While the title falls into an old stereotype that we assume has fallen into the history books, a discussion today regarding Native claims and rights has sparked my suspicion that we still have the savage running around in our thoughts. Let me set the table for discussion; the conversation surrounded the failing attempt by the Ontario government to properly educated their students in the French Canadian language. Certainly this is not debatable, and among the active participants this notion was very heavily agreed upon. So in a change of subject, yet still very heavily related, I mentioned the overlooked claim that the First Nations have to language rights. How wrong of me to do so!
Little did I know but I brought up, as Trudeau might say, a "sacred cow." The amount of backlash towards suggesting that First Nations groups have a greater claim to injustices when it comes to language rights, was appalling. It is apparently wrong to think that if the Quebecois have a claim to language rights so do the Native minorities. Now of course the reasonable argument was made that, there are simply too many to learn or expect to learn. This is true but easily countered with the idea of learning the language of the traders; the universal language used to trade between groups. But another argument was made that they are useless since no one else uses them, and yet in Ireland Gaelic is still taught and in Universities abroad Latin is alive and kicking. Nevertheless my intent was not to suggest a massive campaign to enforce the teaching of Native languages in the schooling systems of our provinces (there are far to many complications for that), but instead and to the form of the Language Acts a.k.a. Bilingualism, I was suggesting that these groups be included in the federal spectrum, that we acknowledge who was here first, if we are acknowledging who was here second and third.
It appears that while Canadians are coming to terms and overlooking the stereotypes that have been long associated with Quebec (sovereignty, special statues, and so on), little has been done to make Canadians aware of the true founders of this continent. It appears that the savage still runs wild in the minds of the majority; but look no further then your mirror to see who the real savages are.
Z.R. Nissen
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