Inuktitut in the Canadian Senate

Tuesday June 2, 2009 marked another milestone for the revitalization of our Inuit language as I was able to speak to the Senate Committee of the Whole in Inuktitut on the first anniversary of the federal Residential Schools Apology.

It was the first time Inuktitut was spoken officially in the Senate and simultaneously translated into English, and this is an important milestone on the road to preserving our Inuit language.

During the residential school years our language and culture were seen by the government, school administrators, and our teachers, as unnecessary baggage that we needed to leave behind. As the Prime Minister said last year in his apology, these policies were “based on the assumption that aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal.”

Unfortunately, on an all too frequent basis policies based on that assumption, policies that included not speaking Inuktitut, were enforced with beatings or other forms of punishment when we were caught doing something as natural as talking to each other in our own language.

On Tuesday this week, by officially supporting in the Senate of Canada the very language we were once punished for speaking, another step was taken on the path of reconciliation that began with the Apology issued by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on June 11, 2008. But as I said to the Senate the true measure of the Apology therefore, will be the actions that follow this shift in attitude by our government. Reconciliation will follow a path of policy changes of substance, involving setting new goals, and defining new decision-making processes, that signify a higher level of legitimacy for the Inuit language and culture.

While I was happy to speak Inuktitut in the Senate yesterday there are other matters that need urgent attention, to that end I have proposed to the Senate an annual report card of progress indicators; suicide, life expectancy, housing, and high school completion rates, are just a few of the issues affecting our people that change must be measured in on a regular basis to ensure that progress is also being made in those critical areas.

As Inuit we stand ready, and willing, to work with the Government of Canada in establishing the policy changes, setting new goals, and defining a new decision making process that will result in measurable and concrete change. I also very much appreciated taking questions from the Senators following my prepared remarks, available on this site. The two hours I spent in the Senate yesterday allowed for a good discussion of the state of the nation in the Canadian Arctic.

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