[English translation not provided.]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on the importance of the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment’s release of the Aboriginal Languages Plan. This is one of the major initiatives that our government can call a legacy for this Assembly.

Last fall I had the honour of chairing the Aboriginal Languages Symposium with the Honourable Jackson Lafferty. We brought together our best and

hardworking language specialists from throughout the Northwest Territories. We said this is not just another symposium but a launching pad as we work towards revitalizing our aboriginal languages.

What I learned from this symposium was by a doctor of languages who has done studies on immersions. His research has shown that in typical schools within aboriginal communities, our aboriginal students have high drop-out rates and low graduation. However, when he studied communities with a long history of aboriginal immersion in the first three years of grade school and then introduced English, he found that they actually had a better command of the English language and had better grades at school, thus better attendance and a higher graduation rate. This speaks volumes about what speaking our aboriginal language means to our people and our children.

Languages are all about cultural identity and confidence in who you are as an aboriginal. Teaching our aboriginal languages in the schools from K to 3 in wholly immersion is positive and beneficial not only for the youth and parents but for the future of the NWT as a whole.

This is the vision that I see for our languages, our children in our schools and our North: having a positive multilingual and energetic youth will indeed guarantee a strong and vibrant future for our Northwest Territories.