Debates of Feb. 7th, 2019

Indigenous Languages Act

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I had the pleasure last spring of watching a very special ceremony in which our “fightingest” ship, HMCS Haida, was named the honorary flagship of the Canadian navy. There were two hereditary chiefs of the Haida Nation, Lonnie Young and Frank Collison, who joined us and they spoke the language, and now the flag of the Haida Nation flies over that ship in Hamilton.

I wonder if my friend from Skeena—Bulkley Valley can comment on whether the Haida peoples, and other nations that he deals with in much larger numbers than we have in my area, are getting a sense of entering into the full broad spectrum of Canadian life.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would quibble with that last turn of phrase, “the full broad spectrum of Canadian life”.

I do not want to rain on his parade at all, but that is actually a good example of consultations being inadequate. The Haida people in this case were not properly consulted beforehand, before using the name. There was some repair being done at the ceremony he was able to watch at the end. However, it is a good example of intentions sometimes going wrong, where the government says it is going to do this thing and they will be happy with it, but does not ask how to do it properly beforehand.

What is amazing to me is that indigenous communities, in watching our good intention efforts sometimes go sideways, have the ability to forgive, adapt and make it work. A good example of how not to do this wrong is to make sure that before the funding is designed and before the program is designed, the consultation and the money is directed, from the beginning, by indigenous peoples rather than by Ottawa.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, in 2016, the Prime Minister stood up and said that we were going to have an official languages act to deal with aboriginal peoples. Here we are, three years later, and we do not have it. Parliament will shut down for the summer soon.

Why does the member think it took the government so long? Why did it just start this yesterday?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I do not know. The promise was in 2016. We would have liked to see it much earlier, of course.

As many of my colleagues know, in the passage of bills, especially important ones, they have to go through the committee properly and hear from people. There is an element in this legislation that is a big question, which is the funding. I think those are fair questions to ask: How much is it, over how long and how is it secured?

Sometimes the government is caught betwixt and between. It wants to do consultation. Sometimes the consultation take longer than it imagines. There is the promise of an introduction of a bill, and as with this bill, which was supposed to be introduced last year, it is now being introduced this year. We can quibble about it, but it cannot be lethal to the bill.

On the timing itself, we have to do our best to improve what is here and see its passage. Elections come and mandates disappear, and people have gotten too accustomed to promises not being delivered upon. Let us help the government deliver on this one a little better than what they have done to this point.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Labrador.

First of all, I want to say mahsi cho.

Today is a great day. It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in support of Bill C-91, the indigenous languages act. This legislation supports a revitalization of indigenous languages, which have deteriorated over the years because of the racist and discriminatory policies of successive governments.

Three languages were spoken in my home when I grew up: English; the language of the Dene, the Dehcho Dene; and the language of the Métis, Métis French, Michif. It all kind of came to an end when I started school, because during that era, we were not allowed to speak anything except English. If we were caught or reported for speaking anything but English, we were strapped with an 18-inch, three-inch wide rubber strap.

There was no defence. We were guilty. It did not matter if we did it or not. A lot of my colleagues would sometimes falsely report their fellow students. They wanted to see them get strapped. There was no way to get away from it. If the principal came out, grabbed us and brought us to the front of the class, and we fought back, he would hit us wherever he could. However, if we let him, he would just strap us on the hands. Usually it was four straps per hand. The only time we could get him to stop was if he drew blood. A lot of my colleagues would take a piece of their hair and put it on their hands to see if they could get their hands to bleed so that after the first strap, they would not be hit anymore.

Why did this happen? Why did we have to go through this? It is because past policies were designed to strip away indigenous identity and discourage the use of traditional languages.

This bill is intended to support and promote the use of indigenous languages. It recognizes that languages are fundamental to the identities, cultures, spiritual beliefs, relationships to the land, world views and self-determination of indigenous peoples.

Throughout the government-led engagement sessions on this legislation, which I think took a total of two years, it was stated that language was integral to who one is as a person, to who we are as a people and to individual and collective pride and strength.

Indigenous youth across Canada need to be exposed to their histories through language and must be supported in their efforts to learn their languages and have pride in their cultures. If they park their languages to survive, they also park a big part of their culture, which is something I have learned from my experience.

Acknowledging the importance of indigenous languages in Canada will allow for healthier indigenous people and communities and a healthier country as a whole.

There have been many studies done on the use of indigenous languages and their role, or lack of a role, in the issue of suicide. Many studies have shown that indigenous communities in which a majority of members report conversational knowledge of an indigenous language also experience low to absent youth suicide rates. By contrast, in those communities in which fewer than half the members report knowledge of the language, suicide rates are up to six times higher.

The Assembly of First Nations' report on its national engagement sessions regarding this act states:

Language learning and identity reunification can be sources of healing. Schooling—residential schools, day schools, public schools, technical schools—were sources of disrupting Indigenous language use as a natural process. These institutions made us ashamed to speak our languages and parents were made to believe that their languages would harm their children and keep them from succeeding. Language revitalization can be used to help mitigate other issues such as addictions; people with a strong sense of language have better physical and mental health.

Past studies and reports have acknowledged the importance of youth and intergenerational learning to the revitalization of indigenous languages.

The 2005 report “Towards a New Beginning" by the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures calls for funding for immersion programs for children and youth. The task force report reminded indigenous communities to be more mindful of children and youth by stating:

Go home to your communities and do not forget the youth. They sometimes get forgotten and shouldn’t be. They’re important and they’re the next generation. We need to ask the youth what they need and want, and get them involved and get them excited about this.

I have heard chiefs in my riding talk about encouraging people to talk to youth and talk to their children, to say one word or one sentence in their indigenous language, because it does not cost anything.

In the report, elders urge educational institutions to encourage youth to take leadership roles in language preservation. It is important to recognize that youth need access to sufficient financial support to assist in their language journeys so they can learn, use and promote their languages.

Through this bill, the Government of Canada has committed to supporting the efforts of indigenous people to reclaim, revitalize, preserve and maintain their languages in a variety of ways, including by implementing measures that would facilitate the allocation of funding.

A recent report published by the First Peoples' Cultural Council, entitled “Indigenous Languages Recognition, Preservation and Revitalization”, stated:

Youth energy is a driving force for language revitalization. It needs to be encouraged.

Young people need to be encouraged to take control over their languages, as they are the future of this country and will be responsible for the future of indigenous languages.

In 2016, Canada officially adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which proclaims:

Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations, their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons.

The declaration also asserts:

States shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language.

The bill recognizes the urgent need to support the efforts of indigenous people to reclaim, revitalize, maintain and also strengthen their languages. Indigenous youth and all peoples in Canada need to be supported in their efforts to reclaim their languages. Indigenous communities have been working diligently to revitalize and reclaim their first nations, Inuit and Métis languages, and it is important to acknowledge their work. The role of elders and language keepers is also very important to the languages of indigenous people in Canada, and their efforts should not be overlooked.

This legislation must be implemented with urgency to provide the necessary support for indigenous people before the language keepers are gone. I urge all hon. members to respect and honour the energy and perseverance of indigenous youth by acting swiftly to adopt this legislation.

I will conclude by reminding members that this bill is long overdue. We must continue to recognize the importance of indigenous language revitalization and the invaluable effects it has on indigenous youth, indigenous communities and Canadians. We have to hurry, because many of our indigenous languages depend on it.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member and I are from the same end of the country, and it has been very, very cold up there. I had a friend in Yellowknife the other day who said it was -56°C. Where I was it was -41°C, so he said that it was warm where I was from. Either way, that is enough about the weather.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague what his brother, the premier, thinks about this particular bill.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Madam Speaker, since I come from a colder part of Canada, for sure I have to be a lot tougher than he is in Alberta, where they get spoiled with warm weather.

I cannot speak for the Premier of the Northwest Territories. I am going to assume that he is very excited that we are looking at coming forward with a strategy. We announced money in 2016 and 2017 for the Government of Northwest Territories to put toward aboriginal languages. It was well received and is being well utilized, but of course, it is not enough and has not been enough for many years.

We advocated for funding for the north during the time the Conservatives were in power, and it was not something we could obtain. We need money for language development, money for materials, money for instructors and money to train them. I am very happy that this is coming forward, and I look forward to the results.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, speaking of the north, I am wondering if my friend can address the concerns that have been raised by the ITK regarding the way the bill was consulted on prior to its introduction. With respect to the bill itself, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami are not happy. I do not know if that position has changed from the comments I read from its leadership yesterday. There is no denial of support from other indigenous groups around the country, but certainly when it comes to the Inuit, they are not happy with the status quo.

I am wondering, as a resident northerner, if the member has some answers for the Inuit, who are looking for something a lot more hopeful than what they have seen here so far. This one group represents 60,000 Inuit. I am not talking about a small organization. This is something serious and substantial. It is feeling quite upset about the legislation as crafted, according to its public comments.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Madam Speaker, the Northwest Territories is in a different position than the rest of Canada. In the Northwest Territories, we have recognized 11 official languages, nine of which are indigenous. We recognize the Inuit languages as official languages.

I think we are going to see a lot of discussion on this issue. Committees will be looking at it and making recommendations. I think the concerns of the ITK will certainly be considered. However, it is important that each indigenous government be involved. I look forward to the indigenous governments in my riding leading the discussion and developing the strategies that are going to be needed. There is nobody who can tell an indigenous government how to save its language except itself.

We also need the commission to be in place to provide oversight. We as members of Parliament, we as the government, have to make sure that we are in a situation to provide the resources, such as funding resources, materials and the other requirements, the indigenous governments may need.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental and Northern Affairs and Internal Trade]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to stand today and speak on the ancestral lands of the Algonquin Anishinabeg people. I know that if Algonquin Elder Commanda were here today, as she was on the day when she opened our new chamber, she, too, would be happy to speak to a bill that speaks to preserving the languages of Canada's indigenous people. Many indigenous people across Canada are happy to see it.

In my own language, the language of my ancestors, the Inuit language, Inuktitut, I say nakurmiik or “thank you” for allowing me the opportunity to serve in this place and to speak to the bill today, and to speak in strong support of it.

Bill C-91 , the indigenous languages act, is aimed at supporting indigenous people all across our country and for doing what they have been trying to do for a long time in the absence of government, which is continuing to carry forward the language and culture they had been accustomed to and were born into.

In particular, it is appropriate that we are providing this language bill in Canada at this time, simply because it is the year of languages for the United Nations. If we go back in time and look to see when people started advocating for the bill, it was in 1995.

In 1995, Canada was moving in that direction. UNESCO had found that many languages within the world were disappearing. Canada, like other nations around the world, was called upon to preserve language and to preserve the language of indigenous people in particular.

Over that period of time, very little attention was being paid to what was happening. In fact, no action was taken whatsoever.

Also in 1995, the royal commission called upon Canada to begin working, right away, with indigenous people across the country; to start revitalizing language; to start establishing a foundation on which we could support indigenous efforts that were already taking place to preserve language within the country. However, no action was taken.

A colleague across the House asked why it took so long to get where we were. It is a question best asked to that side. In 2005, there was an indigenous-led task force on aboriginal languages. It recommended, very clearly, to the Conservative government of the day that it include initiatives to do just that. It would include legislation, such as what we have brought forward today, that recognized the Constitutional status of indigenous languages in the country, that would be funded, that official languages would also have a national council to coordinate their efforts and that a full strategy be designed, whose only goal was to ensure that indigenous language was revitalized and carried on in the country.

It is 25 years since the time those things happened. Nevertheless, we are here today. We are here because we have listened to what indigenous people have said to us. They have said quite clearly that the Government of Canada needs to do more to preserve indigenous languages in our country.

Over the last two years, in particular, we worked very hard with indigenous groups, first nations, Inuit and Métis, to ensure we would get this right, that we would bring to the House of Commons the very first bill to preserve indigenous languages in Canada and do those things that they had asked. I am very proud today to be part of a government that is acting and doing just that.

I think my colleague from the Northwest Territories probably said it best when he talked about why the languages of indigenous peoples had disappeared over the years.

I come from a region of the country where we are very proud of our indigenous and northern roots. In Labrador, we have two very distinct indigenous languages, Inuktitut and Innu-aimun. A lot of work has been done on preserving those languages, by communities, by the people who live there, by the elders, by generations of people. Over the last couple of years, we have been able to help them by investing in the tools they need, by investing in preserving the language within their schools and after school programs and by helping them prepare the products they need to continue to teach and carry on in that way. It is very difficult.

The area I come from, while I grew up not knowing the language of my ancestors, many others grew up in communities where people continued to speak the language on a very small scale. However, there are huge generational gaps between those who speak it as their mother tongue and those who are just starting to learn the language again. The gap is under 14 and over 65. That is basically where we see the language gap in most of the indigenous languages in my region. In other parts of the country, people do not even have that. Even that has disappeared. Therefore, so many people out there are really starting with the basics.

They lost their language as a result of assimilation and the residential schools, which we have talked about and have heard about in that unfortunate chapter of history that affected so many indigenous people. They lost their language because they were never permitted to speak it, as my colleague from the Northwest Territories said. That opportunity was removed from them, and not throughout just one or two decades but throughout many decades of our history.

Canada will never allow that to happen again. That is why we support bills like Bill C-91 before us today to ensure it does not happen again.

When we look back, we know that three times over the past 25 years the issue has come to the attention of government at certain points in time without action. The last call was through truth and reconciliation. When the prime minister of the day made his commitment on behalf of the government and to all Canadians that we would honour the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this was one of the very things he committed to do.

I am really pleased that we are able to bring this legislation forward. I am also pleased that in so many regions in the country, many people still speak their mother tongue, like the people of Nunavut. Of over 33,000 people in that territory, most still speak their mother tongue, their language of Inuktitut. They are an example for all of us to live up to. However, we also know it will take early intervention and support to make this happen.

Today, as I conclude my comments, I want to thank all of those who had a hand in making this happen. I want to thank all indigenous people in Canada for not giving up and having the resilience to carry on. I want to acknowledge that this is certainly a great step forward in what has been a long journey for indigenous people.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-91 will be a historic move toward healing and rebuilding of our indigenous identities and pride across Canada. We as a nation made a mistake in our actions on residential schools and the forcing of young aboriginal youth to speak only English. We now can make right what we made wrong.

There are 13 weeks left in this session. Do you commit to working co-operatively with the opposition parties to get this done?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The member is very well aware that he is to address the questions to the Chair.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Madam Speaker, I certainly commit to work with all people in the House of Commons to do what is right for Canadians and to see this legislation pass. I always believe that through committee, there are opportunities to strengthen legislation to ensure we are capturing the voices of all those who are concerned. I have confidence in members at the committee to do just that.

I look forward to the day when we can stand in the House of Commons and proudly vote for the legislation.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I was going through the language included in the bill. The reference to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is mentioned three times, twice in the preamble and then once in the actual legislation. However, in clause 6 of the bill, under the heading of “Rights Related to Indigenous Languages”, there is a reference made to section 35 of our Constitution, but there is no reference given to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I know the Liberal government voted in favour of Bill C-262, which seeks to bring all Canadian law into harmony with that document. Therefore, I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary could provide some explanation as to whether that has been an oversight or if there is in fact going to be further amendments to the bill to bring it into harmony with the document of the United Nations.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Madam Speaker, I am getting some help from my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary for Languages, but I have been reassured and I am happy to assure the member that in clause 5 of the bill, in the last paragraph, it certainly speaks to the United Nations declaration. It says that the act will help “advance the achievement of the objectives of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as it relates to Indigenous languages.” Therein lies our commitment.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, as we stated a number of times in the House, this is an important bill to finish our debate in the House at second reading and have it go to committee. I want to note that it just came here on Tuesday and today is our first day of debate.

More important, when I listened to the parliamentary secretary's speech, I heard her talk about pride in what her government was doing on the indigenous file. Does that pride include what we have learned about today, where someone from British Columbia, a well respected leader and the first indigenous woman to became Attorney General of Canada, was unceremoniously thrown under the bus by the Prime Minister? What does she have to say about how that shows her government's respect to be nothing more than a veneer?

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Madam Speaker, I never thought I would get the opportunity to stand in the House and compliment my colleague, my friend and a fantastic indigenous leader in the country. She represents western Canada very well, but also represents indigenous people at the cabinet table in a way we have not seen in a long time.

Out of all the indigenous people I have come to know and respect in my life, this individual, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, for Canada today, stands tallest among them all. No position at the table of the Government of Canada stands for the citizens of the country that is either higher or lower with respect to our contribution. The ability to sit at the table and to have that say is fundamentally important, and I applaud her for her work.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand today in this place and add my voice to the discussion around Bill C-91.

The House may not be aware that today is End It Movement Day. It is a movement to end modern-day slavery in our country and around the world. The people who participate wear a red X on their hand. Many may not know that within Canada, human trafficking probably happens within 10 blocks of where they live if they live in the city and within 10 miles of where they live if they live in the country.

Modern-day slavery has many faces in Canada, but the vast majority of cases, about 50% of them, involve indigenous women and girls. That is why I am wearing a red X on my hand today.

Bill C-91 is about respect and about protecting indigenous languages here in Canada. Many bills have been brought up about this issue, and the government has spoken in length about it as well.

Back in December 2016, the government said it was seized with this issue and would table some legislation. Now, at the eleventh hour of this Parliament, the government has tabled a bill, and here we are, discussing it today.

I find it frustrating to see the government's approach to supporting something. Supply management is a good example. It says all the time that it supports supply management, but it has very narrowly cast that support. The support is purely for the two words, “supply management”. It is the same in this case as well. The government says it supports indigenous languages, but that is really just the two words, “indigenous languages”.

Many times when we support something, the actual thing that needs to be supported needs the entire surrounding infrastructure or the surrounding society to support it. Only supporting the end result does not necessarily help the actual goal we are trying to achieve.

Let us use the case of supply management as an example. It is really great for the government to say it supports supply management, but when it takes milk and dairy products and animal proteins out of the food guide, it is not supporting supply management whatsoever.

A couple of people who work in my office are coffee connoisseurs. They always ask me why I put cream in my coffee. They think I am ruining the coffee by doing so. I tell them I support supply management, so I put cream in my coffee. Supporting supply management means actually supporting supply management and targeting the actual issue.

We are seeing that again with this indigenous language bill. It says we are going to support indigenous language and we are going to have an ombudsman and all of these things, but if we do not support communities and do not support the culture of these languages, they will become dead languages.

I know a bit about dead languages. I know a bit of Latin. It is a language that is used all the time, but it is not a spoken language. There are records of languages that have been brought back. I understand Hebrew is one of those languages that has been brought back from being a dead language to a language that is now alive and well.

I failed to mention at the beginning of my comments that I will be sharing my time with the member for Edmonton West.

This is a great bill. I am sure that we will take the language, codify it and keep a record of it. Many organizations around this country are working on translating the Bible into all indigenous languages.

The House may be aware that both the German language and the English language were codified when the Bible was translated into those languages. There is a language known as High German. It was not really a language spoken by anybody, but it was the language that the Bible would have been translated into for a big swath of the world that spoke Germanic languages. It codified the whole language into a common language.

We are seeing work being done on that around the country. The funding that will be coming through this legislation will probably support many of those initiatives. I support that idea.

The point I am trying to make is that we would like these languages to be living languages, not dead languages, and in order to do that, we need to support communities. What does supporting communities look like? For one thing, we have a rich heritage in this country around the fur trade. Canada was built on the fur trade. I always say Canada was built on a number of things, such as the fur trade, the railway and other things, but the fur trade for indigenous peoples was a major part of the economy. It is a shame that today we do not champion the fur trade in this country.

Representatives of the fur trade association were in my office the other day, and they told me that fur will not even be on the winter Olympics uniforms. I do not know if anyone saw that Canada Goose recently came out with a new lineup of jackets designed by an Inuit designer. They are amazing jackets. They have nice fur on the hood. I am sure there are more fur products on the inside as well, though I could not see. The fur trade is what made these communities sustainable. Their languages were able to survive with or without government funding, and the Inuit are a prime example of that. Most them still have their languages because it is a vibrant community.

Where I am from, many of the Woodland Cree people still speak the language, and their communities are thriving. Why are they thriving? It is because the economy is thriving. No doubt a generation has lost the language due to the residential schools, but when communities come together and operate well, the language continues to thrive, so we see that bills like Bill C-69 do nothing. We say we want to support languages and indigenous communities, but then the government introduces a bill like Bill C-69, which hamstrings all of the northern Alberta communities that rely on the economy that pipelines, the oil patch and resource development bring to northern Alberta. The government says it supports indigenous languages, but it supports them in a very narrow way. We need to ensure these communities have a good economy; then the language will flourish.

Another area that is frustrating to me is the language around firearms that the Liberals in particular use all the time. They seem to be very suspicious of people who own and use firearms on a regular basis. It is our indigenous communities that use, own and work with firearms on a regular basis. The language and laws coming from the Liberal government, particularly Bill C-71, are onerous to all first nation communities for sure. Firearms are a big part of their culture. Firearms are a way of life for them, so to say we are going to support their languages and culture and then make it more onerous to own a firearm is not supportive of the culture whatsoever.

Lots of people say we already have languages and ask me why I think it is so important. We all have a world view, a narrative, a place that we belong in the world, and being part of a culture that has identifiable languages and creeds and those kinds of things gives us our sense of belonging in the world. A language does that to a large degree. Studies bear out the idea that when people feel they are tied to a language, a people, a land and a culture, they are much more successful in nation building and culture building.

For all of those reasons, I support this bill, but I find it ironic that we are here at the eleventh hour debating a bill to support indigenous languages.

[Bob Nault, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Madam Speaker, one of the things that the creation of the commissioner is intended to do is give the commissioner the opportunity to work with indigenous groups within regions. In every region, there are going to be unique needs vis-à-vis language and the rehabilitation of language and the opportunity to make sure the language is in first nations schools, whether it is in northern Alberta or, in my case, in northern Ontario.

How does the member sees the commissioner's job as it relates to bringing back the Cree language, in particular for young people? That is the challenge. Now that there is satellite TV and the things that young people have, it has changed young people in communities, no matter where they are in Canada. I want to get a sense from the member as to how he sees the commissioner's role in the area that he represents.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, we were just talking about this at committee as well. One of the groups I am very proud of in northern Alberta is the Kitaskinaw Tribal Council, which has an education authority that runs six schools up there. Language education is part of that program. They teach the Alberta curriculum from their perspective.

I know in Alberta there already has been a lot of overlap between the education systems on reserve and the provincial system. The Kitaskinaw Tribal Council was built to bridge those jurisdictional issues, and it is already doing that to a large part. I am sure the commissioner's office will be working hand in glove with Kitaskinaw.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, who is also a member of the indigenous affairs committee, for the great work he does and for his commitment. He talked about language being just one component of what is going to be necessary in moving forward with reconciliation. It was also very interesting that he brought up something that is important not just to rural areas but also to many indigenous communities in the country, which is the use of firearms and the trade in sealskin products.

To what degree does he think the policies of the current government around firearms are inconsistent with what is important for the communities he represents?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I did address that in my speech. I have seen a little in the media about the first nations in Quebec being annoyed with the legislation that is coming in there, and the fact that the federal government seems to be working hand in glove with the Quebec government on the long-gun registry there.

It just seems tone deaf to me. The government says it is our most important relationship, but then does not support the fur trade in an adequate manner and tries to make restrictive firearms laws all across the country. Those things are incongruent. If we want to support our first nations communities, we need to ensure they are able to live their lifestyle the way they need to.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental and Northern Affairs and Internal Trade]

Madam Speaker, the bill is really about preserving and revitalizing indigenous languages in the country. I want to make sure we are maintaining that focus, because we have been everywhere from the food guide to firearms under this debate.

Does the member opposite not agree that a large part of reconciliation with indigenous people in our country is ensuring that we revitalize indigenous languages and give them the full support of the laws of the country to preserve their language for themselves and generations to come?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I said I was supportive of the bill. The point I am trying to make is that in this place, things get very siloed. We say we support indigenous languages and come out with a bill that supports that idea, but we must take a little broader view of it. The Liberals say they support indigenous languages, yet they are failing to understand a lot of the indigenous culture.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Regina—Lewvan, The Environment; the hon. member for Bow River, Justice; the hon. member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, Transport.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Edmonton West.