Land Acknowledgement

Anyone living and working in Ontario (or Turtle Island in general) is doing so on the dispossessed lands of Indigenous people like the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples to name but a few. First Nations people deserve their land returned to them, and those of us settled here need to do more than just acknowledge it was never ours to begin with. Liberation from any and all forms of oppression and fascism, fighting for justice and equity, is the work of all in the face of violence and genocide under western imperialist colonial powers.

A land acknowledgement is the least a person or business can do when living in a colonized land. Thousands of years of indigenous history and existence are consistently being erased or ignored by the settlers who have since abused a gesture of good faith between settlers and native peoples to control and claim ownership of land that should be given back to it’s rightful people. A not insignificant portion of Ontario’s cities were also built by people connected to the British Empire’s transatlantic slave trade, and in general Canada has a very destructive historical record of treating anyone not considered White with far less than even basic human decency.

No territorial acknowledgement alone can accomplish the changes real justice and reconciliation would require, but M Jaro and QED Mental Health Counseling are committed to working towards more than just truth and reconciliation. We want to also ensure that the services, and practices we offer are culturally relevant and accessible to Indigenous peoples in the community without appropriation or assumption of personal understanding.

Any client has full encouragement to correct or condemn anything which is said in ignorance or falls short of expectation from this business. I will not force you to educate, as that shouldn’t be your emotional burden to bear, but any requested improvement or increased knowledge will be happily accepted and worked on. Thank you.