indigenous Languages Act is also viewed as the Government of Canada's acknowledgement of the historical wrongs that have contributed to language loss. It is also viewed as an instrument to hold the government accountable in its obligation to support the restoration, revitalization and retention of first nation languages with an ongoing commitment for funding needed for immediate and long-term language planning, resource development and language learning.

The protection of the first languages of the land is paramount. After all, first nation languages, indigenous languages, are the original languages of Canada. Canadians must embrace this truth. Raising awareness of the importance and the value of first nation languages provides the opportunity for Canadians to acknowledge, respect and celebrate first nations people, our histories and our rights, and to foster reconciliation, people to people and nation to nation.

We are hopeful and we wait patiently for the act to provide permanent sustainable funding, funding that is of critical need for our communities to build and foster language health both today and lifelong. The act must be the authority to eliminate proposal-driven, piecemeal funding. The current language and cultural funding program criteria, and the administration of funding, can neither sustain nor continue to be the source of language and cultural revitalization, or be the eligibility for language support, for our communities. Change is needed.

We know that much work is still required to fully implement the act. The implementation must ensure that first nation grassroots communities and well-established first nation organizations, who have immense expertise and lived experience in language protection and revitalization, must be included in every stage of implementation and operations, including the development of policies and funding models. The implementation of the act and/or distribution of funding cannot be delegated to political organizations. Grassroots communities and grassroots organizations are the language-holders, the language speakers and the language champions. We are the frontline workers. We are the present. We are the past. We certainly are the future.

We appreciate the working relationship with the staff at Canadian Heritage, who recognize the diverse expertise of the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres. They value the community language experts who assist in the government's work on indigenous languages.

The act, including its spirit and intent, must be fully and diligently recognized in the implementation for the protection and revitalization of first nation languages. The beneficiaries are our children, today and seven generations beyond. Much work remains to be done. FNCCEC's wide array of expertise in language development, implementation, research, and program and technical support must be integral to all aspects of the implementation of the Indigenous Languages Act.

Let's work together to make this happen for our children and our youth today, and for seven generations.

Chi miigwetch. Thank you.

[Ida Bear]

I did a presentation on Monday, just the other day, and we were talking about language and self-esteem. I asked a question: Who am I? Well, you can look at me externally and say, “You're an indigenous woman. You're an older woman. You might be a great-grandmother.” But nobody can tell by looking at me that I have worked years and years and years in post-secondary institutions and also in the community, which I think is very important.

I too came out of residential school. After spending all my childhood there, my youth, I came out a changed person. How do you have healing? You do healing through the language and culture. When I went in, I was five years old. Already I had the language. I had my values and teachings from my grandparents. When I went in, everything was different. There was a lot of corporal punishment and abuse, sexual abuse and physical abuse. You came out as a nobody with no self-esteem.

We're advocating through the language and culture program things like land-based education and using traditional doctors—I'm one of them—for healing of the soul and spirit, but we don't get funding for it. We've been running programs like that for a long, long time without any assistance from the federal government. It's through our local initiatives. I think about it this way: Money doesn't really heal anything, but it sure as heck would help us to do the work in the area of healing. For example, a lot of people say that today it's contemporary times and the past is dead. No, it isn't. The past is just hanging over you with all its negativity, all its hurts and all of whatever it was they did with colonization, turning us into western automatons leaving behind our identity—who we are.

I'm Cree through and through. I do have French on my grandfather's side. I have Scottish on my maternal side, but we all identified as Cree in culture and language. You know, up to five years old, you already have that language. You never lose it. It's like a computer. It's inputted. It's just that psychological processes come into play where you can't get it out.

That was the case for me. In 1974, when I began to get involved in languages and culture, I couldn't even speak my language. I had to get it out, but there were so many obstacles. There were psychological obstacles. There was panic, I would say, in using my language, because there was too much corporal punishment when we'd use our language. In terms of cultural practices, when my mom used to come and visit us, there would be a supervisor. We had 10 minutes with my mom. She would try to bring traditional foods. They would just throw it out as not fit for dogs. There was this demoralizing way of treating us.

I agree with you that within that languages act we need our indigenous doctors, our healers, our psychologists, our psychiatrists, people like me and ceremonial people to be paid for the work we're doing and not to just be given tobacco in a piece of coloured cloth. That doesn't pay for your food. That doesn't pay for your accommodation.

Many of the people doing that work are long gone. The last one died a month ago. We really don't have that pool of traditional healers who do the language and culture work. Since 1967 we've had a core group of us working toward the revival of language and culture. Through the work in language and storytelling and cultural-based activities and ceremonial activities, many of us found healing.

Where we found healing, we got our voice to say, “Okay, we're going to put the western ideology aside. Now we're going to spend time looking at us, at who we are as a people.” We're very diverse, but as indigenous peoples we have universal principles.

We have soul; it's in our language. We have spirit; it's in our language. When we speak our language and we openly speak it, the Creator Otipéyihcikéw hears us and we begin to heal. We need people who are healthy, who are healed, to be able to reach out to the people who need healing.

When I quickly went over the Indigenous Languages Act, I was thinking about that. I said to myself, you know, through language and culture we get healing. We get land-based education. We go to ceremonies. We go to sweat lodges. We go to shake tents. We go to pipe ceremonies.

Our psychologists, our dreamers, are different types of doctors. They're healers of the brain. Nobody recognizes us. Some of us have three, four, five or seven Ph.D.s in ceremonial aspects. We're still very much looked down on, and they say, “Well, you don't have a Ph.D. from a reputable university. You didn't spend nine, 10 or 11 years doing a study.” Our people have worked and lived all their lives in what we call miyo-pimâtisiwin, “the good life”. How do you get at that good life? Practise your culture. Practise your language. Eat your traditional foods. Have your ceremonial name.

My name, and it's kind of comical, is Ká-kisíyásit. I wanted a beautiful name like “Yellow Buffalo Woman” or “Blue Robin”, or all of those nice names. When I got my name, it was Ká-kisíyásit, meaning “one who flies fast”. I told my medicine name-giver, “I don't want that name.” He said, “It's not I who gave your name. It's Otipéyihcikéw, the Creator, who gave you that name.” One who flies fast—that's here, the soul, the spirit.

You can cover a lot of territory for healing, for spiritual teaching, by teaching the language, by being able to pray in a language when you're asked or to counsel somebody who sits there and says, “I don't feel like living anymore. I don't speak my language. I don't know any ceremonies. What am I going to do?”

You went into that whole phase. When you had your people doing the consultation, I wasn't involved, so that part was missed.

I agree with Dr. Megan—I don't know how to pronounce your last name, and my Cree gets in the way—that we should actually look at redrafting or making amendments to include that.

Do you know something? I think it's a positive thing. Back in 1967 we said we needed to save our languages. How many years ago was that? It was roughly 40 years ago. This is 2023. We've lost many of our languages. It wasn't enough for some of us to do the little piecemeal things we were doing. My colleague and I covered all the communities in Manitoba. We set up language working groups back in 1983 and 1984. Once we left, because we didn't train the trainers, it died, and there was no ongoing work done on working with the community, the parents, the grandparents, the ones who have no education.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

To all of you who gave a presentation, I thank you all. What you said is very important, and what you said is very relevant, as you all pointed to coordination as an item.

To Dr. Ida Bear first, when it comes to indigenous peoples and their languages and the Indigenous Languages Act, I look at the content. It's a good act, but it doesn't state anywhere in the act that we need to heal from past abuses and the destruction of our own language. It states that we need to work together, but our language was meant to be lost forever, according to a government policy. Many people are hurting, angry and in need of healing from this abuse.

Can you strengthen the act by adding that financial resources should be available for healing purposes also if we are going to reclaim our languages, which we were forced to give up?

I ask Dr. Bear. Thank you.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for joining us today for this important discussion and for being part of this study. I thank all of you for your testimony.

So far what has struck me is that each of the opening remarks really touched on the coordination aspect of the programs from the federal government.

Dr. Lukaniec, you mentioned the lack of a positive impact from the Indigenous Languages Act. You mentioned the need for language rights and passing some amendments to sort of beef that up.

I find this very interesting for a number of reasons and very concerning for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we've seen a lot of reports from the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor General recently pertaining to Indigenous Services and how, over the last number of years, there have been a lot of resources and dollars allocated but not necessarily a commensurate increase in the results. I think that's a major gap we're experiencing that we're seeing across the country. Each of you pointed that out, and quite rightly so.

With that in mind, in thinking about the results and the outcomes that we obviously need to be striving toward, Dr. Lukaniec, I'll come back to you again, since you started off. You mentioned the need to pass some amendments for the Indigenous Languages Act in order to strengthen it. I'm wondering if you could speak in more detail to some of those specific amendments.

[Dr. Megan Lukaniec, Linguist, Huron-Wendat Nation Council]

Thank you very much.

Kwe aweti'.

My name is Dr. Megan Lukaniec. I'm a member of the Huron-Wendat Nation situated in Wendake, Quebec. I am a linguist for our nation.

I am honoured to be here to discuss the Indigenous Languages Act, and the impacts of that act on our community and our language.

Our language, called Wendat, became dormant over a century ago, but since 2007, we have been reawakening our language through the careful analysis of archival documentation.

As of right now, for our nation, there has been no positive impact of the passing of the Indigenous Languages Act. No funding model has changed, this funding was and still is project-based. Furthermore, we have not been contacted by or in communication with the office of the commissioner of indigenous languages.

The only change that we have experienced with the passing of this act is an increase of service work. We have been called upon to participate in numerous consultations sessions, both prior to and after the act. Despite many of the important and insightful comments that I have heard in these sessions since 2018, I have not seen any of these changes implemented thus far.

I humbly present three recommendations to this committee.

The first recommendation is to pass amendments to this act since it has no teeth and is more or less symbolic. I'll give you an example of that. Paragraph 5(d) reads that the purpose of the act is to “establish measures to facilitate the provision of adequate, sustainable and long-term funding”, but that's actually not the same as committing to provide adequate, sustainable and long-term funding.

Right now, that means that this funding is dependent on the goodwill of the federal government in power. It is also very non-committal in terms of language rights. We need a commitment that we have the right to educate our youth in our language, and it's especially important here in Quebec with the passing of Bill 96. These rights are mentioned, but they are not explicitly stated in the act.

I also would point you to the legal brief of Karihwakè:ron Tim Thompson of Yellowhead Institute, who provides some thoughtful critique of that.

My second recommendation for this is to change the funding model. Get rid of short-term project funding and its associated problematic measures.

Prior to funding from Canadian Heritage, we actually had a five-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It was a partnership between our nation and Université Laval. We had exponential growth during that period of time since, for the first time, we could plan our activities for five years rather than a single year or even two. We could also modify the project activities to fit our actual needs, which often change from the needs that we estimate at the time of submitting a grant application.

Since we started depending on funding from Canadian Heritage, that was roughly in 2012, our language work has really stagnated. We are stuck on a roller coaster of a grant cycle, and in some ways I believe that this funding has actually set us back rather than moved us forward over the past decade.

The application processing delays are inexcusably long. We once waited 11 months from the time of submission to the time of acceptance of the grant, and of course the deadlines don't change necessarily. You have to ask for extensions. There's also very little flexibility in changing the project activities or the timelines, and there's no recognition of how their delays impact us in our work and in our language planning.

The bigger reality is that we don't want to do projects. The work that we're doing in our community to revitalize our language is not a project. It shouldn't need to be packaged into something new and shiny each grant cycle, with deliverables that need to be sent to Canadian Heritage after the fact.

Instead, we really hope that the federal government could fund full operating budgets for a period of at least five years to reawaken and revitalize our languages, and not projects with deliverables that are counted according to metrics designed by someone else.

My third recommendation for you is to increase the funding to at least match what is provided to official languages. Dr. Onowa McIvor talks about this very issue in her 2013 article. She says, “it takes greater resources to rebuild something than it does to destroy it.” With amounts of up to $300,000 per year, the funding we receive now is more of a token of support than actual support.

We know that our languages are not being funded at the same level as English and French. We're being told as much during these consultation sessions when we are being asked to provide criteria that will be used to choose amongst the best grant applications. Please don't make us compete against one another for essential funding that is needed to support our languages.

We need this funding to undo the harm the federal government and its other colluding agents have caused to our language. We would like to have at least the same as if not more than what is provided to English and French, because it does cost more to rebuild.

In conclusion, it's been almost four years since the act has passed. We have been waiting patiently. We are still without any adequate, sustainable, recurring and long-term funding for our language. The current funding amounts and current funding model are both unacceptable and will not permit us to effect real change in our community in terms of language revitalization.

We are now coming up against a funding gap since we had a two-year grant from Canadian Heritage that will end on March 31. There are no other funding calls that are available despite the fact we were told that these new funding models would come into effect in the spring of last year, in 2022.

I implore you to act fast because we're doing all we can on our end to sustain and nourish our language, but we really need the federal government to commit itself to help us rebuild from the damage they caused our language. We need this financial support, and we need it now.

That is all.