Canadian Heritage committee  In my view, this legislation as it's currently presented is merely creating a commissioner's office. It's not explicitly said, but there's probably a cap on the amount of money that will be provided to the commissioner's office. Then the expectation that I foresee is that indigen

Canadian Heritage committee  I don't think we would necessarily need a different bill. One of the things that we advocated right from the outset was to have our own Inuktut language bill. When we realized that the federal government was going to have an indigenous language bill, we said, “Okay, we're reasona

Canadian Heritage committee  If I may, I can say generally what we're looking for is that there be recognition of Inuit languages as the original language of Inuit Nunangat, that we're expecting to be able to receive essential services in Inuit languages, and we're expecting this would require adequate and e

Canadian Heritage committee  Qujannamiik. I neglected to ask whether or not you had a copy of the text amendments we provided.

Canadian Heritage committee  I believe we provided it in both English and French, recognizing those are the official languages of this nation. You'll see we're suggesting that some text be included in Bill C-91, and we've numbered them X1 to X4. In addition, we're suggesting an annex related to Inuit languag

Canadian Heritage committee  [Witness spoke in Inuktitut and provided the following translation:] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the committee for inviting me to speak today about Bill C-91. First, I would like to applaud the committee for recognizing that indigenous languages must be written into Ca

Canadian Heritage committee  Nakurmiik. In terms of the costs, I mentioned that a Nunavut heritage facility has already been agreed to in our Nunavut agreement under article 33.2.4. One of our challenges is the non-implementation of our current agreements. I think that would be a venue in which monies could

Canadian Heritage committee  Because Nunavut does not have a heritage facility as a territory, the focus for us is how to get the 140,000 objects that are currently housed outside Nunavut—which the Government of Nunavut is currently paying to have housed outside of Nunavut—repatriated back into Nunavut. I r

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you for the invitation to appear before you. I considered speaking in English, but I am now going to speak in Inuktitut, since you have an interpreter. I'm very proud that I'll be able to talk in my language, in Inuktitut, while I'm in Ottawa. There are two things I'll be

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think you made reference to 30,000 feet. I'm going to go a bit higher and say that as Inuit enrolled under the Nunavut agreement we're also Canadians. When I look at the nation-building of this country and I know that the federal government has made investments into the railway

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The signing of the Nunavut agreement...? Has it been a good thing...?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. The reason I say yes is that it gave us a sense of hope. Now we have the structure in the agreement that outlines how that needs to be achieved. The problem we have is with the implementation of it. I think that if we were able to implement it, then we would achieve the drea

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I like that question, because if I were part of the negotiation, I think I would sign off on it, but I would add more things that were related to language, culture, social issues, and education. For me, I think those are things that could have been highlighted more to strengthen

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. I would give them that advice: try to incorporate some of these things that I think could have been strengthened in our agreement.