We have several institutions, primarily in the prairie provinces, where we've been organized the longest and where the majority of our population lives. Primarily, our relationship has been with the provincial governments in terms of on-the-ground delivery of educational and cultural programs and services. There are some major initiatives we'd like to do. For example, under the infrastructure stimulus program, we were excluded from the budget round. We were asked to put in proposals, and we did. We put in proposals for building up Batoche and for educational infrastructure in Saskatchewan. We put in proposals for developing a national museum at The Forks in Winnipeg, and one for Métis Crossing in Alberta, and for an educational centre in Abbotsford.
In the end, the Prime Minister pushed through two projects: one for Alberta and one for B.C. The catch, we found out later, was that we had to have matching dollars, so I don't think we actually took advantage of that.
We still see the need to build up those cultural and educational institutions. In particular, as I mentioned in the brief, the Manitoba Métis Federation, on behalf of the Métis Nation, is seeking to establish a national museum at The Forks, in conjunction with, I believe they're called “Friends of The Forks”. It's something we've been trying to do for the last 20 years, to have a place to keep our heritage and to promote our culture. We find that The Forks in Winnipeg would be the ideal place.
In Batoche, we're looking at continuing to build up the infrastructure and making it a tourism destination. Doing so would meet some of our economic development needs as well as our cultural needs.
These are some examples. We'd also like to look at the possibility of having museums in our communities, one or two throughout the provinces. We don't really have any. For example, I'm from northwest Saskatchewan, and for a number of years we've been looking at how we could establish a museum, sort of an interpretation centre, and we still haven't found a way to do that.
In terms of the language, the Métis evolved as a distinct people some 400 years ago. As the Supreme Court of Canada said in the Powley case, Métis rights are based on the customs, practices, and traditions of the Métis as they developed prior to effective control by Europeans, as opposed to pre-contact. So we have our customs and cultures, our traditions, our clothing. Our language is made up basically of French nouns and Cree grammar or verbs, or whatever it's called. But it's a language that's recognized as a language. Unfortunately, it's a dying language, as are several other aboriginal languages. Michif is unique in the world, and it's something we feel should be preserved. We would hope that Heritage Canada would continue its program of financing our ability to not only retain but also promote the language.