French. Although only the English-speaking and French-speaking communities could deal with the authorities in their own language, the right to address courts in one’s mother tongue was guaranteed by the Constitution, and the possibility of using indigenous languages before the courts was being increasingly provided for, quite apart from the use of an interpreter guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 96. The Federal Government had initiated and maintained important programmes to preserve and enhance the heritage languages of Canada’s communities that provided financial support and technical assistance to many communities for that purpose. Six indigenous languages enjoyed official status in the Northwest Territories, where the study of an indigenous language was compulsory for all schoolchildren. In the other regions of the country, more attention was beginning to be given to the study of indigenous languages in primary and secondary schools, which now offered teaching in those languages to more than half of the Indian pupils. There were, however, practical limitations on the aid provided by the Government for such purpose, due particularly to the fact that some languages did not have a written form. The Canadian Heritage Language Institute, established for the purpose of promoting all the languages that contributed to the linguistic wealth of the country, subsidised the preparation of language teaching material, and programmes had also been developed to support the languages of Canada’s aboriginal communities. 97 . In connection with the situation of the Mohawk Indians and the incidents that had recently taken place at Oka, the representative pointed out that the rights of the Mohawk community had never been suspended and that the Mohawks had never been forbidden access to the courts. It was difficult to assess after the event whether the invocation of the National Defence Act had or had not been justified since the developments that had led up to the situation were extremely complex. The Oka events had caused the authorities, as well as the leaders of the indigenous population of Quebec and of Canada, to reflect ou appropriate ways of settling territorial conflicts and to reconsider the legislation in that field. Although the Government was determined to find a prompt, just and equitable solution to territorial conflicts, the situation was still very difficult and it seemed unlikely that the Constitution would be amended in the near future so as to allow all applications for autonomy to be satisfied. Nevertheless, the Federal Government was already planning to transfer certain responsibilities to the territories, particularly with regard to economic development. Members of the Committee expressed their thanks to the representatives of the State party for their outstanding cooperation in presenting the second and third periodic reports of Canada and for having responded to the Committee’s coucerns and questions in an objective, frank and precise way. The two excellent reports of Canada were consistent with the Committee’s Guidelines regarding the form and contents of reports from States parties under article 40 of the Covenant and had given detailed information about many issues, particularly the jurisprudence of domestic courts in respect of the various rights embodied in the Covenant. The reports were most usefully supplemented by the information provided by the representatives in their oral 90. -24-