QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Canadian Heritage
Support for Indigenous Languages
September 25, 2025
Good afternoon, minister.
Thank you for being here today. I recently had the opportunity to attend Waves 2025, an incredible conference put on by the Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages. At the end of the week, Jeremy Dutcher, a Polaris Music Prize winner, performed and sang, “Our languages are going to save us and we are going to save them.”
No one doubts or questions the importance of Indigenous languages. They are deeply connected to identity, culture, health, past, future. Yet, planned spending by Canadian Heritage on Indigenous languages has dropped. According to one of the presenters at the conference, Dr. Daniel Brant of Daniel J. Brant & Associates, we’re talking $118 million in 2023-24 and then just $52 million in 2024-25. Why is the Government of Canada lowering its investment in Indigenous languages at a critical time for their preservation?
Thank you for the question. I attended that event as well. As you may know, I am the minister who created the Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages and nominated the commissioner and three directors.
It is important to look at where we started. When we came into power in 2015, the previous Conservative government invested annually in Indigenous languages the amount of $5 million. Between the period of 2019-20 and 2028-29, our government will have invested $1.4 billion in Indigenous languages in this country. Compare $5 million to $1.4 billion. That’s the difference between our approach to supporting Indigenous languages and the Conservative government’s approach.
After 2028-29, $162 million will fund ongoing support of the implementation of the Indigenous Languages Act. As I was telling your colleague Senator Audette earlier, those programs have supported over 3,000 community-driven projects to restore, protect and promote important parts of First Nations, Métis and Inuit cultures and history.
We will all carefully review the budget announcement to see how the federal government is honouring its commitments in the Indigenous Languages Act, notably, the promise to provide adequate, sustainable, long-term funding.
Indigenous communities are exploring how artificial intelligence can help them revitalize their languages, while also retaining control over their intellectual property.
Is the federal government funding language revitalization initiatives that use AI? How can the federal government collaborate with Indigenous communities to ensure their intellectual property is protected according to their values, traditions and laws?
Thank you for the question. As you may know, the implementation of the Indigenous Languages Act is done collaboratively with Indigenous partners through a Joint Implementation Steering Committee, which includes representatives from the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiirat Kanatami, the Métis National Council and Canadian Heritage. So the federal government alone doesn’t dictate or decide how the funding goes to these community-driven projects. I know for a fact that we have funded apps for Indigenous languages for phones and tablets. I don’t know that we have funded AI applications yet. I could certainly ask the department, and we could provide you with that information. But the funding is delivered through 14 different Indigenous —
