Thank you very much.
On May 4, I rose in the House of Commons on an S. O. 31. It was an important issue because there was violence occurring against indigenous women in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Some had been killed and burned alive, set afire during parties, by people who did not respect women. In order to have perhaps a deeper impact—because a lot of politicians will raise these issues, but sometimes we're ignored and not everyone hears the message—I wanted to make sure that the people who needed to hear it most, especially some young men, would hear that message, so I decided to speak in Cree.
I expected when I wrote the little one-minute speech that it would be translated in the House that I would have the simple courtesy of one minute to be able to express that language so that all people could understand what I was saying. Unfortunately, the interpretive and translation services were not able to provide that service because we can't do it under the current Standing Orders. I understand. Bureaucracy has a way of functioning and working, and bureaucracy is important, but at the same time it's important for that message to get out.
I was dismayed when other MPs could not understand what I was saying, nor were my words recorded within the Hansard. I have spoken many times in Cree in the House, and it's not even an accurate representation of some of the speeches. It simply says the member has spoken in Cree. I might have spoken for over a minute—two, three, four minutes—in Cree, but no one knows what I said.
I brought this issue up as a point of privilege to the Speaker a few weeks after that. I spoke to a number of lawyers and people involved in language issues across Canada, especially people involved in francophone language issues for minority linguistic rights across Canada, learning from them about some of the processes that they had gone through and trying to find out what would relate to indigenous peoples.
I believe one of our colleagues spoke previously to section 35 of the Constitution Act, which states: “The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.”
A friend of mine, Karen Drake, has written about this extensively. She believes that they do fall within this provision. Some people have even launched a constitutional challenge, arguing that not only does the federal government have a negative obligation not to stifle aboriginal languages or to simply just ignore them but that it has a positive obligation to provide the resources necessary for the revitalization of those languages.
I could go on perhaps in another section. I don't want to take up all of your time.