Yes, thank you.
We see a difference between the work that needs to go on to support making revitalization happen and the work of a commissioner. Again, they're the ombudsman. They take the complaints. I don't think they necessarily are the best option to support communities to deliver language revitalization programming across Canada.
First Peoples' is more than a grant-maker. We also provide training and a lot of support and work in partnership with communities to gather language data. We publish the status of languages report every four years. We've trained 475 people on language revitalization this past year alone because of the $50 million in funding that we received from the Province of British Columbia. We work with our advisory committees, our indigenous Ph.D.s and specialists, to develop plans and strategies that create outcomes that are going to result in language revitalization, strategies such as immersion through the mentor apprentice program and language nests.
It's complicated work and it can't happen without support. You don't solve the problem just with funding. There also has to be collaboration. As my elder, Marsha, just said, we have to walk side by side and collaborate over tribal areas where we share a language. Individual first nations need to work together, and we need to share our resources and support each other, and first nations people who have a desire and a passion for their languages should be supported to learn those languages no matter where they live.
I see the national organization as a strategy to have the opportunity to invite indigenous experts in revitalization to guide the work to support people across Canada as they're revitalizing their languages, similar to First Peoples'. We have a limited role, not taking up a lot of money, because I think that's what we had discussed in our consultations. People weren't keen, and I certainly wasn't keen at first because I thought we have what we need in B.C. We're taken care of. But there is a huge value in coming together across the nations and collaborating and sharing and supporting each other in this work, and I think that's only going to happen if we have a national entity.