Madam Chair, the name for Ojibway in Mohawk is Tewa’keháka, and that was the language I was speaking at the time. It was a 30-second speech to the House. Obviously this is not my language. It is something I have had a lot of support in learning. It has very little to do with me and is really about assisting communities in regaining their identities, which governments such as ours have been instrumental in stripping from them through, for example, residential schools.
As a Quebecker, obviously I know that language is at the heart of identity, and for indigenous communities this is equally so if not more so, given the precarious state of the languages across the country. There are over 90 dialects and languages, if we rely on the census.
This is something we have to keep investing in. We have made historic investments, but it requires investments across Canada from the provinces and territories as well so that we can work with communities to regain identity and culture, which are so important for reconciliation.