Paul Martin is fluent in both official Languages.If you saw the ceremony on an English language TV feed the much of the French would have been edited out but it was in both languages.

Here in Canada 'purification rite' is something of a strong term-'rite' has unpleasant connotations for us so we just say ceremony or smudging.

Native people in Canada have suffered terribly in the past.Most continue to live in abject poverty on tiny remote reserves in conditions that mirror the worst of the developing world-conditions most Canadians have never seen.Under Martins 'money is our god' philosophy we can expect the prejudice neglect and impoverishment to continue unchanged.

No, you sound like a curious American.

A lot of federal government activites are performed in both Engliosh and French, usually but not always, without repitition.

i.e. One topic is explored in French, and other in English,m and so on,. without repeating the French stuff in English, nor the English stuff in French.

When this gets shown on television, usually the volume of the "other" language is turned down a bit, and an interpreter translates so viewers can hear. Obviously, on French TV it's the reverse of English TV.

When it is a provincial government, things change depending on the relative population of English speakers and French speakers in each province. Quebec goivernment activiteis are usually in French, New Brunswick goivernment announcements flip back and forth, and the rest of the country is mostly, or almost always, English.

Federal politicans do not all speak both languages -- in the House of Commons and the Senate, debates are always held with full translation facilities. People have little earphones that provide the language that is not being spoken at the moment.

Martin speaks fine French and English; the previous Prime Minister garbled both languages, equally.

As for the Indians -- great confusion, widely diverging politics, controversay tribe by tribe, band by band, nation by nation. The federal government works hard at making things better for the Indians (the name they are known by under the Indian Affairs Act) but nothing is easy. Various First Nations (which seems to be the preferred name today) elect a national leader, who has no official government power but is empowered to act on their behalf as a lobbiest.

But it gets complicated.

BAK