Evidence of meeting #146 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was centres.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Okay.
Again, let's assume this bill passes and there is a budget attached to the bill. If you had access to some program support, what would be the priority for the friendship centres?
5:05 p.m.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
Friendship centres offer so many different kinds of programming across the country that it's hard to say which friendship centre would be able to provide what. We have alternative high schools, we have aboriginal head start programs, day cares, youth programming, parental programs, mother and child programs, prenatal programs. Any one of these programs could potentially be a point for language learning. Some of them could just offer the weekly classes and find local individuals to provide those language classes.
A number of technological apps and websites have been developed. Potentially, the friendship centres could draw on what has already been developed and use people just to have more conversation. The fear I have with technology is that while it's good to develop the technology, you still need people talking to each other in order to revitalize a language.
I'm not sure what it would look like, but I know that we could get the programming pretty quickly out to communities if we were able to have a national program.
February 26th, 2019 / 5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
I know through our friendship that you're also the chairperson of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. It has indigenous language programming several hours a week—I'm not sure how many anymore. I know you touched on it in your presentation, but could you talk about the role of media—television and radio—not only in promoting indigenous languages, but as places where people can actually hear languages?
5:05 p.m.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
The role of indigenous media is so important, and I haven't seen it reflected in this act. Television and radio have been used for decades across Canada, especially in the north, to not just utilize the language but to get essential information across. You can look at Wawatay, across northern Ontario, or you can look at the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation in Iqaluit. These organizations are so essential to getting the language out there and having people hear it every single day. You can think about the children's programming that the Inuit societies or the northern societies have created so that children are learning how to speak the language at very young ages.
I think those examples ought to be reviewed and considered within this bill, if you're thinking of any additions or amendments.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
Thank you.
We will now go to Mr. Yurdiga for seven minutes, please.
5:10 p.m.
David Yurdiga Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to thank everyone for coming here today. Your testimony is very important.
I'd like to say that I'm very impressed by the native friendship centres in my riding and also by your organization. I have three, one in each of Fort McMurray, Lac La Biche and Cold Lake. I'm still amazed by how much they do with so little budget. Obviously, our friendship centres serve first nations and Métis within my communities.
How do you foresee the friendship centres being involved in preserving...for example in my area it would be Michif, and Cree possibly? How do you foresee yourselves, moving forward, if a program were to come out?
Jocelyn or Christopher.
5:10 p.m.
Board President, National Association of Friendship Centres
I would really just look at it in the same light that I look at the way friendship centres cultivated and kept culture as a whole going in urban centres. There are friendship centres that were entrusted with many cultural practices over the last 70 years, and there are examples of urban pow-wows and urban ceremony. There are examples of centres that created cultural programming so that it would remain intact, programming that was shared with their home communities after.
Friendship centres were really the culmination of indigenous people wanting to keep their cultures alive even after they transitioned, and now that includes languages, whether it's by learning them, revitalizing them or finding innovative ways to maintain them.
We looked at Webex. The reason for Webex wasn't just to record; it was literally so that you could have a language teacher anywhere. If we couldn't get a Mi'kmaq teacher in St. John's at the time, we could find a place for them to go and teach a class from wherever we could find them. It's good to have your conversations in person, but if you could have them through a screen, even....
For us, centres have provided the space for a very long time for indigenous culture, and I think with language they offer the network and the infrastructure that exists today.
5:10 p.m.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
I will add quickly that in our report the participants foresaw that friendship centres and the NAFC could be a central repository for materials, programs and curriculums. We could hold things at our national office that have already been developed and be able to distribute them. If we had a request from a local friendship centre, we could share what we have within that repository. That's in the report we submitted to the committee.
5:10 p.m.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
Thank you.
Karon, we have two sets of Métis. We have the settlement, which is land-based, and then we have the Métis who are intertwined in the rural and urban centres, and they don't have a land base.
When we're talking about the Métis, in my mind there are two separate types of infrastructure. We have the settlement and the urban thing. Have you ever worked with the settlements? They have infrastructure in place. They have schools within their land mass. They have certain advantages.
5:10 p.m.
Director of Publishing, Culture and Heritage, Gabriel Dumont Institute
I know they order our resources, but I can't say we've worked with them directly.
5:15 p.m.
Director of Publishing, Culture and Heritage, Gabriel Dumont Institute
The Michif in Saskatchewan is what we're calling “northern Michif”, and it's very heavily based on Cree. The one that's critically endangered is what we call “heritage Michif”, which is the original language from which the other Michifs evolved.
I envy the settlements for having that close community, with not only the proximity to sustain their language but also an infrastructure that enabled them to provide it. Also, once you have a majority situation in the school, it's a lot easier to leverage the support for Michif language inclusion all across Saskatchewan. It's a Métis community, so it's taught every day in the school, and the teachers are Michif speakers as well. Again, that's northern Michif, and it's primarily Cree.
5:15 p.m.
Director of Publishing, Culture and Heritage, Gabriel Dumont Institute
Yes, and we're calling them all languages. No one wants to think of their language as a dialect, so we call them “Michif languages”. Three are spoken in Saskatchewan. The other one is Michif French, which is almost all French.
5:15 p.m.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
Thank you.
I know a lot of Métis organizations have access to the digital platform more so than some of these settlements, which have difficulty even getting Internet service. They get basic, but it's really hard to function.
Moving forward, how important do you believe it is to have access to adequate cell coverage or Internet coverage? The friendship group mentioned that's a platform you use quite often, and it's very successful. Do you know any communities struggling to access indigenous programs because of their location?
5:15 p.m.
Director of Publishing, Culture and Heritage, Gabriel Dumont Institute
Yes, we do. For the last 15 years, we've been making.... All the children's books are translated into Michif and English, and we include a CD that has the audio of the text in both Michif and English. If you're in a situation where you're remote and you don't have access, then you can at least use those resources so you can still hear it.
I was at a different meeting today, where they talked about an e-book that can be downloaded so it appears you're online but you're not really. You can download it so you could use it anywhere, and I think this is where technology is going.
Of course, if you could be hooked up and have interactive lessons and teaching, I think that would be the ideal scenario.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
That takes you to the end of your time.
We'll now move on to Mr. Nantel for seven minutes.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you, all, for coming.
I should speak French on principle, given what we're studying here.
I have a big question for the three of you. What do you think about the “interference” or contribution of provinces when it comes to languages, since they have jurisdiction over education, and in Quebec, jurisdiction over language?
What's your position on the role of the provinces referred to in the bill?
5:15 p.m.
Director of Publishing, Culture and Heritage, Gabriel Dumont Institute
I think we have to respect the two official languages. For the Métis, because we are in provincial schools.... In each of the provinces in which Michif is a language of the Métis, I would say that the provincial ministry of education would collaborate with the Métis and be on side with it.
If it had any federal funding... The first nations get their funding federally, and then the provinces set the curriculum. I think there could be some issues there, but if everybody has the same objective—that indigenous languages should be revitalized—I think it could be worked out.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
I learned the only Cree that I know in elementary school. When I was a child in Moosonee—still an urban setting where there's a friendship centre—they had it as part of the regular curriculum. I hear they don't offer Cree as part of the regular curriculum. Also, it was an elective in my high school. When we went to high school, we had the choice to learn either Cree or French. Then I wasn't reintroduced to my language in a formal way until university, and it was an elective course. The only reason the professor was there was to pay for his flying lessons, as he told us on the first day. It wasn't a regular part of the curriculum.
I think that the involvement of provinces is huge. Especially in urban communities, offering language within the school system is essential and important. For a lot of the communities in Quebec, bilingual means French and either Cree, or Innu or Atikamekw. It's not French and English. For the francophone urban indigenous, the language piece is very important—to keep speaking and to keep using it—even if they're not living in their home community.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
During a visit to Kahnawake, Chief Norton showed us a Mohawk language maintenance program that was very important to him. It was a huge process. If I remember correctly, people needed to spend so much time relearning the Mohawk language that it was impossible for them to work full time while doing so.
Certainly resources are required to achieve something, and there's no budget for the act respecting Indigenous languages. I imagine that this uncertainty regarding funding isn't very reassuring.