Yes. Thank you.
It is very important. Language is such a critical part of who you are as a people, and in this case, again, the Métis nation. The language, Michif, is such an important language to us, as are other indigenous languages, as I mentioned earlier, that some of our people speak.
Ours is a rich culture; however, like other indigenous peoples, we have suffered many years of oppression, of repression of our rights and, in the case of the Métis nation, of exclusion, including exclusion from the comprehensive claims processes; exclusion from the specific claims processes; exclusion from, for example, the first nations and Inuit health branch—there's no Métis there; and, exclusion from a lot of general programs and services that were provided to other indigenous peoples.
We were excluded from, first of all, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and from the Prime Minister's apology. We were excluded from the mandate of the TRC and, as I say, because of that, we were excluded from the recommendations, although we do benefit from the recommendations, this being one example of that.
After all of these years of exclusion, marginalization and repression, still today we're persecuted or prosecuted for exercising our harvesting rights, our hunting and fishing rights.
When you have a government or a Parliament that is prepared to recognize at least part of who you are—and in this case, an important part, a language, that's so very important to us.... If we can't enjoy our own languages and our own cultures, in the end, while rights are important, they become meaningless if you cease to be who you are as a people. This is going to very much fortify the respective cultures and languages of indigenous peoples and nations.