First and foremost, I’d like to commend Fort Providence’s language immersion which has been very successful to date. I think that needs applause, a pat on the back, for sure.
We want to create more of those language immersion programs into the schools. We need the language speakers, as well, to become teachers. Every opportunity with the federal Ministers over the last four years I’ve raised that issue about the importance of our languages. We are losing our languages, especially in the Far North. The Gwich’in are losing their language rapidly. As for some of the languages such as Tlicho are still a bit strong, but we are losing our language to the little ones.
Language has always been at the forefront of our discussions with the federal Minister responsible for Official Languages, Minister Moore. We’ll continue to push that forward.
I would like to see language immersion in all schools as much as possible with the resources, with the teachers that we may have. We want to produce more Aboriginal language speakers as teachers to come out of the post-secondary schools and come back to our communities. This is one of the priorities of my department as we move forward.