Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In light of today being National Aboriginal Day, one of the areas that need more of a priority is the cultural aspect of aboriginal people, especially language.
Without the language, you lose the culture. It is important that this government does more to preserve and protect these aboriginal languages. It is slowly coming to a point where we have to do something crucially and critically to ensure they sustain those languages, and that these languages are carried on for future generations.
In our education system, we use English as the only language in government on the program delivery side. Yet very little effort is made by this government to enhance aboriginal languages.
I would like to ask the Minister responsible for languages and culture, who is also the Minister of Education, if there is a possibility of establishing a separate regime to deal with languages in the context of it being an emergency situation.
We have to do something within the term of this government. We have bounced this idea around. We have cut departments and done other things, but I would like to ask the Minister if he has a strategy to preserve aboriginal languages?