Senator Joyal:

I first want to say to Chief Daniels that I know his father. He testified in 1980 with Georges Erasmus, who was then Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. The representative of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, Senator Charlie Watt, was among the group of witnesses who pressed upon the joint committee, at that time chaired by the late Senator Harry Hays and myself, the inclusion of the Metis people.

You referred to the plight that your mother endured in the residential school because she spoke her own Aboriginal language, and the fact that all residential school children were beaten if they spoke their own Aboriginal language, which is fundamental to one's identity.

Has there been any progress in the last year in restoring the status and use of Aboriginal languages among First Nations, Inuit and Metis? The roots of one's identity are first through language, because language carries thought, mythology, religion and pride in one's culture. Has there been any progress, to your knowledge, in restoring and promoting the use of Aboriginal languages among your peoples?

Mr. Daniels: I believe you mentioned Harry Daniels.

Senator Joyal: Yes.

Mr. Daniels: He is not my father.

Senator Joyal: Are you in any way related to him?

Mr. Daniels: Yes. My father is Metis. He is related to Harry. We all come from Saskatchewan. We have a long Daniels history in the province of Saskatchewan.

Of course, my mother, Lily Daniels, is a well-respected elder in the city of Regina. She has been practising and teaching cultural dancing, the dancing of our women, jingle dress dancing, fancy dancing. She has taught many young women who have gone on to become productive citizens in society, such as RCMP officers and lawyers. They became good people because they embraced their culture and were proud of their culture.

Unfortunately, when my mother left the road allowance, she lost her language. There was no one in the city to speak to and she eventually lost her language. However, the Cree language is still alive and well in North America. We are happy for that, but now we have to go to university to learn it.

Senator Joyal: Chief Fontaine, would you care to comment on the importance of Aboriginal languages in the reconciliation process of Canadians sharing in the culture of Aboriginal people?

Mr. Fontaine: Thank you, senator. Language is important to all peoples in the world. Language represents everything that we are as a people. Language is a repository of our histories. It is about our values, our teachings and our traditions. Language is of fundamental interest to all peoples in every part of the world, including the first peoples here, the indigenous peoples.

The residential school experience was devastating in terms of the protection of our languages and cultures. The honourable senator is absolutely right when he points out that we were denied the use of our languages in residential schools. That restriction has been successful in terms of putting into effect the policy that resulted in the residential school experience, which was to kill the Indian in the child. They did this by removing the children from the influence of their families. They took the children out of their communities and sent them away, as was the case in Mr. Chartier's situation and my own. I was away for ten years.

We were discouraged from speaking our languages. Some people, including myself, would argue that there are 55 indigenous languages spoken in Canada; others would say 53. Only three of those indigenous languages remain strong today: Cree, the language of Mr. Daniels; Inuktitut, the language of the good senator; and the language I speak, Ojibwa. The other 52 languages are in a precarious state. They are in various stages of disappearing. Once they disappear in Canada, they disappear forever, because this is the homeland of those languages. They are indigenous to this part of the world.

We had a commitment from the previous government, a number of years ago, of $172 million for the preservation and enhancement of indigenous languages. That commitment was deleted from the current government's agenda, and what we were left with was what we had before. Of course, what we had before did not deliver in terms of the preservation and enhancement of our languages. Our languages are disappearing.

We are seeking fair treatment. It would be a tragedy if even one indigenous language were to disappear from here, but we are faced with 52 indigenous languages disappearing. We face a huge disaster and we need to do something to fix the situation.

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Mr. Chartier: I would add our disappointment, as the national chief stated, with respect to scrapping the program, which would have been helpful. I know the language of the Metis, Michif, is on the verge of extinction, although we have been working at it strenuously over the last 15 years. There has been some minimal progress. Fortunately, much of the Michif has a Cree influence, so the strong use of the Cree language is helping us maintain the Michif language.

To illustrate something I said earlier in terms of Bill C-31, Kevin Daniels and I have known each other for 30 some years, and he was one of the leaders of our Metis youth movement in Saskatchewan, and a good youth representative at the time. Through Bill C-31, he was able, along with his mother, to gain Indian status, along with thousands of others. Others say, though, that they want out because they feel more comfortable in the Metis world and they want to continue with the Metis culture, but the act does not allow them to do that.

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