Thank you for the question.
What was done to indigenous peoples, including the Inuit, was horrible. People were uprooted and prevented from speaking their own language.
As I was saying earlier, language is how we express what we basically are; it's our identity. It's our way of transmitting our history to our children. When children lose their language and can no longer communicate with their parents and grandparents, they lose some of their identity. Something inside them has been broken.
I myself worked for a long time in international development around the world, and I always said that change and progress come through education.
All the departments have a role to play in this, and it varies from one to the other. What our department does is provide kindergarten to grade 12 classrooms with educational materials like dictionaries and software to help with word pronunciation.
Other departments work more closely with the provinces and territories on other aspects.
In fact I'm going to ask Mr. Pelletier to provide more details on this.