Honourable senators, I rise to speak to Bill S-220. I want to begin by acknowledging that I am speaking to you from traditional and unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin people.

I also wish to thank Senator McCallum for the powerful speech she delivered last Thursday.

I am a proud L’nu, also known as Mi’kmaq. I am living proof of the resistance and resilience of my people. We are still here despite the colonial and genocidal actions perpetrated by Canada and its institutions and actors. We continue to fight to regain control over our lives and futures while working to heal from historical and ongoing trauma.

In my role as a senator from Epekwitk, also known as Prince Edward Island, I have the distinct privilege and responsibility to speak up in support of First Nations and all Indigenous peoples, and in this particular instance to share my perspective on the importance of ensuring that, in the context of reconciliation, Indigenous languages are treated as equal rather than subservient to English and French.

Colleagues, generations of Indigenous peoples in Canada have been deprived of opportunities that others take for granted. We suffer from lack of access to basic services and infrastructure due to chronic underfunding. We suffer from poorer health outcomes and lower life expectancies. We suffer from higher rates of poverty and homelessness. We suffer from lower levels of education and economic success. And we suffer from overrepresentation in the criminal justice and child welfare systems. The odds are against us since before we were born.

I have serious concerns about Bill S-220. In my opinion, the bill reflects a lack of awareness and understanding of the harsh realities faced by Indigenous people across Canada. Moreover, it amounts to a continuation of the status quo, which has directly contributed to exclude, rather than include, Indigenous peoples from participation in all aspects of public life.

The appointment of Mary Simon as the first Inuk and Indigenous person to serve in the role of Governor General of Canada is historical and inspirational. It should be celebrated by all as an important step forward in recognizing the linguistic plurality of Canada. Rather than putting into question her capacity to serve in this role, we should applaud that Mary Simon speaks English and Inuktitut and has committed to improving her French. In 2022, French and English should not be considered more valuable or superior to Indigenous languages.

Like Mary Simon, I am a survivor of the Indian day school system. Like Mary Simon, I was not given the opportunity to learn French in my childhood. The close to 200,000 of us who attended these federally run institutions received a substandard education. There was a greater emphasis on religion than academics. As a result, many of us were left with a lack of basic literacy and numeracy skills.

Unlike Mary Simon, I am not fluent in my Indigenous language, due to the intergenerational impact of the Indian residential and day school systems. There are not many around me who can fluently read, write and speak in Mi’kmaw. Those of us who became fluent in English struggled for many years.

Thirty years ago, educational outcomes for Indigenous youth were grim. Not enough has changed since. The graduation rate for non-Indigenous people is 88%; for on-reserve Indigenous people, it can be as low as 36%. Is it any wonder, then, that Indigenous people obtain a bachelor’s degree at one third the rate of non-Indigenous people?

Not many get to have the long and distinguished career — inside and outside of the public service — that Mary Simon has enjoyed. Very few, if any, have walked in her shoes. That she was able to retain her Indigenous language of Inuktitut at a time when Indigenous languages were suppressed or extinguished makes her story even more remarkable. Her remarkable success is not the rule but the exception.

I’m not here to say that learning French or English or becoming bilingual is not important, however, too often, Indigenous peoples have been squeezed between the squabbles of colonial interests. In the context of the assimilationist and genocidal actions inflicted by the state on generations of Indigenous people, it is not difficult to see how Bill S-220 would serve to perpetuate harm rather than alleviate it.

My language was taken from me. I was forced to learn English. Too many Indigenous peoples across Canada endure the same fate. To those who decry that Mary Simon had many years in the public service to learn French in order to succeed, I would urge them to reflect carefully on why she never did. Then I would ask them: Do you not see the cruelty in telling Indigenous peoples, whose language and culture were violently stolen, that they must learn yet another colonial language to be deemed worthy or deserving of serving Canada?

Colleagues, many Indigenous people continue to struggle to reclaim their culture and languages, but it does not have to be this way.

I wish to highlight the success of the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia. In the 1990s, when high school graduation rates were close to 30%, the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia began to exercise control over their education in their communities, including by creating successful immersion programs where children thrived in both English and Mi’kmaq. Today, the high school graduation rate for Nova Scotian Mi’kmaq students is 90%. Like Mary Simon, many of those students are retaining their Indigenous language. In my opinion, that should be the standard across Canada.

However, Bill S-220, if successful, would signal to these students that even after succeeding academically and retaining their Indigenous language, they would still not be good enough to serve the public good in Canada. Is that really the message we want to send to our Indigenous children and youth?

For the price of my culture and language, I received a substandard education that left me struggling to compete with my peers. For the price of my culture and language, I was taught English but not French. For the price of my culture and language, I am now being asked to rebuild the barrier Mary Simon broke down. Is that fair? No, it is simply not.

Colleagues, I suggest to you that as it is currently envisioned, Bill S-220 would be a step backwards from the good work we have accomplished in recent years. In my first years sitting among you in this chamber, the Indigenous Languages Act was passed. Against the myth that only French and English are foundational to Canada, the preamble of the act recognizes Indigenous languages as the original languages spoken on these lands. Yet, the Indigenous Languages Act stopped short of making Indigenous languages official federal languages. I say “federal” here because Inuktitut, among others, is an official language in the Northwest Territories as well as in Nunavut. This omission must be corrected.

The Indigenous Languages Act spoke to Call to Action 14 of the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It was also a small step towards Call to Action 13: “We call upon the federal government to acknowledge that Aboriginal rights include Aboriginal language rights.”

In the context of the bill before us today, Senator McCallum called for Indigenous languages to be enshrined in the Constitution, and I agree. We must consider how this could be accomplished, and how Call to Action 13 may be better served.

Only two languages are explicitly protected by name in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in our Constitution. Importantly, the Charter does not fully outline or advance the language rights of English and French. Instead, as two examples, the advancement of language rights is found in acts such as the Official Languages Act and the Language Skills Act. Simply put, acts like these operationalize those rights.

Indigenous or Aboriginal rights are also recognized and affirmed by the Charter. This language is important because the Charter is not the source of those rights. Slowly and judiciously, Indigenous rights have been laid out by the Supreme Court of Canada, and those outlined are not exhaustive.

In terms of language rights, I wish to point out that the Official Languages Act does not extinguish the legal and customary rights of other languages.

Colleagues, I cannot support Bill S-220, because of its exclusionary intent. However, if the bill goes to committee, I support Senator Dalphond’s suggestion to look at the constitutional validity of using the Language Skills Act to put restraints on the appointment of the Governor General.

I would add that we should use this opportunity to consider how we can begin to operationalize Indigenous language rights. As an example, we could consider changing “both official languages” to “any two official languages.” This change would not diminish the prevalence of French or English as official languages, as assuredly these two languages are more common in Canada.

But while some may lament that Mary Simon does not speak both official languages, I would respond that she does speak two official languages of Canada — one of the original languages and one of the later languages — and I hope that more of our original languages will make that transition to official languages provincially, territorially and federally.

Many of us now begin our speeches with a land acknowledgement. As Senator Dalphond rightly noted, Mary Simon told us, during the recent Speech from the Throne, that land acknowledgements must move beyond symbolism.

This brings me to my final point. I want to preface my comments by saying I have the utmost respect for my colleagues, and I believe them when they voice their support for reconciliation. But I wish to express a dire warning that supporting Bill S-220 in the current context is not in line with efforts to reconcile past and ongoing wrongs.

If we are not willing to withstand some discomfort in the face of noteworthy achievements by Indigenous peoples, reconciliation becomes a hollow, performative act. True and lasting reconciliation is not meant to be easy. It has to be accompanied by actions to disrupt racist and colonial discourses and practices, including the myth that Canada was founded on linguistic duality. The truth is that Canada was not built on linguistic duality, but rather it paved over a linguistic plurality.

We are charged here with legislating on matters that will impact Indigenous peoples, but it feels like time and time again there is a lack of understanding and awareness of the true history of Canada. If we really want to ensure that Indigenous people are not unduly impacted by our decisions, we must urgently address this gap.

To make it a prerequisite for the Governor General to speak English and French — rather than English, French or an Indigenous language — undermines the path towards meaningful and tangible reconciliation.

I understand French may be dying, but Indigenous languages across the country have been strangled for decades, and many have already been killed. In my opinion, protecting the French language does not need to happen at the expense of protecting Indigenous languages. Why should it?

Colleagues, Bill S-220 disregards historical and current realities preventing Indigenous peoples from not only learning or maintaining our Indigenous language, but also becoming fluent in English or French, and, even less, both.

As Senator McCallum said, we are not asking you to learn our languages; we merely ask that you do not stand in our way, as has so often been the case. Please keep this in mind as you deliberate on Bill S-220. Wela’lioq, thank you.