44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 31, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/31/22 11:06:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today, on National Indigenous Languages Day, I will call you Uqaqtittiji, which is the Inuit word for “Speaker”, as I understand.
I would like to thank my colleague for his intervention today. Yesterday, I had the honour of meeting with Dr. Nils Schmid, who is a member of the German Bundestag. We talked about the need for tax reform. We talked about how tax reform across the G7 needs to be undertaken because what we are seeing right now are massive loopholes where the wealthy can hide their wealth around the world and can avoid paying their fair share, in effect. The government has said that it will act on this but we have not seen the actions we need to see.
When will the government be taking the steps necessary to close those tax loopholes and seriously look at tax reform so that the middle class and low-income Canadians are not the ones bearing the burden of taxation?
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- Mar/31/22 1:18:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know the particular housing situation in Nunavut would be more nuanced than the one in my riding of Kings—Hants. However, the government certainly has committed publicly to investing in indigenous housing specifically in the days ahead, and I take notice that this is important to the member opposite and her constituents, as well as to many others across the country.
In perhaps a lesser sense, in terms of basic shelter, housing prices in Kings—Hants have gone up I think 40% year over year. This is a challenge being faced across the country, and the government has to work with all three levels of government and the private sector. Particularly focusing on social housing would be an important element in the days ahead. We have to have important conversations about the revenue to pay for such programs, but I do support that principle.
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- Mar/31/22 2:13:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today is National Indigenous Languages Day in Canada. It is time to celebrate the hundreds of indigenous languages spoken across Canada.
I am proud to stand with a government committed to the preservation and restoration of indigenous languages and that appointed the first-ever indigenous language commissioner. Congratulations to Ron Ignace.
This work is already being felt on the ground level in my own community. We have seen unprecedented investment into the revitalization of the Mi’kmaq through organizations like Mi'kmaw Kina'matnewey.
[Member spoke in Mi'kmaq and provided the following text:]
Ketu Kaqamasi Kiskuk Aq ketu teluewey, tan telji welalusik Msit wen apoqnmatmitij, tan teli lnusltik Nike aq Elmiknek. Welaliek.
[Member provided the following translation:]
I rise today and I want to say how much we thank all those who are helping to revitalize languages now and into the future.
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- Mar/31/22 2:55:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know how important the lobster fishery and all fisheries are to the communities in Atlantic Canada as well as on the Pacific. I also know how important it is for reconciliation with indigenous peoples that they be able to satisfy their court-ordered or moderate livelihood fisheries rights.
With respect to the question, I am happy to look into it for the member. We do our very best to work with indigenous peoples to satisfy their rights and work with harvesters to make sure they are included in any changes of quota that will affect them.
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- Mar/31/22 3:01:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, indigenous communities have a court-ordered right to fish in their traditional waters or to fish for a moderate livelihood. It is a principle of our government to satisfy those rights. There is not always the ability to add quota to satisfy those rights while also maintaining conservation of the stock for the long term, which is absolutely critical. That is why we have been in consultation with the crab fishers and the elver harvesters to have an industry-led way forward on these matters.
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- Mar/31/22 3:10:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Tla-o-qui-aht member Lisa Marie Young was 21 when she went missing in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith. It has been 20 years, and still Lisa's loved ones have no answers. Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals continue to go missing or be murdered.
Indigenous women are at least 4.5 times more likely to be murdered than non-indigenous women. How many lives need to be lost for the Liberals to set timelines and real resources to address this crisis?
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- Mar/31/22 3:10:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite for her passion on this subject. Our government is committed to working with indigenous stakeholders all across this country to make sure that we move forward on the missing and murdered indigenous women calls to justice.
In fact, we put $2.2 billion in a five-year federal action plan to make sure we are addressing that, to make sure that we see tangible results and to make sure, most importantly, that we keep indigenous women across the country safe and supported.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for introducing such an important bill. He spoke very well on the importance of making sure that we have a diversity of languages. However, a very important point is the lack of translation. In Canada, we are used to a system of English and French, and oftentimes our indigenous languages, like my language in particular, Cree, which is a native language in Canada, have been almost put into the ground and diminished. We have seen that time and time again through government intervention.
Would the member agree that when we are ensuring that we understand mother tongue languages, we make a special place and a special recognition for the native languages of this land as extraordinary to the contributions of languages across the world?
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Madam Speaker, I totally agree with my hon. colleague. In fact, just yesterday it was interesting to see news from Elections Canada that it intends to prepare material for elections in the local indigenous languages. Again, the idea is to generate understanding, engagement and participation, and we do that by communicating in a way that our audience will understand. It absolutely makes sense. Above and beyond the respect and the cultural diversity that a mother language day would promote across the country, it would also help to unite us in common understanding of what is going on.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank all those members who spoke previously in regard to this very important bill. Today happens to be National Indigenous Languages Day, a moment for all of us to truly reflect on what that really means.
Before I get into the proposal for a national mother language day to be established on February 21, I really want members to reflect on what indigenous languages truly mean in Canada. The previous member just spoke about the importance of the French language to the Québécois and how important our languages as indigenous people are, not only to our identity and to who we are as people but also to our future ideas of self-determination. It is rooted in our language. It is rooted in our culture. It is in our society.
However, Canada has a deep history of suppression of languages, whether it is the French language or indigenous languages. This is a reality facing cultures across Canada. Some indigenous people have had their languages completely annihilated. We can think of nations that in some sense, especially during the early 1800s, have been wiped out by famine and by war and in particular by actions by governments.
The United Nations estimates that a language disappears every two weeks, taking with it an entire culture and intellectual heritage—every two weeks. Let us think about that. Every single time, twice a month, a whole language is gone from our planet. Thousands of years of incubation and cultural exchange create something that is truly unique to our species, which is our ability to communicate, our ability to understand one another, and also our ability to make sure we understand our environment around us.
To put that in perspective, the Cree language, the language of the nêhiyaw, meaning Cree people, has a much more profoundly poetic understanding in that language. It actually means “star people”, people from the stars. It tells a story, and that story, if ignored, diminishes all us.
If we think about Canada and we think about indigenous languages, particularly on this day and in light of this proposed bill, we remember that there are 3,000 indigenous languages today that are endangered and at risk of extinction globally. That is 3,000 indigenous languages endangered globally. Why are they endangered? We often do not answer this question. Why? We do not need to look too far behind us in the history of not only this country but the history of imperialism, in particular European imperialism, across the world. This has truly affected how we understand culture, language and heritage across the globe.
By recognizing this day, we are welcoming diversity and inclusion to be embedded in our system and our society. I agree with the hon. members who spoke previously in support of this bill. We need to do far more, though. It is one thing to recognize the languages of cultures. It is one thing to celebrate them. However, it is an entirely different thing to ensure that we put resources, capacity and protections in place, not just here in Canada but across the globe. We have to recognize Canada's international role in the harm that we have done, the legacy of imperialism in Canada, the legacy of imperialism across the globe. It has truly done a great disservice to thousands if not millions of people across the globe.
On May 16, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution called upon member states “to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world”.
As an active member of the United Nations, Canada has an obligation and responsibility to commit to this promise. I am very pleased to see that after many attempts to have this bill recognized and have this work truly done in Canada, I agree, as was mentioned by a previous member, that now is the time we must do this. Now is the time we have to understand these implications. However, we have to go far beyond these recognitions.
We truly have to partner with indigenous people. We have to partner with other languages. We have to understand their needs. We have to understand how the community organizes, and we have to be there as true partners.
It is especially important in Canada to recognize mother languages. Indigenous people form the nations of this land. Everyone else has come from a different place. Indigenous people, their languages, their perspectives and their culture are rooted in this territory and in this land. A person cannot go anywhere in Canada without encountering a piece of land that indigenous people have stewarded. There is no group that has come from overseas that can claim this from us. This is indigenous people's land. This is indigenous people's right and we will not allow these languages to die. We will not allow our people to continue to lose so much of what we have survived on and how we have understood this world. We are not going to give up what we believe to be our vision and our self-determination for our future.
Not only does celebrating different languages promote multiculturalism and diversity, but it also encourages a rich development of oral history and a knowledge base that benefits generations to come. Western European societies often rely on intellectual institutions we call libraries, universities and colleges. Sure, those are good institutions. Indigenous people, in particular, and other nations around the world use oral tradition: oral stories. We pass on this knowledge. We pass on these traditions to our young people in a large, unbroken cycle of knowledge.
My grandparents, my kokum and moshom for example, would tell us stories about the residential school. My father would tell us stories about how afraid he was to speak his mother tongue. Can members imagine if, overnight, every single person in this country lost their mother tongue, regardless of what it was? That would have a catastrophic cultural impact on our mosaic here, but this is the true fact that is facing many indigenous nations today. They do not know whether the next generation is truly going to have the tools, the resources or the human alliance that is required of all humans to protect this diversity. If we do not take this seriously, we will lose something for the world: a perspective, a history and a reality. This is what is truly at risk when we are talking about languages.
As a proud, indigenous Cree-Métis person, I especially understand the importance of making sure we preserve oral history, and its importance in making sure our young people have a true future they can recognize themselves in. Being of this land and having indigenous cultures present in all of our communities is a good thing. Whether it is in Quebec, Ontario or British Columbia, indigenous people have marked every single inch of this territory. We cannot continue to neglect that.
Although our official languages may be English and French, they are not languages of North America. They are not from Turtle Island. They come from Europe. That is a fact. We have to recognize that true fact and preserve the identity of North America. We have to preserve our ability to understand this land and the indigenous people who have occupied it, protected it and ensured that it continues.
Today I call on all communities, here in Canada and globally, and all my fellow members of Parliament to take special pride in the linguistically rich and culturally diverse place we all live in. It is truly a gift.
I want to be able to thank my hon. colleagues for their support of this bill. I support this very critical piece of legislation and hope to see it passed swiftly.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour today to rise and speak to this private member's bill that has been through the Senate. I understand that it has been introduced a number of times. I think this is the third attempt. After being passed by the Senate, it has been brought over to our chamber for debate to see if we can get it passed here to establish February 21 as international mother language day.
I think this bill perfectly illustrates and speaks to what Canada is about. I truly appreciate the comments that were made by my NDP colleague prior to this. He so passionately laid out the realities of our country. However, unless someone is of indigenous descent, we have all come to Canada over the last couple hundred years. For whatever reason there may have been at the time, whether to escape war, to seek out a new place to establish and grow a family or to seek refuge from other incidents that were happening throughout the world, Canadians have come here over the last couple hundred years, unless they are of aboriginal descent.
I think this is such a uniquely Canadian bill. We are not the only country that welcomes people from other parts of the world. A lot of people immigrate to the United States. A lot of people immigrate to other countries. However, what makes Canada unique is that when people come here, we make a point of trying to embrace cultural differences.
To go back to the comments that were so passionately and well put by my NDP colleague, we failed miserably as it relates to those who were here before European settlers started to come here. There is no doubt about that, and I think everybody in the House knows we have a tremendous amount of work to do on reconciliation. However, the idea that we embrace culture and that we look to celebrate it truly is uniquely Canadian, in my opinion.
We can look at particular parts of the United States where a lot of people come. There is this concept or idea that they have to conform to American culture. However, when we look at Canada in particular, we embrace this idea of celebrating that diversity, because we recognize that our diversity is what makes us stronger. By building tolerance, building acceptance and encouraging people to be part of Canada, they never forget where they came from. I think when we look at what this bill is attempting to do by designating one day every year specifically to celebrate our unique mother tongues, it is a way and an opportunity to continue to grow and foster those historical and heritage links we have.
I think of my parents, for example. They both immigrated post-World War II in the 1950s. My mother is from Italy and my father is from Holland. They both come from war-torn countries that were trying to rebuild after the Second World War. In both cases, their parents said they were going to move to Canada to look for a new way of life. However, when they came here, as was the case with so many European settlers at that time, they brought their unique mother culture and mother tongue with them.
I have a unique situation in that, if we look at my mother's side of the family, there are seven children and the majority of the children married Italians, so Italian was spoken quite a bit in the household. With the exception of my mother and one other uncle I had, they all married Italians. In my household there was a Dutch father and an Italian mother, so we did not really get to experience the rich culture the way we might have if both parents had come from the same part of the world.
We would look for opportunities. In Kingston, we had Folklore, which was very popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, where different pavilions would be established throughout the city on a weekend as an opportunity to showcase Ukrainian culture, Italian culture, Portuguese culture and various different cultures that were established. It was a way to celebrate their roots. Unfortunately, as time goes on and children are born and generations pass, people end up in a place where they start to lose that link and forget about the rich identity that their grandparents or great-grandparents brought to Canada. The bill gives us an opportunity to look toward how we can re-establish those roots and make sure that they live on for generations to come.
I would be remiss if I did not also talk about the incredible indigenous cultures that we have throughout Canada. Unfortunately, a big stain on Canadian history is that, although we were so willing to embrace cultures from other parts of the world, particularly, as I referenced, European immigrants in the 1950s and more recently Asian immigrants, we did an incredible disservice, an incredible hardship, in trying to eliminate the cultures of indigenous people in Canada.
Although this might be just one tiny step toward that reconciliation, because that reconciliation involves so much, I am really pleased to hear the member who introduced this and indeed just about every member who spoke to this today talk about the importance of using this tool, this opportunity to celebrate those cultural differences, in the context of lifting up indigenous culture as well. As I look back to the 1980s and 1990s, and talk about Folklore in my community, I do not ever remember any indigenous pavilions. They were largely forgotten or at least pushed aside to the point where they did not have the opportunities to continue the culture.
A lot has changed since then. Every March we have Maple Madness in Kingston, it is an opportunity for people to see how maple syrup is made. In recent years there has also been an exhibit on how indigenous people used sap from maple trees. It is by making sure that inclusion is there that we will properly tell the story of Canada, a story of not just over the last couple of hundred years, but the story that goes back thousands of years.
I very much welcome the bill the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells has brought into the House. I understand that it has already passed the Senate. As I indicated, this is the third try. I am certain that the third time will be the time that it passes, having had the opportunity to come before, but in any event, I want to congratulate the member on bringing forward such an important bill that, although it might just talk about establishing one day, if indeed people utilize this properly, it could be an incredible resource and an opportunity for generations to come to showcase the incredible differences that we have and the incredibly various parts of the world that we came from.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to private member's bill, Bill S-214, an act to establish international mother language day.
International mother language day is a worldwide annual observance held on February 21 to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism. Mother language day is part of a broader initiative to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by people around the world. Beginning in Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, the idea to celebrate international mother language day was an initiative to fully recognize the Bangla language.
As we all know, our nation has a rich cultural heritage that is cultivated by indigenous peoples, European settlers and immigrants from every corner of the globe. This is succinctly demonstrated in the first three lines of the preamble to Bill S-214:
Whereas English and French are Canada’s official languages;
Whereas more than 60 different Aboriginal languages are spoken in Canada;
Whereas Canadians speak a multitude of languages that greatly enrich Canada and its culture;
If culture and tradition are the branches of the tree, then surely language is the trunk. Without supporting the base of the tree, the branches suffer, wither and fall.
According to Michael Krauss, then head of the Alaska Native Language Center in Fairbanks, who published “The world's languages in crisis” back in 1992, some 600 languages had fewer than 100 surviving speakers. Half of the world's languages were kept alive by a fifth of 1% of the entire global population. Of the 7,000 existing languages, only half were being taught to children, so Canada mirrors the global language crisis. Of the 60 or more indigenous languages in Canada, just three, Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibwa, are stable and viable. They account for nearly two-thirds of the nearly 229,000 Canadians who claim an indigenous language as their mother tongue and who regularly speak that language in the home.
Of the 12 major language families once solidly established here in the country, nine are today the linguistic expression of a mere 6% of the indigenous population. There are 50 languages spoken by first nations with fewer than 3,000 members. Even among indigenous communities where the loss of language is widespread, language revitalization is a powerful aspirational goal linked to reconciliation and the preservation of culture.
My own riding of Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock boasts 63 different languages spoken as mother tongues. This is also recognized in the Conservative Party of Canada policy document, section 133, “Recognition that language is an integral part of one’s culture and heritage should form the basis for decision-making relating to its cultural and artistic community.”
We encourage the government to recognize the diverse cultural nature of Canada and its shared history and to take these into account when working to strengthen opportunities and accessibility in both the domestic and international markets for our creative success.
I want to close by saying I support mother languages.
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