Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. What does it take? I think we can certainly elaborate on what it takes, but if we want to just scale it back to what it is now versus what it would be for everybody, it's important that we separate the language delivery in schools and their operation from that in the community, because those thrive in different forums and things like that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Certainly. We're no strangers to advocating and launching a lot of different programs and services. One of the greatest benefits for us and one of the factors in fluency is that languages need to evolve, so we've certainly embraced this, that the Mi'kmaq language needs to evolve.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely. We've done planners. We've done books centred around what it means to be a treaty person, certainly for us, but a little deeper than that, understanding the role of family and the responsibility within the family and the roles that we play within that. For teachers, we've done scripts and books on how to read and write Mi'kmaq.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, I'm almost done. MK receives that $500,000 as part of the ongoing $70-million national investment. With the enhancements, we've seen an increase to $1.2 million. Again, that translates to about five projects, and we have 13 communities, so we're still not seeing the sustainable funding that we had anticipated in this rollout.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. [Witness spoke in Mi’kmaq and provided the following text:] Wela'lioq, ta'n tel pekitimioq. [Witness provided the following translation:] Thank you for inviting me here today. [English] I had certainly hoped to be there in person, but maybe next time. Mi'kmaq language has been on a decline over the last number of decades.