Over the years, there have been various demand murmurs for some type of “Official Recognition” of Indigenous Languages. The TRC’s Calls to Action include this line:
“We call upon the federal government to enact an Aboriginal Languages Act that incorporates the following… “
It elaborates further with calls for Indigenous people to be the ones best equipped to make decisions over adequate funding and best to know where such support is needed, and how much funding is needed.
As an Indigenous language activist, I too support the call for an Indigenous Language Act in Canada. Reconciliation and justice absolutely includes Indigenous language protections in Canadian law. It is because of the lack of protections that Indigenous languages are being suppressed. The way, I believe, reconciliation can be implemented is through changes to federal law that strengthen Indigenous language rights.
In a recent presentation at a linguistics conference, I put forward this example of what “Indigenous Language Rights” could look like in a Canadian context.
(1) (Indigenous) Citizens of Canada
(a) whose first language learned and still understood is that of a (recognized Indigenous language) of the province in which they reside, or
(b) whose (acquired) language learned and still understood is that of (a recognized Indigenous language) of the province in which they reside.
have the right to have their children receive primary and secondary school instruction in that language in that province.
(2) (Indigenous) Citizens of Canada of whom any child has received or is receiving primary or secondary school instruction in (a recognized Indigenous language) in Canada, have the right to have all their children receive primary and secondary school instruction in the same language.
You may ask where this is from. I rewrote a few words of the Canadian law that gives protections to French and English. Yes, official recognition can be important and useful, but only if it operationalizes Indigenous language rights that mandate specific protections and safeguards for Indigenous languages.
Reconciliation is the process of reversing the harmful damage done and being done to Indigenous communities by Canada. As Coast Salish author Lee Maracle puts it, “I’ll forgive you…if you take your heel off my foot.”.
Take the heel of English language off my Indigenous language foot. It’s time for Indigenous Language Rights in Canada.
