Certainly I do. I think that research that is required should be directed through the first nations community. I'm talking first nations here, the indigenous communities, whether they be Métis, Inuit or first nations. From a first nations perspective, the research should be largely for the purposes of preserving, stabilizing, normalizing and revitalizing indigenous languages. At this period in British Columbia, all of the indigenous languages—and there are eight language families with some 30 languages altogether—are endangered.
Research is really the last of our priorities, put it that way, but it's still needed. What we need is money for fluency development through emergent programs. That's where our priority is. The other thing about research is this. We've seen a lot of research being undertaken by academics, and now we see the documents, and they're copyrighted in the name of the researcher. It doesn't do us any good, even though it's about our languages and our future, unless the researchers or whoever has the copyright decides that the copyright should be transferred to indigenous people.
It's a big undertaking, but these are the safeguards that we require. It shouldn't be just holus-bolus research for the sake of research. It has to be directed toward the purposes that we establish, not somebody else's purposes.