International Mother Language Day Bill
Second Reading--Debate Adjourned
March 30, 2021
Moved second reading of Bill S-211, An Act to establish International Mother Language Day.
She said: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to second reading of my Bill S-211, An Act to establish International Mother Language Day.
The day would be February 21.
This bill is in recognition of International Mother Language Day. For greater certainty, International Mother Language Day is not a legal holiday or a non-juridical day. This is yet another time I have tabled this bill, honourable senators. The last time it was referred to the social committee.
Honourable senators, I want to begin by saying that this bill is important to many of us.
Mother language identifies us. It gives us grounding. I want to share with you that my grandchildren, unfortunately, do not speak our mother language as well as we would like. However, often at the dinner table our seven-year-old, when she is emotionally trying to express something, will use our mother language. It really touches us all that the best way she can express how she feels about many things is in her mother language.
This bill will formally recognize International Mother Language Day, and it will wholeheartedly align with Canada’s strongest values of inclusion, openness, equity and respect for all people.
One young person whose story helps to remind us all of the great privilege and responsibility of being a Canadian senator who supports language diversity is that of Heeba. Heeba is now in her late twenties. She immigrated to Canada from Bangladesh in 1992. When asked about what Bill S-211 meant to her, Heeba shared her perspective on multilingualism as her own cultural identity.
She said:
It is incredibly important for me to communicate in my Bengali mother tongue with my family. During my time at university, I always had German and French roommates, and would seize the opportunity to practise with them.
I have noticed people highly appreciate it when I make the effort to talk to them in their first language. My friends light up when I speak to them in Bengali, Nepali, Hindi and Spanish. I also speak perfect English and French.
Learning new languages runs in the family, as my father speaks Italian and Mandarin and my mother is also fluent in German. I’m incredibly proud to speak Bengali, my mother language.
I took Bengali classes at university to learn how to read more academic pieces of writing like poetry. Bangladesh has given me so much in terms of culture, and I would absolutely want my own children to speak my mother tongue of Bengali, on top of many other languages.
It is very difficult for me to attach myself only to one language. I am more than one language, and so are a lot of Canadians.
This is what it means to be a Canadian.
International Mother Language Day, February 21, is one day dedicated to celebrating mother languages while also remarking on the value and importance of being able to freely, openly and proudly communicate in the mother language of one’s free choosing.
International Mother Language Day was first established in November 1999 by a unanimous vote at the 30th General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The declaration was seen to be part of a broader international strategy “to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world.”
This United Nations resolution 56/262 was finalized in 2002 and internationally established International Mother Language Day on February 15.
The resolution is also a symbol of commemoration and promotion of linguistic and cultural diversity, as well as multiculturalism and all mother languages.
Ever since, global celebrations have occurred on February 21 of each year. At its heart, this bill is one way to honour and recognize the Canadians from coast to coast to coast who proudly speak their mother tongues, which amount to over 200 languages, from Spanish to Gujarati to Punjabi to Tagalog and many others.
In Vancouver alone, over half of all school-aged children are learning another language besides French and English. Similarly, 25% of Vancouverites report that their first language is neither French nor English.
Additionally, my home province of British Columbia is home to more than half of Canada’s Indigenous languages. Sadly, only one in 20 Indigenous peoples in the province are fluent in their language and almost all of them are elders.
As we all know, far too many Indigenous languages have disappeared. Every time a language disappears, a part of our nation’s identity disappears.
Despite the commendable efforts of the government to address this issue through Bill C-91, An Act respecting Indigenous languages, of the 60 registered Indigenous languages, only 4 are currently considered safe from extinction. Honourable senators, I know you will agree with me when I say that this is unacceptable.
To quote the Honourable Senator René Cormier, Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages:
. . . this bill also requires us to think about the major issues surrounding the disappearance, preservation and reappropriation of Indigenous languages. Colonialism and the expansion of the Canadian state had devastating effects on Indigenous peoples. As the victims of residential schools, First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities witnessed the decimation of their mother tongues and cultures by successive Canadian governments.
In the 2011 census, over 60 Indigenous languages were reported, but only 14.5% of First Nations members still had Indigenous language as their mother tongue. In 2016, the number of Indigenous languages reported was more than 70. Over 33 of those languages were spoken by at least 500 individuals, while some were spoken by as few as 6 people.
Honourable senators, in no way does Bill S-211 aim to dispute that French and English are Canada’s official languages, as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I know that recognition of the value of bilingualism forms the foundation of our great country of Canada and Canadian identity, past, present and future. Bill S-211 supports bilingualism and our rich and diverse multilingualism. This feels long overdue.
Many Canadians speak a multitude of languages that enrich Canada’s culture and the country on the whole. That is why international mother language day, February 21, is a day to celebrate speaking your mother tongue with pride. It aims to amplify the rights of all Canadians to celebrate and showcase their own mother tongue.
Regardless of our different backgrounds, all Canadian senators have a vested interest in being strong advocates of Canadian bilingualism as well as Canadian multilingualism. Bill S-211 supports bilingualism and establishes more formal recognition of multilingualism. In fact, along with French and English, all Canadians’ mother tongue languages are worthy of honour and celebration.
As a young girl, I was raised to be proud and still feel empowered when I speak my mother tongue. It gives me grounding, and my language identifies who I am. As a mother and a grandmother, I carry forward this fight for recognition of all mother tongue languages to ensure that all young people, including my own grandchildren, know their mother language as part of their identity.
Honourable senators, Bill S-211 contains no clear recognition of that. Due to the ongoing global pandemic posed by COVID-19, Canadians’ need for connection with and understanding of one another should be deemed more important than ever.
Perhaps most importantly, by officially recognizing international mother language day, we are expanding awareness and the way Canada and all members of our country think. Without question, languages are a strategy of national unity. They allow all people to build unique relationships with foundations of trust, understanding and a history behind them. It is our grounding. It is our identity.
Honourable senators, I reach out to each and every one of you and say: Support me on this bill for an international mother language day. It is part of our Canadian values.
Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill S-211, An Act to establish International Mother Language Day.
Bill S-211 is a legislative proposal to designate February 21 as international mother language day, noting that English and French are the two official languages of Canada, as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I would like to thank Senator Jaffer for reintroducing this bill in the Senate and giving me the opportunity to speak again on the importance of proliferating mother languages. As a country with multilingualism at its core, we need to recognize and understand the importance of preserving all mother languages. Professor Wade Davis put it more eloquently than I could when he said in Canadian Geographic:
A language, of course, is not just a set of grammatical rules or a vocabulary; it’s a flash of the human spirit, the vehicle by which the soul of a particular culture comes into the material world. Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of social, spiritual and psychological possibilities. Each is a window into a universe, a monument to the specific culture that gave it birth and whose spirit it expresses.
I know first-hand the correlation between my mother tongue and my identity. Speaking Pukhto is more than a means to communicate. Listening to and conversing in the Pukhto language brings me joy and comfort and reminds me of my childhood. But more than that, it connects me to my ancestors. It allows me to understand the literature, the art and the poetry of my homeland.
For these reasons, I made it a priority to teach my mother language to my two daughters, Anushka and Shaanzeh. By doing so, I was able to share a part of my identity, history and culture with them. We have developed a stronger family bond through our mother language.
Additionally, through an academic and employment perspective, multilingualism has significantly improved their professional opportunities in Canada and internationally. My eldest daughter Anushka’s fluency in Pukhto, the same language spoken by villagers in a remote area of Pakistan, enabled her to gain valuable knowledge and stories to complete her PhD research.
As a lawyer, my youngest daughter Shaanzeh has been able to bridge gaps with her clients by communicating with them in Pukhto. These are unique experiences provided only to those who were able to gain trust through the power of language.
Even as a senator, I often find myself using my mother language while working. When I’m speaking at community events, it’s not unusual for me to switch back and forth from English to Pukhto to Urdu. Through my international work, speaking multiple languages has also allowed me to increase Canada’s ties with many countries. Being multilingual is an asset, both in Canada and abroad.
My daughters’ and my lives have been positively impacted in numerous ways because of our ability to communicate in our mother tongue, and that is worth celebrating every year on February 21. This is also something we need to encourage, as mother languages are often lost by the third generation. In fact, according to the United Nations, every two weeks a language disappears.
Of course, we cannot speak about the importance of preserving mother languages in Canada without considering our Indigenous population, many of whom were forcibly stripped of their mother tongues. In 2016, only 16% of the Indigenous population reported being able to conduct a conversation in an Indigenous language, having dropped from roughly 21% in 2006. Of the more than 60 Indigenous languages in Canada, only 3 — Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibwa — are considered stable.
Yet there is hope. Just yesterday, UBC announced the creation of the first Indigenous language bachelor’s degree in Canada. Language revitalization is always possible and must be our goal.
Honourable senators, the importance of mother tongues cannot be undervalued because we know that once a language dies, the knowledge and heritage it contains dies with it, forever diminishing our society as a whole. As parliamentarians, we must encourage Canadians to celebrate and preserve our linguistic diversity. Bill S-211 fulfills these aspirations by raising awareness and promoting education of mother languages.
In closing, I would ask honourable senators that we consider the questions posed by Professor Wade Davis:
But what of the poetry, songs and knowledge encoded in the other voices, those cultures that are the guardians and custodians of 98.8 per cent of the world’s linguistic diversity? Is the wisdom of an elder any less important simply because he or she communicates to an audience of one?
Senator Jaffer, thank you for your tireless work on this bill or as we say in my mother tongue, manana.
Thank you, honourable senators.
Honourable senators, I will speak on Senator Jaffer’s proposed Bill S-211 to establish an International Mother Language Day on February 21 of each and every year.
I will add to the remarks made by Senator Jaffer and Senator Ataullahjan by noting that language, after all, is the soul of a culture and people. Our Canadian soul is in a multilingual overdrive. Many of us speak more than one language. In the Senate Chamber, we frequently switch between Canada’s two official languages, English and French. But English and French, as we know from our other speakers, are not the only two languages spoken in Canada. There are more than 70 Indigenous languages. Sadly, many of these languages run the risk of being forgotten.
In addition, close to a quarter of Canadians have a mother tongue other than English or French. After English and French, the six languages spoken most widely are Mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi, Spanish, Tagalog and Arabic. An incredible 215 different languages were reported by Canadians as their mother tongue. This diversity of language speaks to the overwhelming diversity of Canadians, because Canada is a nation of many cultures who have made their way here from every corner of the globe.
As an immigrant myself, I can speak to the important role that different languages have played throughout my life. I was born in multilingual India, so I acquired Punjabi, English, Hindi and a smattering of Urdu naturally. Others I acquired through a disciplined course, like German. Some I learned on the go, picking up bits here and there in order to survive in a new country, like Farsi in Iran. By the time I arrived in Canada, it was natural for me to speak in one language and think in yet another.
I have come to understand that the language you speak releases a different aspect of your personality. When I speak Urdu, it is automatic for me to become more elegant, more deferential and more courteous because that is the nature of the language. When I speak German — less and less fluently, I must admit — I have to struggle to be precise. And when I speak Farsi, I am reminded that some languages have an innate hospitality ingrained in them because a cup of tea will soon follow. Sadly, very sadly, I speak no French, but I know that if I did, I would find an inner elegance of style, as I see it spoken by Senator Gagné, Senator Cormier and my other colleagues in the Senate. But it is when I speak Hindi at home with my mother that I become her child again, and find my centre as she gently corrects the many mistakes that I am likely to make.
As more and more of us speak a language other than our mother tongue, a day that is set aside to reflect and think of our identity, roots and culture through our mother language is a beautiful idea. Whether we landed in Canada last year or our ancestors have lived here since time immemorial, recognizing our mother tongue is central to who we are.
The fact that so many of us speak more than one language is indeed something to be celebrated. Thank you, Senator Jaffer, for your tireless advocacy in support of language diversity in Canada. I urge all honourable senators to vote to send this bill to committee as soon as possible. Thank you.
