Your last witness, Duane Smith, talked about the way in which jurisdictions with multiple indigenous languages have historically underfunded indigenous languages and how fundamental change is necessary. This is the reason we're talking about an Inuit Nunangat approach within this legislation that would see our needs met through specific policy and legislative provisions and regulatory processes that fall under it to ensure that our 51 communities are serviced in exactly the same way and that our rights will be upheld on a consistent basis, no matter where you are in Inuit Nunangat.
I think part of the challenge has been that the way Confederation is imagined does not have space for Inuit Nunangat. When we introduce this topic and this idea, this advancement of our rights in a consistent way to this government wanting to renew its relationship with us, we don't find acceptance or innovation. We can't then get to the practical solutions that are being proposed through sometimes a very logical, simple approach, mainly because it's novel.
Breaking up the old way of doing business, especially within the aboriginal languages initiative, which for most of the last 10 to 15 years has operated basically with indigenous peoples competing with one another, and with Canadian Heritage deciding which indigenous projects they like best, versus having the proper funding and authority for language promotion be with the indigenous peoples themselves in a way that we choose to structure the interventions.... This is what we're trying to get to.
The concerns we have had are many in relation to the lack of respect for our language rights. This legislation is not going to solve every last one of them. It is also going to require additional considerations with provinces and territories, but this can be a really good place to start. We hope the amendments we're proposing can be incorporated into the bill.