Thank you.

Good evening. I am Claudette Commanda, member of the Kitigan Zibi Algonquin First Nation.

I welcome you. I'm honoured to make this presentation on the ancestral territory of my people.

I hold various titles, responsibilities and roles, such as chief executive officer for the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres. I am an Indian day school survivor. I am a representative plaintiff for the survivor class federal Indian day school settlement; a special adviser on reconciliation to the dean of the faculty of law; elder-in-residence; professor; and chancellor of the University of Ottawa. I am a mother of four and a kokum—or grandmother—of 10; this is my most cherished role and responsibility.

Despite the various titles and roles I hold, today I am here as the chief executive officer representing the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres. I have been with this national first nations grassroots organization since 2000.

The FNCCEC was established in 1972. We are a non-profit, national, first nations grassroots organization born out of Indian control of Indian education. Our organization is community-based and grassroots-driven, and we are inherent and treaty rights holders. We are independent from the Assembly of First Nations or any other political entity.

The organization is composed of 46 cultural centres, which are located in every part of the country and represent the language and cultural diversity among first nations. Our elders guide our work and support our community-based and national role as language advocates and language experts. The organization provides technical and program assistance to communities in their development and delivery of language and culture-based education programs.

As rights holders of our languages, the FNCCEC and its member centres understood the need for languages legislation: legislation to guarantee financial support for communities to develop immediate and long-term sustainable solutions for language revitalization and protection, and our right to educate our children in our ancestral languages.

For 47 years, FNCCEC was entrusted—and continues to have that trust—with a national mandate on the promotion, protection, revitalization and maintenance of first nation languages, cultures and traditions. Despite our organization's expertise in language development and program delivery for our communities, FNCCEC was not called on to be codevelopers in the drafting of the languages legislation known as Bill C-91.

However, our organization supports the Indigenous Languages Act. We were pleased to see our vision, our efforts and our actions for language protection become a reality. For decades, with steadfast determination, the FNCCEC advocated for language legislation. Language champions such as Ron Ignace, Verna Kirkness and Amos Key, to name but a few, remained constant in their support of FNCCEC and our mission for legislative language protection.

Why is the act important? What does it mean for the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres?

We see the Indigenous Languages Act as a validation of our languages. It validates the importance of our languages and the richness of our languages for cultural identity and healing. In building self-esteem for first nations children and youth, the validation of our languages for the intergenerational transmission of knowledge is so critical and so important, because our languages are who we are: our identity, our culture and our life, and that connection to land, to spirit, to the creator and to all of our teachings.

The Indigenous Languages Act is also viewed as the Government of Canada's acknowledgement of the historical wrongs that have contributed to language loss. It is also viewed as an instrument to hold the government accountable in its obligation to support the restoration, revitalization and retention of first nation languages with an ongoing commitment for funding needed for immediate and long-term language planning, resource development and language learning.

The protection of the first languages of the land is paramount. After all, first nation languages, indigenous languages, are the original languages of Canada. Canadians must embrace this truth. Raising awareness of the importance and the value of first nation languages provides the opportunity for Canadians to acknowledge, respect and celebrate first nations people, our histories and our rights, and to foster reconciliation, people to people and nation to nation.

We are hopeful and we wait patiently for the act to provide permanent sustainable funding, funding that is of critical need for our communities to build and foster language health both today and lifelong. The act must be the authority to eliminate proposal-driven, piecemeal funding. The current language and cultural funding program criteria, and the administration of funding, can neither sustain nor continue to be the source of language and cultural revitalization, or be the eligibility for language support, for our communities. Change is needed.

We know that much work is still required to fully implement the act. The implementation must ensure that first nation grassroots communities and well-established first nation organizations, who have immense expertise and lived experience in language protection and revitalization, must be included in every stage of implementation and operations, including the development of policies and funding models. The implementation of the act and/or distribution of funding cannot be delegated to political organizations. Grassroots communities and grassroots organizations are the language-holders, the language speakers and the language champions. We are the frontline workers. We are the present. We are the past. We certainly are the future.

We appreciate the working relationship with the staff at Canadian Heritage, who recognize the diverse expertise of the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres. They value the community language experts who assist in the government's work on indigenous languages.

The act, including its spirit and intent, must be fully and diligently recognized in the implementation for the protection and revitalization of first nation languages. The beneficiaries are our children, today and seven generations beyond. Much work remains to be done. FNCCEC's wide array of expertise in language development, implementation, research, and program and technical support must be integral to all aspects of the implementation of the Indigenous Languages Act.

Let's work together to make this happen for our children and our youth today, and for seven generations.

Chi miigwetch. Thank you.

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