Thank you for the question.
We have a protocol with the federal government, the Métis Nation Protocol signed in 2008. Under that, this whole issue could potentially be one of the agendas that we deal with bilaterally with the federal government. One of the things I may propose to the minister is that we set up an interdepartmental or multi-departmental committee of senior officials and our Métis nation representatives to discuss the potential for Métis nation engagement.
I know we won't resolve it today. I appeared in front of the heritage committee, but I didn't see anything in the recommendations that was Métis specific. In any event, we keep coming to these tables.
One of the things I would reiterate is that as we move to the 150th anniversary in 2017, we should not lose track that three years later there is Manitoba's anniversary. The two should be linked. We're dealing with not just a snapshot in history; we should be dealing with Canada's history as a total to determine how we have evolved as a people, as Canadians, since Confederation, but also with the steps that took place after that, particularly the important ones such as the negotiation of entry into Confederation of the Métis nation through the province of Manitoba. That transaction involved something like three-quarters of the current land mass of Canada in that negotiation process. The Métis were very instrumental in ensuring French language rights and school rights were entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. That is significant, so I would think the Métis nation has a very crucial role to play in all of this. A process that engages us directly would be something that we would benefit from.
The specifics we can speak about there, but picking up on what Elder Fleury said, we could have a simple thing like youth camps at Batoche and at Lachine, Quebec where, rather than having separate camps we could have camps together to discuss the history and also to learn the respective languages. French-speaking youth should also learn the Michif language. That would help us. I think our youth must learn the French language, because it's a very important part of our heritage as well.