if the government is serious about legislating around s. 35, we're going to be launched into a significant debate in the country, and are going to be subjected to a lot of voices (perhaps including mine.) that ought not be prioritized.

i have partial indigenous ancestry, and it is in fact visible, but i'd never claim to be, and never have claimed to be, culturally indigenous. i've used it as pushback against certain baseless accusations, but it's been with the intent to twist their own words around and make them seem stupid when they are in fact being stupid, as people stuck in a certain mode of thinking have difficulties thinking things through logically; pointing out that i am partially indigenous (as a substantive number of canadians in truth are...) has the effect of allowing people to see the actual arguments more clearly, and not be blinded by base racialism. nonetheless, the closest thing i have to any childhood upbringing in indigenous culture would be the couple of months i spent learning about tree leaves in the scouts program. i do not speak on behalf of indigenous people, and would not claim that i do.

...but i was close enough to the idle no more movement to be able to direct outside observers to some important internal voices within the country. and, i'm going to direct people to these two voices, specifically.

the first is chelsea vowel, who split publishes under an indigenous name that i'd have to copy and paste in order to spell right. she publishes fairly widely, but she also runs a blog (google 'chelsea vowel'). and, i'd expect that she'll be writing quite a bit on what's coming up.

this is her most recently published article:
http://www.chatelaine.com/opinion/indigenous-languages-census-canada/

whether you call it 'religion' or 'spirituality' doesn't matter much to me; i don't want 'spirituality' in the schools any more than i want religion in them. but, i don't have any ideological opposition to teaching language, in principle.

and, i recognize the importance of protecting languages, too.

but, i'm just looking at a school curriculum, and i'm not convinced that teaching languages that are barely spoken is a useful way for kids to spend in-class time, considering all of the science that kids need to be learning to be competitive nowadays. i mean, consider if you're a second-generation chinese immigrant that grew up with chinese as a first language. i know that kids in western europe are expected to learn multiple languages, but you have to keep in mind that there are really only two major languages in western europe - there is the germanic language group and the romance language group (in addition to the smaller celtic and basque groups). dutch isn't so hard if you know english, and french isn't so hard if you know spanish. telling a kid they need to learn an indigenous language on top of learning chinese, french and english (four different language groups.) and learning about everything else is...you'll get a handful of kids that can do it, but the reality is that we can barely get english kids to speak french in this country. the truth is that less than 20% of canadians self-identify as officially bilingual, despite taking 15 years of instruction in both languages. so, the end result of this is inevitably that most kids don't learn to speak the indigenous language at the end of the process, anyways.

and, i don't see what is being accomplished by taking time away from other studies to learn what are going to be very difficult languages for most canadian kids, and difficult languages that they don't have much use for in day-to-day life.

so, i'm not opposed on principle. but i just don't see this leading anywhere but failure - and broadly so.

if you're going to do this, what you're going to need to do is look at something like an arabic language school for a model. and, i don't think that's the right path forwards. i'd be more likely to argue that we should abolish arabic schools than that we should build indigenous schools, regardless of the actual history that i'm not addressing.

so, i'm not going to argue that language should be kept out of schools the way i'd argue that spirituality should be. but, i would argue that if we're going to be bringing in more languages in schools that the kids would be better off learning more important languages, like chinese. this has to fall on parents. and, if in the end, the language isn't being used, it belongs in a museum, and not in a class room.

maybe funding voluntary after school programs is a better idea.

another voice i'm going to draw attention to is pamela palmater:
http://www.pampalmater.com/

pam is very active, and you will see her on the news from time-to-time, but she's more broadly in the "ignored by mainstream media because she pushes difficult truths" category.

if there is bullshit in the legislation, pam won't just find it, she'll organize and fight against it. she should be the go-to source.

i'm sure there will be groups on the ground, as well. some of them will be legit. others will be organized in the classic cia data-mining manner, and operate as front groups for the state, with aimless foot soldiers that are barely informed of what they're talking about. the independent press will fall for this.

but, i'm going to suggest that the more careful side of the independent media focuses less on the movement building and more on the academic analysis, as what's coming up is going to be shrouded in legalese, and probably difficult for most people to understand. the state will make the legislation look very pretty. i can guarantee you that. it will be these academics that will see through it, if necessary.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.