The federal government says it does not know how many of its employees are expected to speak Indigenous languages as part of their work. Ottawa is facing calls to expand the compensation it provides to employees who speak French and English to include public servants who speak Indigenous languages. There is also a bilingual bonus of $800, an additional grant that employees receive annually if they work in a position requiring them to speak both official languages in Canada. Additionally, some senior public servants proposed last year that the government offer similar salaries to Indigenous language speakers, and this was part of internal discussions on how to alleviate concerns raised by some Indigenous federal employees about official language requirements, which The Canadian Press obtained through access to information laws. The Canadian Public Service Alliance also proposed creating an Indigenous language allowance and said it identified nearly 500 federal employees who speak Indigenous languages in the workplace. So far, the federal Treasury Board has rejected the idea. In the same context, in response to a question from the federal New Democrats this fall, the Canadian Treasury Department said "there is no public service-wide data" on how many employees are expected to speak Indigenous languages as part of their daily responsibilities. New Democratic MP from Nunavut, Lori Idlout, who speaks Inuktitut, said, "It points to the fact that providing Indigenous peoples with services in their languages is not a priority for the federal government. In this case, it means that reconciliation may not be as important as they claim – and there is a lot of work to be done to ensure reconciliation is achieved." The Treasury Board has not yet responded to a request for comment. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made enhancing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples a key priority for his government and has set that it will work to preserve and promote Indigenous languages as the Liberals passed legislation with the declared goal of doing so again in 2019. The law acknowledged that governments bear responsibility for suppressing and attempting to eradicate Indigenous languages through policies such as forcing children to attend residential schools, where they were not allowed to speak their mother tongue. According to the legislation, federal institutions may provide access to services in Indigenous languages "if the institution is capable of doing so and there is sufficient demand to access those services in that language."