Good day.
My name is Christopher Sheppard. I'm the President of the National Association of Friendship Centres. I'm an Inuk. I am a beneficiary of the Nunatsiavut government in Labrador.
We have submitted two copies of both French and English versions of the NAFC discussion paper entitled “Our Languages, Our Stories: Towards the Revitalization and Retention of Indigenous Languages in Urban Environments”.
I will start with some information about the NAFC.
The National Association of Friendship Centres is a network of over 100 members that are friendship centres and six members that are provincial and territorial associations from coast to coast to coast. Friendship centres are Canada's most significant off-reserve, indigenous, civil society network service delivery infrastructure and are the primary providers of culturally relevant programs for indigenous people living in urban environments.
For over 70 years, friendship centres have facilitated the transition of indigenous people from rural, remote and reserve life to an urban environment, and they increasingly support those who were born and raised in the urban environment. For many indigenous people, friendship centres are the first and main point of contact to find community, receive support and obtain referrals to culturally based socio-economic programs and services, which include indigenous language programs.
As NAFC president, I reported on May 9, 2018 to the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples that in 2015 alone, NAFC friendship centres saw over 2.3 million client contacts, and provided over 1,800 different programs and services in many areas, including language.
For example, at First Light St. John's Friendship Centre, there is language programming in Mi'kmaq offered to anyone in the community. The classrooms and conversations were also recorded and broadcast, and made available through Webex so that anyone could join in person or online. The proposal we initially put forward was for three indigenous languages—Mi'kmaq, Inuktitut and Innu-aimun. However, it seemed like it was too complex for the department to understand the delivery of three indigenous languages, so they asked us to scale it to one.
Under One Sky Friendship Centre in Fredericton has a “take it outside” head start project that takes children on the land to learn Maliseet in all seasons. The Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre in Halifax is a partner in an indigenous-centred training program that promotes bringing language and culture into early childhood education. Native Montréal has for three years held free weekly language classes in Innu, Cree, Anishinawbemowin, Atikamekw, Wendat and Inuktitut for both children and adults. The Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary offers Cree, Michif and Blackfoot classes funded by the province, and the Canadian Native Friendship Centre in Edmonton provides Cree classes.
The Dauphin Friendship Centre provided Michif language, and the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres received $6 million for language programming under the provincial government.
The NAFC is here to speak about Bill C-91, because we are in it right now. We are providing language programming, and we will continue to do it because we are accountable to the indigenous communities that own and operate our centres on shoestring budgets.
Since 1972, the NAFC has built this deep, grass-rooted foundation that forms the very fabric of the urban indigenous population in Canada. We have leadership and a national network that reaches deep into urban indigenous communities that are asking for support for further use and revitalization of indigenous languages.
Urban indigenous people hold a strong connection to their identity while navigating ways to maintain cultural connections outside of their communities. This reality of our urban indigenous issues is ignored or forgotten. This is our critical hour to ensure the urban indigenous voice is heard and upheld in the establishment of Bill C-91, and respecting indigenous languages includes respecting where indigenous language is needed, and this includes Canada's urban landscape.
With the staggering increase of over 60% in the urban indigenous population in just 10 years, it is clear that a national mandate to revitalize indigenous languages must include urban indigenous communities.