Woman's request to register business in her Indigenous language denied by B.C. government

Cheyenne Cunningham speaks the down-river dialect of hnqminm, a language she's been piecing together since she was seven.

Not a single person in her Katzie community, east of Vancouver, is fluent, but she's been picking it up since taking hnqminmclasses at her community school when she was a child.

Cunningham was taught by two teachers who learned from the last two remaining hnqminmspeakers, and she is now considered a language keeperin her community.

Sowhen her husband, an electricalengineer, asked for herhelp naming his new contracting companyin hnqminm,she was excited bythe opportunity to promote herlanguage.

But when she went online to register the company name kyecn, orgrizzly bear on his behalf, she discovered B.C.'s registry doesn't permit charactersthat are not part of the Romanalphabet.

"I was just kind of really shocked and a little hurt," said Cunningham, who is theIndigenous languages program co-ordinator at Simon Fraser University.

Government offeredanglicized version ofname

The registry service offered her an anglicized version,KYECN, but for Cunningham,itwasn't an option.

"We are trying to open a business, and because of this small butbig barrier, we can't," she said.

When she challenged the rejection, a representativefrom B.C. Registry Services, run by the Ministry of Citizens' Services, said the only course of action was to sue the provincialgovernment in B.C. Supreme Court, whichthey saidwould cost upwardof$20,000.

Instead, she fileda discrimination case with B.C.'s Human Rights Tribunal.

This comes morethan a year after the B.C. government passed a motion to implementthe United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), whichsays Indigenous people have a right to revitalize and use their languages, and that governments have an obligation to ensure those rights are protected.

"They can write all of the reports and acts and everything, but if they're not going to follow through, then they're just empty promises," Cunningham said.

'Outdated computer system'

Laura Track,Cunningham's lawyer and the director of the human rights clinic at the Community Legal Assistance Society,wasbaffled to learn about the limitations of B.C.'sregistration system.

"I certainly didn't know that the computer system that the registry used was so outdated that it didn't recognize any special characters that might appear in Indigenous languages," Track said.

The language rule is enshrined in law in B.C.'s Business Corporation Act, which states:"A company or extraprovincial company must display its name ... in legible English or French characters."

But Track said the province's commitment to UNDRIPshould compel it to act swiftly to change the outdated laws.

"Amending the Business Corporations Act to remove the requirement that businesses be registered in English or French would be an important step toward implementing UNDRIP in B.C.," she said.

Cunningham's casenever made it to a tribunal hearing because she opted to settle after being told the provincial government wouldconsider changes to make itmore inclusive of Indigenous languages in the registration of business names.

Butno solid commitment was made and no timeline was given.

Changingsystem could take years

In astatement to CBC, the Ministry of Citizens' Services said that while itunderstands Cunningham'sfrustration, "when considering naming requests, B.C. Registry's system is limited in the kind of text characters it can process."

The statement also saidthat "any changes would require in-depth discussion with other government jurisdictions and agencies across Canada, and with private sector organizations."

That means Cunningham's business may not have a hnqminm name for several years.

"Is this reallyallowing Indigenous people to use language in all domains of life or are Indigenous peoples once again being restricted?" askedCandaceKaleimamoowahinekapuGalla,associate professor in the department of language and literacy educationand the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies at UBC.

She said with governments in Canada promising to recognize Indigenous languages, they will have to think abouthow Indigenous languages can be better represented, whether it is on birth certificates, legal documents, or ID cards, without relying on the Roman alphabet.

In a statement, B.C.'sMinistry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation said that, "the government wants to make sure people can register names in their language. We will keep working hard to improve our systems so they are more inclusive of Indigenous languages."

As for Cunningham, she'llkeep pushing forward.

"My language is part of my culture, it's who I am."