Canadian Heritage committee  I would say no, because it could be hog-tying the legislation, and I think there are communities of Métis people within urban centres.

Canadian Heritage committee  I would add that the Métis are under-enumerated. There's nothing from StatsCan that would accurately reflect the number of Métis people anywhere in Canada, including urban centres. Métis people have never found an advantage to identify who they are, so when there's a census, they

Canadian Heritage committee  The Michif in Saskatchewan is what we're calling “northern Michif”, and it's very heavily based on Cree. The one that's critically endangered is what we call “heritage Michif”, which is the original language from which the other Michifs evolved. I envy the settlements for havin

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, and we're calling them all languages. No one wants to think of their language as a dialect, so we call them “Michif languages”. Three are spoken in Saskatchewan. The other one is Michif French, which is almost all French.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, we do. For the last 15 years, we've been making.... All the children's books are translated into Michif and English, and we include a CD that has the audio of the text in both Michif and English. If you're in a situation where you're remote and you don't have access, then yo

Canadian Heritage committee  I think we have to respect the two official languages. For the Métis, because we are in provincial schools.... In each of the provinces in which Michif is a language of the Métis, I would say that the provincial ministry of education would collaborate with the Métis and be on sid

Canadian Heritage committee  I know they order our resources, but I can't say we've worked with them directly.

Canadian Heritage committee  But again, they're doing it with non-Michif speakers who are interested in Michif.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think a big portion of it would have to go into this language banking. And the second part would be the creation of resources, bringing the speakers together because some of the phrases and terminology used are things that people have forgotten about. If you bring the speakers

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, it just means preserving it because if we lose them, we'll have something to go back to.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the greatest challenge is the lack of speakers and the age of the speakers, because we can't use some of the strategies of other indigenous peoples where they have language nests or where they have people of teaching age who can spend all day with students. Another grea

Canadian Heritage committee  The Louis Riel Institute in Winnipeg is doing a lot as well. We have an app in two different Michif languages, which is available for both android and Mac. We have a lot of online tools. We know technology will be a big helper, given the low number of speakers and the lack of

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, there are different groups. I know Kelowna has a group that is doing some Michif language work. There are two schools in Saskatoon that have Métis-focused schools that implement Michif.

Canadian Heritage committee  Okay. I'm here to advocate for the bill to be passed. The majority of speakers are in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Manitoba has seen a decline in the last decade of 50% of its Michif speakers, and we're nearing that in Saskatchewan. Those who speak the language are all between 65

Canadian Heritage committee  Good afternoon. I'd like to acknowledge that we're meeting on unceded Algonquin territory, and I want to thank the committee for allowing me this opportunity to speak with you today. I'm probably going to be a lot different from what I just heard in the last panel. I think it w