Good morning. My name is Esther Sanderson. I'm from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation as well, and we're sisters. The issues that have faced both of us have been tragic in a lot of cases, but I want to say a little bit about the language with the Canadian human rights.
We come from Cree territory, and most of the people in the northern part of Manitoba still speak Cree, an aboriginal language. In terms of having people understand what is presented before them, the laws and the legalities that come into our communities are often not understood. So the process in itself with the Canadian Human Rights Act and section 67, or Bill C-44, are not understood simply because of the language difference. In terms of resources we would need, we would like translation services in order for our people to understand what is before them, so that they will also be able to make informed decisions.
There are a lot of words in the English language that the Cree language does not have—for instance, the word “guilty”. We have no word in our Cree language for guilty. So how do we explain those kinds of concepts and those kinds of words to our people? So it's a matter of translation that's really important to us,and to get the concepts right. Those are the kinds of services that we will require.