Fund targets fading aboriginal languages (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Fund targets fading aboriginal languages

[photo inset - Don Denton/Black Press. Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de
Jong (in baseball cap) arrives by canoe with government and aboriginal
representatives to re-enact a traditional ceremony requesting permission to
come ashore at Victoria harbour Thursday.]

By Tom Fletcher
Black Press
Jul 04 2007
http://www.peninsulanewsreview.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=24&cat=23&id=1018007&more=0

The B.C. government is dedicating an additional $400,000 towards the
preservation of the province’s more than 30 aboriginal languages.

The latest fund is in addition to a $1 million expenditure announced by the
province last year, said B.C.. Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong,
who helped paddle a canoe into Victoria’s downtown harbour to make the
announcement Thursday.

A total of $1.2 million was committed to increase the program, aimed at
keeping traditional languages from disappearing from everyday use. It will
fund language and culture camps, master-apprentice programs for elders and
younger people, pre-school language and cultural immersion programs and
community language and culture authorities.

The largest partner in the latest funding is the New Relationship Trust,
with a $500,000 contribution. It’s the first major investment for the
trust, established last year with a $100 million endowment from the
provincial government and an appointed board of directors with majority
aboriginal membership.

Elaborate ceremonies for Thursday’s announcement coincided with National
Aboriginal Day, and demonstrated the high priority placed on native affairs
by the B.C. government this year. With votes set for July on the first two
agreements from the B.C. Treaty Commission, with the Tsawwassen and
Maa-Nulth First Nations, and dozens of other treaty tables looking for
results, Premier Gordon Campbell’s government is looking for tangible
progress to show for its effort and expense to settle historic disputes.

Loss of language is one of the bitterest legacies of the Canadian aboriginal
history. Residential schools were established to break the ties of
aboriginal children with their language and culture, and now government’s
efforts are focused on trying to reverse that before the cultures are lost.

Monique Gray Smith, executive director of the Aboriginal Head Start
Association of B.C., said language and cultural training is a key part of
both its urban and on-reserve education programs.

In addition to treaty discussions, the federal and provincial governments
are trying to settle a backlog of specific claims, some arising out of
historic treaties and others from legal actions. De Jong confirmed that
negotiations with the Musqueam First Nation in Vancouver may involve the
University Golf Club, part of a disputed property sale from the province to
the University of B.C. in 2003.

The Musqueam claim ownership of the Point Grey territory around the
university, and the 120-acre golf course is one of the only undeveloped
parcels left that could form part of a settlement.

tfletcher at blackpress.ca