Legislation winding its way through Parliament will allow federal politicians to debate and ultimately ignore the rights of Indigenous Peoples in their own languages, MPs say.
The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is studying how to include Indigenous languages in the proceedings of the House of Commons and held hearings in Ottawa on Thursday.
“It’s my constitutional right to have my rights and the rights of all Indigenous Peoples ignored in our own languages,” said NDP MP Romeo Saganash. “Same as my rights would be ignored in English or French.”
The chair of the committee, Liberal MP Larry Bagnell, told reporters it’s an indication of how far government and Indigenous relations have come.
“To be able to talk about say, natural resource development, and to have it translated into Cree, Ojibway and Inuktitut in the House of Commons and then ultimately ignore those words — well, that’s reconciliation at work,” he said.
Canadian lawmakers hope to have the legislation in place sometime after the next federal election in 2019.