COLUMN: Viewpoint – The importance of land acknowledgements

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/11/2021 (1651 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of the progressive things Kelvin Goertzen did during his short time as the premier of Manitoba was insure there will be a treaty acknowledgement at the start of Manitoba legislative sittings in the future. It will recognize the fact that the land on which the legislature meets was once the home of Indigenous people.

Right after his appointment Premier Goertzen struck a committee to provide a report on the best way to carry out such an acknowledgement and admitted as House Leader he probably should have made that happen sooner. In a CBC interview Goertzen said the discovery of the unmarked graves at residential schools was a significant event for him and his family that crystalized the need for a treaty or land acknowledgement.

Of course, many organizations and institutions have been doing these acknowledgements for a long time. My church instituted the practice about five years ago. After we began to have a treaty acknowledgement in our bulletin, on our website and frequently announce it at the start of our services, we created a colourful brochure to explain our rationale. I was asked to write the text for the brochure, and it was a good exercise for me.

I had to research the history of our province and find a way to articulate our church’s desire to recognize the important contributions Indigenous people have made to the area where we worship. In my text I expressed our church’s desire to learn from the spirituality and culture of our Indigenous neighbours and to work at building a strong respectful relationship with them that would result in reconciliation.

I am employed as a guide by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and we have done treaty acknowledgements at the start of each of our tours since 2016. The gallery staff participated in training sessions where we learned all about Treaty One signed in 1874 between Indigenous leaders and the British Crown.

The two groups had very different ideas about what the treaty meant. While the Indigenous leaders thought it would protect their way of life and provide a framework for sharing land, the British thought the land was being ceded to them. I was glad for this training because it helped me provide an explanation when gallery guests asked me why I did a land acknowledgement before my tours.

In my job with the education department at the University of Winnipeg I visited many schools in the Winnipeg One School Division which began to do treaty acknowledgements each day in all their schools beginning in 2017.

It was good to read recently that the Hanover School Division where I taught for decades has approved a treaty acknowledgment statement as well. Superintendent Shelley Amos says it is a way to show honour and respect for Indigenous people and their land and express the division’s desire to move forward in constructive ways in their relationship with Indigenous people.

While school divisions like Winnipeg One have made treaty acknowledgements a requirement Hanover will leave it up to individual schools to decide on what occasions and in what situations the division’s official acknowledgement statement would have the most impact. A plaque with the acknowledgement will be placed on all properties owned by the school division.

We have been hearing land and treaty acknowledgements at sporting events, cultural events, business events and religious events for many years now. It is good to hear that both the Hanover School Division and the Manitoba Legislature are joining the effort to recognize the contributions of our Indigenous neighbours and to express our willingness to work towards reconciliation in our province.