Welcome to the Northwest Territories. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you this morning.
I must apologize, as I am not feeling very well this morning. I have a pinched nerve, but I came anyway, thinking that today I would feel better, but it seems a little worse this morning.
I have my legal adviser, Shannon Gullberg, here with me this morning. Shannon was the previous languages commissioner prior to my appointment in May of 2009 and has worked throughout the territories with the 11 official languages. Shannon lived here in Yellowknife and had direct contact with the francophone community, and also throughout the NWT, so I would prefer that Shannon do the presentation after I do my opening remarks. I just wanted to make you aware of that.
It has been quite a challenge working with nine official languages up here in the Northwest Territories. Having worked here all my life--I was born and raised here--and having been taken away to the residential school for 12 years, I kind of lost my language along the way, as have many others of our people who were taken away for about 12 years of their lives.
We have tried over the years to revitalize our language and to work to relearn our language. Some of our people have never been able to do that. I was very, very fortunate, as I had parents who took us back to the camp every summer for two months in an immersion situation, so we had no choice. My late mum spoke only the Gwich'in language. She did not speak English. Thank God for that: today I still have my language. But I cannot say that for the majority of our aboriginal language speakers up here.
Our languages have been on the decline over the years, so today we are working at doing everything we can to revitalize our language. It is being taught in the schools, but in order for the language to be taught it has to be taught in a natural environment, in an immersion situation, and possibly out on the land. It is being taught in the schools, so that's where we are right now.
With that, I would like to ask Shannon to proceed with the presentation.
Thank you.