Hon. Percy E. Downe: My concern, Senator McCallum, about this bill is the intention. Although it’s very credible, I’m concerned that the unintended impact is that it is restrictive. It doesn’t recognize that when French and English came to this part of North America, there were already at least 90 Indigenous languages. This has become more a bill of exclusion than the original intent. I’m wondering if you share my concern on that.

Hon. Terry M. Mercer: Senator McCallum, I appreciate your speech and where you want to go with this. I just wanted to raise a point. I don’t know whether you’re aware of this or not, but the use of Aboriginal languages has been allowed in the Senate for years, and we encourage it. We do have to arrange for translators so that it can be translated into English and French and vice versa. I would encourage any of our colleagues who speak one of the Aboriginal languages to explore this and help expose the rest of us to your languages.

This is more by way of information as opposed to a question. I don’t know if you are aware of it or not. Since I’ve been in the Senate, I’ve heard Aboriginal languages spoken a number of times, but again, we need to make arrangements to have the proper people here who can do the translation for the rest of us in English, French and the Aboriginal language.