Canadian Heritage committee  First of all, I also want to echo the efforts being made in trying to bring the perspective of the Inuit into this bill. There is a concern with the amendment as drafted, particularly in the part that talks about providing something that could be done either through an agreement

Canadian Heritage committee  No problem.

Canadian Heritage committee  On the issue of fluency and proficiency, in our discussion and consultation it's pretty clear that there are measurements for fluency and there is a body of work around that. In terms of the word “proficiency”, it doesn't add a lot, but there's not really any measurement that is

Canadian Heritage committee  Madame Chair, if you'll allow me.... The concept of “fluency” is found a few lines below, in paragraph 5(b)(ii), where the French version refers to “activités permettant de retrouver et de conserver la maîtrise” of indigenous languages. The word “maîtrise” corresponds to the Eng

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm trying to understand the relationship between the two.

Canadian Heritage committee  It may sound like wordsmithing, but it would actually be a little clearer if we could say in English “assess the status of distinct indigenous languages”. The French would say « évaluer le statut distinct des langues autochtones », as was suggested. It's going to be hard to k

Canadian Heritage committee  I think there seems to be a bit of a distinction between the two. The phrase “la situation distincte des langues autochtones” is actually not very clear; “status of Indigenous languages” may be a little clearer in the sense that it says in which state they are in currently. What

Canadian Heritage committee  You are interpreting correctly. What I said about the hereditary construct applies here. If we start to list, we will exclude people by not having them on the list. The suggestion of the definition is to keep it as broad and as inclusive as possible.

Canadian Heritage committee  I would say that Madame May has a point—that it doesn't specifically refer to the traditional hereditary government of unceded lands—but it does cover every form of government, including self-governing nations and other treaty holders. It also covers the band councils as they cur

Canadian Heritage committee  Part of it will be addressed with.... Earlier I mentioned that there are groups in urban areas that actually support various indigenous people. They're not necessarily doing it based on whether you're first nations, Métis or Inuit. They will actually support various groups, and w

Canadian Heritage committee  The Métis settlement? I don't think we met with them, no.

Canadian Heritage committee  Nothing would prevent them from actually engaging with us.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, that's true.

Canadian Heritage committee  Fair enough. They would, however, qualify to sit down and make an agreement with us; that's for sure. Clauses 8 and 9 would allow for that because they are an organized group; they actually have capacity and they certainly would qualify for that.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's a good suggestion.