[Witness spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]
Thank you. I hope everyone can hear me.
Thank you, Mr. Chairperson and all of the members, for inviting me. I am happy to be sitting here with you. I will be talking about how it is in Nunavut, because it is very unique and different from other areas of Canada.
Now, in terms of our Inuit language, there's Inuktut, Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut. As the language commissioner in Nunavut, I am talking in my language to show that we are in support of our languages and are fighting to keep them alive.
[English]
More precisely, my primary duty is to promote and safeguard the language rights of Nunavummiut.
Nunavut has two distinct languages acts: the Official Languages Act, which recognizes, as I mentioned, the Inuit language, English and French; and the Inuit Language Protection Act.
I'm just going to go through the differences between those two acts for a minute.
OLA, the Officials Languages Act, recognizes Inuktut, English and French as our territory’s official languages. It creates important obligations for the Nunavut government departments and public agencies, the legislative assembly and the Nunavut courts to serve the public in all of the official languages. The federal government and organizations from the private sector don’t have to comply with OLA.
By contrast, the Inuit Language Protection Act was designed specifically to counter, among other things, the negative effects of colonization, or
the past government actions and policies of assimilation and the existence of government and societal attitudes that cast the Inuit Language and culture as inferior and unequal, and acknowledging that these actions, policies and attitudes have had a persistent negative and destructive impact on the Inuit Language and Inuit;
Moreover, at a minimum, article 13.1 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples proclaims the right of indigenous peoples to:
revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literature, and to designate and retain their names for communities, places, and persons.
Federal agencies, departments and institutions have a legal and moral obligation to comply with Nunavut's legislation. Canada commits itself to respecting the UNDRIP declaration for indigenous people, and federal agencies, departments and institutions in Nunavut have to comply with the ILPA— that's the Inuit Language Protection Act—in Nunavut.
However, the Office of the Languages Commissioner of Nunavut continues to receive—we continue to receive—concerns involving federal agencies, departments and institutions in Nunavut.
The issues that my office faces in addressing concerns involving the federal agencies, departments and institutions in Nunavut include a lack of response from the obligated federal agencies, departments and institutions, and/or the absence of tools to enforce their compliance with the law, even if the complaints are admissible.
This is especially concerning because federal agencies, departments and institutions in Nunavut are accountable for the lack of Inuktut in their oral communications, public signs, posters and reception and client services, as required under ILPA.
[Witness spoke Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]
The primary language of the Nunavummiut is Inuktitut. They speak their primary language in their homes, but that is being lost. There were studies conducted by Statistics Canada to see if Inuktitut was being kept alive or being lost. In 2016, the researchers found that the number of people who could speak their language in their homes was 23,225, or 65.3%. These are the statistics in Nunavut. Also, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that 23,970 people, or 52.9%, of Nunavut residents were able to speak in their language, which is Inuktitut.
This is a growing concern for us.
[English]
The decline is significant, and positive actions are more important than ever.
I'd like to get to a few examples of the concerns that our office receives.