Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, 2019 is the International Year of Indigenous Languages. I would like to continue the discussion of how government can support our Indigenous languages across the territory.

Mr. Speaker, recently I looked at the analysis of federal funding for languages in Nunavut that broke it down to dollars per person. Based on their first language, the funding for a French student was around $420 per student, and for Inuktitut it was, ballpark, around $4.30. Mr. Speaker, this gap demonstrates that our government must do more to invest in Inuktitut.

Mr. Speaker, I wondered what that would look like here in the Northwest Territories, so I pulled out the current four-year federal funding agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories and did the math. Mr. Speaker, the good news: this particular agreement will bring us almost $20 million in federal funding for Indigenous language services over four years. The not-so-good news: a resident who speaks French as a first language is funded more than four times as much per year than a resident who speaks an Indigenous language. Mr. Speaker, that is four times more.

Mr. Speaker, I know that there are reasons funding typically shakes out this way. I know that only English and French are recognized nationally as official languages, but we have nine official NWT Indigenous languages. I know that this is just one funding agreement and that the GNWT itself funds languages in a variety of other ways. I know that we have junior kindergarten-to-grade 12 French first-language and French immersion schools, while we do not have the same for Indigenous languages, but just because that is the way things are, Mr. Speaker, it does not mean that it's adequate or equitable.

Mr. Speaker, we need to close this gap, not only to fulfill our commitment as a government to language revitalization but to meaningfully pursue reconciliation.

Mr. Speaker, when the next federal funding agreement is negotiated, that is what we need to push for. We also need to walk the talk on our own budgets, and, above all, we need to keep working with Indigenous governments and community groups when we do it. Quyanainni, Mr. Speaker.