Okay. I just wanted to skip that part because I made my point.

This is really significant, and I point out here that one only needs to examine the Northwest Territories Official Languages Act in comparison to Bill C‑91 to see striking similarities. This is alarming to me. Bill C‑91 presents an updated version of the NWT Official Languages Act, with some language around reconciliation and indigenous rights sprinkled over it, but the actual clauses do not provide any guarantees of capacity funding.

If you look at the treaty relationship, there were specific understandings and guarantees, and that has not been fulfilled. In all the different things that have been going on with any legislation, that's what's been happening. Yesterday, you heard things about corruption. You could look at this in that context too, because there's something not right.

My sister earlier on talked about crumbs. The other thing is that we're on the side. There are some things going on. When you're travelling around together, there are people in front of you who see everything and this is where you are. We're in the back, and you're yelling at us, saying, “What do you want? What can you see?”

We can't see anything. We don't know what we want because we're not there. We need to be there. The treaty relationship says that it's going to be coexistent, so we need to be there. We need to look at how we need to do that.

That's a point that I wanted to make, because the process—this is the point I'm making—is the process. Yes, we need capacity. The other thing is that there is a jurisdiction. There's the Crown's jurisdiction and there's Dene jurisdiction. It's coexistent. We need to work together. That's how we need to move forward.

That's how I feel, and that's how we need to move forward.

[Witness spoke in Dene Zhati as follows:]

ɂęh hęn mashı…mashı neredsı̨ dų kadų dzı̨ na ka k’anı̨ shı̨ nezų łets’ırıdı nı̨de mashı neredsı̨ nethęn

[Dene Zhati text translated as follows:]

Yes, I am thankful for being here today, it is good to be together and seek things out as a collective. I see that as the best way for all of us. Thank you.

Transcript

Discussions (0)