"I was brought up believing in the nature ways, burning sweetgrass, speaking Cree," she says.
One of those children was Sue Caribou, who in 1972 was separated from her family at the age of seven, and taken to a Catholic school where for the next five years she was physically and sexually abused by missionaries who forbade her from speaking Cree, her native language.
Visiting a Cree village and speaking to one of its Elders, Nikiforuk writes, "MacDonald doesn't have much faith that industry or government will reclaim the toxic ponds that surround his home.
The community assistant spoke Cree, which was helpful if any of the participants requested Cree translation.
Among the languages overheard are Cree and Ojibwe, spoken by families temporarily housed in the city after spring floods devastated First Nations communities 100 miles to the north.
As a young girl, Laboucan-Massimo would go out on the land each summer in a horse and wagon with her grandparents – traditional knowledge-keepers who only spoke Cree – across the lush and vibrant landscape of northern Alberta.
We spoke to Cree's CEO about the tax credit and he stressed two points.
"We were troubled to learn that the complete document was made available on Wednesday only in French, when it is well known that a large proportion of the Cree population does not speak that language.
Interviews were primarily conducted in English, although in some cases the participants chose to speak in Cree, in which case a translator was used.
Typically, government agents forced Inuit, Cree and other children to leave their parents and attend the schools, where they were harshly punished for speaking their own languages or practicing their religions.
Both spoke Oji-Cree until they were adolescents and moved to Thunder Bay where they shared a room, played video games, and hung out in comfortable silence on the couch.
