By Jon Farmer
On July 19, Owen Sound City Council defeated a motion brought by Councillor Merton to incorporate regular land acknowledgements into council meetings, place a land acknowledgment on the city website, and direct staff to include reconciliation in the equity, diversity and inclusion strategy currently under development. The vote was defeated 4-3. Two of the four councillors who voted against the motion justified their opposition. Both of their explanations showed misunderstandings of the issues surrounding truth and reconciliation.
Councillor Greig voiced his concern that regular land acknowledgements would make people ambivalent about the issues. Councillor Thomas claimed that “nobody in fact knows what reconciliation looks like” before suggesting that the City meet with local Indigenous communities to “have a conversation about what reconciliation means”. These responses were uninformed and the defeat of the motion delays the city’s – and our community’s – work toward reconciliation.
Councillor Greig’s opposition is based on the assumption that if you use land acknowledgements too frequently people won’t care about them. It’s notable that this argument is never used against the national anthem at public events. The anthem is frequently incorporated at the start of public events and school days not because everyone feels strongly about it – many are in fact ambivalent – but because it is customary and the people in leadership positions value what it represents. If not everyone believes that it is important to acknowledge the territory of Indigenous peoples or our treaty obligations then more education is necessary to show the truth of our national and local histories. Raising awareness about this history spreads the truth and truth makes reconciliation possible. Talking about the issue less won’t make people care more.
Councillor Thomas’s claim shows an ignorance to the work already being done on these issues and shifts the responsibility of reconciliation away from settler governments and on to the Indigenous community. Although the work of reconciliation clearly requires relationship building and rebuilding, it is not the job of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation to tell local municipalities what they need to do. We as settlers, and our leaders within municipal government need to do our own research and learning.
Councillor Thomas claimed that “nobody in fact knows what reconciliation looks like”. In this case he is speaking for himself. Truth and reconciliation have been thoroughly researched and explored by no less than a national commission which published freely available documents and educational resources. Many Indigenous peoples and settlers have also provided materials in the form of books, articles, podcasts, and documentaries for those who care to look for them.
Notably, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) included 5 recommendations among their 94 calls to action that specifically instruct municipalities and municipal governments. Cities across Canada have incorporated these calls to action into their work and on their websites. A quick Google search shows that the municipal associations of multiple provinces have published municipal guides to the TRC. The document by the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association comes up on Google’s first page. Reconciliation, though not simple to accomplish, is easy to research.
By suggesting that council should consult with local communities rather than directing staff to do their own research, Councillor Thomas assumes that all local Indigenous people are represented by defined or separate communities. This is also untrue. Indigenous people are members of the Owen Sound community. Further, there are Indigenous people living in Owen Sound who are not members of or represented by the local First Nations and their leadership. This is one of the complex parts of reconciliation: it must take place at the political and personal levels. It cannot be about ‘us' as the city and ‘them’ as Indigenous peoples without erasing and ignoring people who live here.
City council deals with many diverse and varied issues. We cannot expect individual councillors to be experts on every issue but we can absolutely expect them to do the work to be informed. We can expect council to identify and research the issues that face our communities, especially when related motions are coming directly before council. We deserve leaders who do more than pay lip service to the importance of issues while actively voting against motions that would propel us towards solutions.
Colonial and racist policies have dispossessed and displaced Indigenous people across Canada. Reconciliation requires us to acknowledge the structures that created and supported those policies. It requires us to understand and acknowledge the enormity of violence that was – and continues to be – perpetrated against Indigenous communities and individuals. And it requires us to work to heal that harm by dismantling the policies as well as the perspectives and beliefs that made them possible.
Councillor Merton’s motion would have directed staff to include reconciliation in the corporate equity, diversity and inclusion strategy currently under development and due in 2022. Fortunately any strategy about equity, diversity and inclusion will need to be attentive to the barriers facing Indigenous peoples to be comprehensive. As a community we should expect our elected leaders to be informed about these issues. As voters we must also insist that the people we elect in 2022 be aware of and be learning about truth and reconciliation so that our council’s future decisions make meaningful progress towards an equitable future for everyone.
Jon Farmer lives in Owen Sound.
For more information about truth and reconciliation visit:
- The Truth and Reconciliation Commission http://www.trc.ca/
- Media Indigena: https://mediaindigena.libsyn.com/ep-190-the-slow-roll-of-reconciliation-in-canada
- Free courses to learn about the realities of Indigenous Peoples https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/Indigenous-history-university-of-alberta-1.6093405
