This is an excellent question because I don't think we considered language as the doorway to support for education. We see it as something that's maybe more tied to culture, but language seems to be a critical piece of all of this.
Six years ago, in 2016-17, I was sitting on a departmental audit committee for Indian and Northern Affairs. We got a copy of the department's annual results report. In there was a sentence that I was just astounded by. It said that, in spite of 30 years of sustained funding to indigenous communities across the country, we have not been able to improve the community well-being index of the Government of Canada vis-à-vis the difference between indigenous people and non-indigenous people.
The community well-being index gap between indigenous people and non-indigenous people had not closed one bit after 30 years of funding from Indian and Northern Affairs. That's billions of dollars of investment. I thought it was a very honest admission that, in spite of all of our efforts, a lot of things have not improved—health, education, etc.
I would suggest we do something different. I think using language as a portal to educational improvement might be that difference. It might be something interesting that this committee can entertain in its report. It may be that you have to be very bold and leave some space for something that you haven't thought of before, or that's been thought of but hasn't been tried before.
If the report results in simply identifying weaknesses but doesn't propose anything that's new or different that's never been tried before, I think we'll have lost a tremendous opportunity.