Mr. Speaker, I am hesitant and a little uncomfortable today to be speaking to this bill. I am going to talk about that in a bit.
Before I do that, I just want to acknowledge what a great honour and privilege it is for me to represent the people of North Island—Powell River. One of the things that is unique and wonderful about that region is that I represent over 20 indigenous communities that come from the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples, the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples and the Coast Salish peoples. I am very proud to represent the northernmost part of the Coast Salish territory.
I have learned a lot from those communities and I know from them how important language is. I am also very proud that this fall in Campbell River we will have our first kindergarten immersion program, speaking Kwak'wala, which is amazing. It will allow a portion of the indigenous community I represent to send their children to school, learning their first language. I am so proud of that work.
It is important that we recognize on the ground how much work is being done in communities across the country and how many indigenous communities and the communities around them are working with them to make these things a reality.
My granny lost her language. She went away to residential school from the ages of four to 16. When she came home, she did not have a lot of memory of her language.
My auntie, her daughter, also the hereditary chief in my family, named Hatix-kuwa, which means peace within the frame of a house, now teaches language in our community. It is amazing that when the work is done and the focus is there, what communities can do.
When I heard about the legislation initially and I looked at it, I felt a lot of excitement and pride in the work the communities I represent and the community I am from had done. However, I am struggling.
It is important that when we are in the House, we remember that as legislators our jobs are to struggle. It is to not look at things simply but to look at them in a more broad and complex framework and to ensure we are humble as we walk in that path. When we make decisions, we make them on behalf of the many people in the regions we represent.
One of the biggest struggles I have in this place is that so little is being done, but it is better than nothing. At some point, it is important that we say that a bit better is not just better than nothing. It is not justice.
In the history of the country and its relationship with the first people of this land, justice has never been a reality. Where justice happens, it happens because the people themselves do the work to make that justice a reality.
I want to speak to the fact that it is hard because this bill aims to protect and preserve indigenous languages. It does not reflect the key recommendations that were made at committee by language experts to do that work. We need to sit with that. Recommendations that are needed to meet the objective of protecting and preserving these languages were not accepted.
I want to be very clear. From my perspective and the reality in which I have grown up, these languages were stolen, literally beaten out of children. When we look at the responsibility of this place to be part of protecting that, to bringing back those language keepers, to ensuring we are passing that on to the next generation, we need to be accountable for that, all of us, because it is our job as legislators.
Language is the reality around us. Many elders have said to me that language is based on the land. It is based on the relationship that people have with the land and how the people act toward one another on the land on which they live. That is pretty fundamental. When we think about the languages that we have in the country and the fact that so many of us do not know them, it means we do not know the relationship of the people with this land. We do not know how the people interacted with the land and we do not know how they treated each other. I do not even know how to explain how important this is.
When I think of the elders and the wisdom they have given me and how they have had to translate that language into languages that I understand, I am just incredibly humbled and grateful. I am always aware that there is so much I do not even begin to understand. What an honour it is to be in that place and that they allow me to make all my mistakes.
The other concern I have with the bill, the other issue I am struggling with, is the financial resources are not stable and they are not long term. How will this allow for the activity to continue and for long-term planning to occur?
Recently I was at an event with the Klahoose, Tla'amin, Homalco and the K'ómoks First Nations in my region. They are relatives. They came together and created a language site where they were sharing languages. All of these elders were saying words. It is all recorded so we can keep this, so we can protect it and pass it on to the children. Two of my children are part of that process.
I looked at the great work they were doing. One of their challenges was how to plan long term. When it is project to project, they continue to hope they have enough resources.
I am here to say that I want more. I want better. I want justice. I feel like it is time. I feel like it is way beyond time.
Another concern is the fact that the indigenous language commissioner has no guarantees on the extent of his or her powers and capacity to represent the best interests of the many communities across the country. When I think about the work the communities I represent are doing to protect their language, to protect the people who are the keepers of their language, to ensure they are in a process of taking the language keepers and passing it on as teachers to the next generation, it is a sacred duty, it is a sacred commitment and they are working so hard.
I believe there should be accountability in this place to know what is happening, to understand the challenges. The indigenous language commissioner should have a significant role in this responsibility.
The other thing that really concerns me was the fact that Inuit communities shared a lot of their concerns. The ITK suggested there should in fact be Inuit-specific legislation, that the proposed indigenous language commissioner was little more than a substitute for the aboriginal languages initiative program, which failed. It really just oversaw the decline of indigenous language in recent decades.
When we hear testimony like that, we need to remember, as the people who do not understand the languages, there is a relationship there that we cannot fully comprehend, but we must honour it and recognize it.
Here I am, standing in this place again, looking at another piece of legislation that starts something, and people are going to support it. Of course the communities I represent want to see this. They want to see something. Again, it is a little better, it is better than it was before, it is something to hang our hats on, but it certainly does not go far enough. It does not get to the core issue, which is, what is our commitment in this country as the representatives of the place that stole the language, that supported places that beat the language out of children?
One of the elders from my community used ask me to think about the first children who went to residential school and when they came home. They were gone for years and they came home and could not speak the elders' language. They could not speak to our own children. They were there and they were so happy they had finally come home, but the children could not understand what they were saying to them. They have still not healed from that.
When we stand in the House, we think we understand and when we propose things, we have to remember indigenous communities have paid long enough. I will struggle with this decision. I will struggle out of respect for the communities I represent. I will struggle because even in the face of this adversity, they are still here. Like my granny said, “You don't complain, Rachel, because we're still here.”
We need to do better. We need to ensure that the people who are still here get to go so much further. We will do our due diligence and we will support them in doing that, recognizing they have a right to their language that was stripped away from them.