Dave PetersenCompassionate Inquiry Founding Facilitator
Land Acknowledgment
I stand here as a learner and a guest on the homelands of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council. These are living Nations whose stewardship, laws, and relationships with this land continue unbroken, despite every attempt by the Canadian colonial state to erase them. I honour their sovereignty and the enduring relationship they hold with this land. Gratitude is extended to them with deep respect for their continued presence, leadership, and care for these territories.
Canadian colonial structures were built through conquest, domination, resource extraction, and unhealed trauma, and they continue to produce white supremacy and genocide today. Tamara Starblanket argues that genocide in Canada is not simply a past event, but an ongoing structure embedded in state law, governance, and child-welfare systems that continue to target Indigenous Peoples. Because the harm persists, reconciliation cannot come from the systems that created it. Transformation requires dismantling colonial structures and stepping into responsibility. As Cindy Blackstock says, “reconciliation means not having to say sorry a second time.” It is measured in action, not apology.
Dr. Rocío Rosales Meza teaches us, “colonization didn’t just steal land, it severed our connection to spirit, to Earth, to each other.” Her teaching calls us back to responsibility, to repair our connection with place, with community, and with the more-than-human world. She shows how that right relationship is not symbolic; it is embodied, lived, and practiced in how we show up on these lands each day.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action. Issued in 2015, these Calls confront the ongoing violence of residential schools. They demand systemic change in child welfare, education, language, health, and justice — affirming Indigenous rights, sovereignty, and self-determination as the foundation of any just future.
https://nctr.ca/about/history-of-the-trc/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-of-canada/
https://yellowheadinstitute.org/
Email: [email protected]