Thank you.
When I'm asked questions that are very open, my mind expands. When you're talking about the North-West Mounted Police, “simâkanis” is “police” in Cree. My great-grandfather, Edward "Maakun" Fleury, was in the North-West Mounted Police. It stayed in our family until my grandfather passed on, so we have a connection with that.
You were talking about our people being major interpreters, and the mediators and mediums in the making of this country. First and foremost, we are mixed heritage, so we had all the languages, all the diversity. We were needed in the opening of this country. When the Dakota people came to Cypress Hills, it was our people who took Sitting Bull back to his territory because they knew Lakota.
Even pre-Canada, we were involved in the opening of the country through the fur trade. We actually flew our first flag in this country prior to the country having a flag. When we're talking about the distinctness of our people as a Michif people, we had our language, our stories, our songs, our music, and we had all that together.
In order to identify what our youth need, we have to empower them by including them. We have to ask them what they want. They can ask me questions as an elder and I have to come up with an answer. It's the same as when I was about 13 years old and I asked my grandmother questions. I used to have breakfast at my grandmother's place. We had porridge every morning, and for one reason, I don't why—it was God who said to me that I should ask my grandma what Michif is and where it comes from. I asked her, and I said in my language:
[Witness speaks in his native language]
“Grandma, where did we get this language? Where does it come from?”
She looked at me with great awe, and she asked me why I was asking her this question, because nobody had ever asked that question before, where is this language from. She said that she couldn't think about it right then because I had caught her off guard, but that she should think about it. She said I should go there to eat every day anyway and that I'd probably go there again the next day for breakfast. I did go, and she said she had thought about it. For a lady who never went to school a day in her life, she was very much an academic in her culture, and in who she was as a Michif person.
She said that God created this world and the people overseas. She said that the French have the French language, the German have the German language. She said that everybody has a language, and in this country, the first nations have a language. She said that the Dakota have the Dakota language, that the Cree have the Cree language, and then it was our turn. She explained that our language is a God-given language, that it's a language of the land, that it's a spiritual language.
That's the answer my grandmother gave me. How else can you explain it? The linguists do all the research—and they're still doing research—and they want to know where this Michif is.
When our youth get themselves organized, they talk about the effects of Confederation. They talk about the effects of losing their history. They talk about empowerment and about healing. Those are the kinds of things that are important. I'm talking about the Métis specifically, because I'm at this table to speak on behalf of a particular nation, my nation. That's what we have to do. We have to sanction people to adjust our history. We have to follow protocols.
We have all the chance in the world. In Saskatchewan, there's a francophone community at the university. We've had round table discussions there, talking about the evolution of the language and how it's become the Michif language. We also have English, which I'm using today and which we use every day, but we don't use the Michif language every day, so we have to make sure that's included.
Thank you.
Merci.