Procedure and House Affairs committee  [Witness speaks in Dene] [English]

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There's the “t” dialect and the “k” dialect. In our area, only one other community speaks the k dialect, and that's Fond du Lac. If you got a translator who was speaking only in t dialect, the other communities in Saskatchewan would understand. So it wouldn't be an issue in terms

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They do court proceeding translations. They do assembly translations, such as for the FSIN and their local tribal councils. At their assemblies they do simultaneous translation as well. They also work with industry in terms of doing translation work.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Some of these people work on a contract basis, so I think they would make themselves available. Speaking for myself, I'm taking a day off work to be here to speak to you. If they value the importance of what we're trying to do, I think they would make the effort and the time.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In the Dene communities I work in currently, three of the schools I work with have Dene language programming. One is actually an immersion school from nursery to grade 3. All the rest of the other schools teach it as core, which is 30 minutes a day.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They usually have people come with them. If they are a witness in court, then the court provides a translator for them.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I just want to say that we have a group of probably 20 young people coming out of DTEP, the Dene teacher education program, in La Loche at the Clearwater River Dene Nation. Those people will be looking for jobs in two years. You can see what I'm getting at here. I'm sure they w

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In Dene? I could. Do you have a translator?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The way I've seen it done has always been the way you have it set up there, where you have the translators onsite, but I don't see why it couldn't be done remotely, just as we're doing here, through video conferencing.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  [Technical difficulty—Editor] or aboriginal languages in general.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Okay. Are you speaking to aboriginal languages?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, we don't speak French. There might be a handful of people who are trilingual and would speak English, French, and Dene, but there are not many. We mostly speak Dene and English.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In our area, the area I come from, and the Far North included, I think we have three simultaneous translators.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think so. Definitely.