ELAN Advocating before the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications

ELAN’s Executive Director, Miranda Castravelli spoke with The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications to advocate on behalf of all artists to respond to the question “does the CBC still have value?” As we know, many regional communities and linguistic minorities will be negatively impacted without a place to showcase their events, access publicity opportunities, and tell their stories.

If the CBC lost its funding, it is not realistic that the private media industry could or would represent local Canadian artists like this, therefore, we must speak out.

You can read the letter ELAN is submitting to the Committee here:

Click here to Read

Land Acknowledgement

ELAN is an official minority language organization within a country that recognizes two languages as official. ELAN is located in Tiohtià:ke, the original name for Montreal in Kanien’kéha, the language of the Mohawk—also known as Mooniyang, which is the Anishinaabeg name given to the city by the Algonquin. While we are based in this city, our projects have also taken place in many regions across Quebec.

We acknowledge the colonial origin of English and French in Canada, and recognize that both languages benefit from official status throughout the land. The province that we know as Quebec is an amalgamation of the traditional territories of the Innu and Inuit nations, Algonquian nations, as well as the Mohawk nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Kanien’kéha and Anishinaabemowin are but two of the original languages of this province; Atikamekw, Cree, Inuktitut, and Innu-aimun are also among the many Indigenous languages spoken across Quebec as majority languages, all well before French and English.

ELAN acknowledges the important work being done by First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples to revive the traditional languages of these territories, and their advocacy for the official status of Indigenous languages.