“A True Milestone on the Road to Reconciliation”: Examining Media Framing of the Indigenous Languages Act

This chapter builds on the discussion of media representations of hard rights issues presented in the previous chapters by offering an analysis of soft rights framing using the ILA as a case study. The results presented below provide a point of comparison for the book’s other two case studies—the TMX and 2020 Wet’suwet’en land defense—demonstrating key differences in how the media frame hard and soft rights issues. The analysis undertaken in this specific chapter focuses on two key dimensions of media coverage: Firstly, how the ILA was framed in relation to the ongoing politics of reconciliation; and second, the degree to which the protection and revitalization of Indigenous languages was contextualized within the larger history of Canadian language politics and settler colonialism. The findings indicate that the news media’s coverage of the ILA implicitly promotes a ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ model of Indigenous-settler reconciliation in Canada. In covering the ILA, the news media crafted an overwhelmingly positive narrative of Indigenous language protection by using an integrationist, nation-building discourse wherein the promotion of Indigenous languages became linked to the strengthening of Canadian culture and society. Marginalized within this discourse were connections between language protection and Indigenous sovereignty, land-based identity, and self-determination.