GerryH, how would you feel if we just relagated English and French to university departments, as if they were just bones to be preserved in a museum?
The First Languages are a fundamental part of Canada's culture and heritage, and seeing that the history of the residential schools is still fresh in the minds of many still alive today, I'd hardly call it 'stuck in the past'.
I remember meeting one First Nation whose mother refused to teach her Inuktitut because in school sh'ed been taught that her languages was bad!
I also remember not long after the Oka Crisis, one woman on TV saying how her father refused to teach her his language because when he was at school, the nuns woudl stick needles through pupils' tongues for speaking the language.
Essentially, we're dealing not with the natural death of languages, but rather psychological scars left behind as a result of attempted cultural genocide by violent means and cultural propaganda in the residential school systems, supported by our vry own government.
But hey, Gerry, if you want to believe that the sooner the savages are assimilate to our superior and modern high-tech-military culture, go right ahead.