Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 27th, 2019

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In Blackfoot, I say “excellent”.

The three of you, as speakers, are sort of a breath of fresh air today. You've laid out three mindsets that could be in this legislation but aren't.

I informed my colleagues when I spoke about this in the House that one of the things is that it's rushed. The consultation hasn't been there.

You stated the obvious today when you talked about adequate.... These people have heard me talk about that, and my definition of adequate is C. You were a little better than that; you gave it a C+. That's where I think it is; it's just adequate. It's a C, an average. It's rushed.

It doesn't have what you three witnesses have said to us today. You've identified the pieces that are missing and so necessary. You've said it a number of times.

I brought up the word “diverse”. What does it mean? There are so many words like that in here that just aren't good enough, because it does just exactly what you said.

When you talk about the points to ponder, some of those are dissertations in themselves. You've laid out what, to me, is a critical piece: identifying those organizations and moving that money to those organizations. The structures are there. You have figured out in the worst of circumstances how to do things on the worst of budgets. Why can't we translate this legislation to do what you understand?

I've talked too much. I usually ask a lot of questions.

You've been very enlightening to me today, in the sense of expressing those things that are so important to what this legislation could be, and it's not.

If you have any last words in the three minutes I have left, I would appreciate your expressing anything you didn't get to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

You actually have five minutes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

We have five minutes: Let's start right there. Is there anything you didn't get to say?

[Claudette Commanda]

What I'd like to stress is that our national organization is community-driven. Our cultural centres are community-based, and they have been doing this work since 1972.

We operate on very limited funding, which comes from Indigenous Services Canada. It's proposal-driven funding, but we make do. We're not a political entity. We are grassroots. We know the issues. We know the people. We're directed and guided by our elders. Our culture centres are actually the hub of communities.

In the case of this Bill C-91—and I agree with you that it was rushed—if you want to do something, do it right, because this is important. This is critical. We're talking about our lives here. We're talking about our people. We're talking about our ancestors. We're talking about our generations that will come. It's important to get it right.

Work with those existing organizations that have been well established. We have the solutions. We have the ways, and we can do it. If we've been doing it with $1.50 per person, we certainly can do it. We need to have the resources so we can enhance our capacity.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

As you said, though, the definition isn't there to allow it to move into where it's needed. It's not there.

[Claudette Commanda]

You're right. It's not there, and we keep asking “What do you mean by 'diverse'?” That could be anyone. Anyone off the streets could say, “Now today, our mandate is going to change. We're going to work on indigenous languages.” That is what's happening right now. I'm witnessing it. Ever since the announcement that they were going to move forward with the legislation on indigenous languages was made, and just recently when the bill was tabled, organizations have popped up. Groups have popped up. They're saying, “There's money in it. Let's change our mandate and let's include indigenous languages in our mandate”, because they're going after funding, funding, funding. Where is that going to put us?

If they put other entities before us, if they put diverse entities before us, guess what happens. We, the grassroots people, will be forgotten once again, and everybody else is going to become rich off the back of our languages and our spirituality and our civilizations.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

As well, Mr. Key, what you envision happening won't happen, will it?

[Amos Key Jr.]

No.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

It will be a sad day.

[Amos Key Jr.]

Yes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

You understand it so well. I can understand it only so little, but you understand it. To listen to you and how you express that and how you understand.... The words we use don't describe what we need to understand. That is so missing for us.

Politicians have to make decisions, and you understand that as well, but the problem is that the consultation that I see, which could have occurred with people who are sitting here in this room, didn't happen. It didn't happen. We're missing that passion. We're missing those key parts of understanding the situation. That's sad to me. You're much sadder than I am because you know the results.

[Amos Key Jr.]

I think all of us sitting here as well have had some great teachers. Our own elders and our wisdom keepers, our knowledge keepers, have encouraged us to move forward and to keep the faith and keep going, regardless of what happens.

I'm a professor at the University of Toronto. I tell my students that it's our resilience. Despite all the odds, that's our resilience in play. I still can stand here in one of the richest universities in Canada and speak to you. I never aspired to be a professor, but here I am now talking to you about how we ran off the rails 150 years ago, and now we have to try to get back on.

One thing is to debunk the term “culture” when we engage indigenous peoples, because all of that is sewn together. All of those traits and characteristics, including our moral compass and our moral characters and our theologies and our spiritualities, are sewn together by our languages.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

How did we go so far off the track with this piece of legislation?

[Amos Key Jr.]

I don't know.

[Ellen Gabriel]

You were never on the right track to begin with. That's because you didn't have the indigenous language experts who were there to help guide you and tell you what you need.

It takes five to seven years to become a fluent speaker of my language, and that's if you hear it every single day. If you're trying to bring children to start speaking it in this globalized society.... For us, in Quebec, we're challenged by Bill 101. All those things come together, and they push down all the things that have been pushed down for the last 150-plus years.

As Amos and Claudette have eloquently stated, we have so much richness in our culture that we want to bring to the children and youth so that they will still be able to speak it 100 years from now, speaking in the way that our elders understand. They can break down the words, and say this root comes from here and this comes from our creation story.

I think it has good intentions, and I really would hate to see any kind of political partisanship get involved in this. We need the money yesterday for us to be able to take the lead, because we know what we need. We will be accountable. We will have our audits and we will give you the receipts, if you want, but give us the money we need today, because our human resources are dwindling.

If this had been a predominantly male activity, I think it would have been well funded, but the majority of people who have been working in language revitalization, nickel-and-diming it all these years, have been women. There have been exceptions like Amos. I think that says a lot about how indigenous women are still looked at.

It's our nations. We are peoples with the right to self-determination, and our language is one of the richest parts of who we are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you.

We'll continue with Mr. Nantel for seven minutes.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

First, thank you very much for being here.

It's always an adventure. Listening to Mr. Shields getting so passionate about it is reassuring me, as a regular Canadian, about the importance of meeting these TRC recommendations.

First and foremost, I have to tell you that I hope we will get your written submissions. I guess we didn't have them because they were not in French, but we need to have them translated and receive them as quickly as possible, because things are rolling fast.

I noticed how troubled you are by the fact there is no funding at all. Let's make it clear. There's no dollar sign in the bill, so let's stop talking about the fact that there's funding. There's no dollar sign in the bill.

If I'm not mistaken, Ms. Commanda, to you it is the most important thing. Ms. Gabriel, you just said you don't want the baby to be thrown out with the water. Some may discuss whether consultations have been done in the proper way, but what would you say is reasonable funding for a first step for the first year?

We can imagine that we will make it grow, because this pays off. I still remember going on the other side of the river in Kahnawake and meeting with.... I don't know how it is at your place, but in Kahnawake the relearning of the original Mohawk was a process that has been long attempted and tried. I remember it was at the time when Hochelaga came out. That comedian was actually a real master and teacher of their language.

They were telling me it's a super-big choice to get involved in relearning the language. There is money for the teachers, but I guess there should also be money for the people. I don't know if it was specific to there, but it was like a full-time job to relearn. However, it also created amazing results. I remember buying a DVD of a kids' show, locally produced, if I'm not mistaken.

What would be the first money to be awarded for that?

[Claudette Commanda]

May I respond to the question, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Yes.

[Claudette Commanda]

Our cultural centres spoke about funding. We said $250 million, as a start, should be put into a language institute, which would then go right into the communities to help them rebuild their languages.

We have another recommendation that $1 million, as a start, should go into first nations communities as core funding for their languages. This funding would be start-up money and would increase on an annual basis.

That's a start. We know it's so important. The cultural centres are supporting 400 first nations communities and languages, so $5 million is not a whole lot of money at all, and we've been operating with the same level of funding since the 1980s.

It's proposal-driven; it cannot be proposal-driven. It must be core programming.

Overall, it would be $250 million as a base to start from and $1 million to each first nations community for their core funding for languages.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Key, would you comment?.

[Amos Key Jr.]

I had the opportunity to look at the action plan for official languages for 2018-23, a five-year plan, and noted that the Government of Canada is going to share $2.7 billion with the francophone community outside of Quebec. That's for one language. Do the math. It's a point to ponder.

I had the audacity to suggest that we look for at least $1 billion annually for 60 languages in this country. We would ramp up to that, with increases based on need after that.

I'm looking at my brothers and sisters from our francophone communities, and how rich they are. I look at their action plan. It's so beautifully written. It supports the arts in French and music in French. It's so beautiful.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Well, this is why I was referring to that television show I saw in Kahnawake. Language is culture; it is the resilience of that culture.

You spoke, Ms. Commanda, about the commissioner's office. Could you expand on your thoughts on that?

[Claudette Commanda]

From our perspective, the commissioner has to be indigenous, or has to be first nation. I'm speaking from a first nations perspective. It should be our people who appoint the commissioner—not the minister or the government, but our people—and that individual has to meet criteria. For example, that individual should be a language speaker and should be community-raised, having that strong knowledge of tradition and of the protocols. The commissioner should have strong public relations skills and the ability to build partnerships among first nations, government and society. We need to have some very critical, strong, cultural language criteria.

It needs to be our people. After all, this commissioner is going to be the one overseeing any funding or whatever that is born out of the legislation. Our people understand. Our people understand the community, the languages, the needs and how to work with systems.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you very much.

You're very practical in the way you approach it—all three of you, actually. It's like a bizarre coordination. You're very direct and to the point.

I have to ask you one thing that is a little further up. It's the global view. How do you think it should relate to UNDRIP?