Last
fall, I attended a 60th birthday celebration where my
friend Dave gave the toast, which he began with the following:
“Before
I begin, I’d like to acknowledge that we are celebrating
tonight on the unceded territory of the Abercrombie and
Fitch . . .”
We
all had a good laugh at that one. Actually, only some
of us did. Those in the back couldn’t quite hear
and, for a split second, assumed Dave was in earnest.
At which point, I caught a collective scowl–that
unmistakable Oh hell no! Not this again. Even among a
left-leaning downtown Toronto crowd, the fatigue is real.
Everyone
is tired of land acknowledgements–tired of the empty
virtue, the logical absurdity and the world laughing at
us, which I suspect it is, judging by this headline…
That woke lawmaker is Toronto City Councillor Shelley
Carroll, who opened a budget meeting with an interminable
nod to the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg,
the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat. “Let’s
start the meeting in a good way,” began the silver-haired
boomer, then proceeded in a bad way to list off every
pre-colonial inhabitant, with the exceptions of the T-Rex,
Triceratops and long-necked Diploducus. Perhaps exhausted
from all her acknowledging, the good councillor immediately
called a 90-minute lunch break.
Then,
a few days later, along came this refreshing palate cleanser:
Daniel Tate of the watchdog group IntegrityTO, whose legendary
rebuttal to Shelley Carroll commenced thus:
“I
begin my deputation in a good way by acknowledging the
people who fund this municipal enterprise, the Toronto
taxpayer… Let’s reflect and remember that
every word spoken in this chamber, every light bulb
and every salary paid, including those of city councillors,
is funded almost entirely by the hard work and earnings
of taxpayers and property owners…”
All
I can say is . . .
Finally, an acknowledgement for the long-suffering taxpayer.
Fantastic! But restricted to five minutes, Tate could
barely scratch the surface of all that’s wrong with
this infernal ritual. So I’m picking up where he
left off . . .
I
begin my disputation on why we should ban land acknowledgements
in a good way by acknowledging history—the thing
that, for some reason, we stopped teaching in public school.
Let’s reflect on the truth that all habitable land—for
centuries and across all civilizations—has been
claimed, defended and inherited through migration, conquest
and sheer will.
Speaking
of history, I’d like to acknowledge that pre-colonial
people–contrary to the Enlightenment fantasy of
peaceful, eco-harmonious proto-utopians–were not
nicer than us, and in fact committed acts of unspeakable
brutality, including ritual enslavement, infanticide and,
yes, cannibalism—not to survive famine, but as a
display of dominance. I therefore acknowledge that it’s
impossible to distribute land according to moral abstractions.
I
acknowledge that, taken to its logical conclusion, returning
territory to its “original” owners would require
most of us—including Shelley Carroll and her ilk—to
relocate to the Olduvai Gorge.
Let’s
reflect on parents raising kids who are daily exposed
to an education establishment that prioritises moral signalling
over critical thinking. I acknowledge it is evil to saddle
the younger generation with the inherited guilt of settlement,
so-called genocide, perpetually “forthcoming”
gravesites and having their ancestors recast as cartoon
villains.
In
particular, I acknowledge Indigenous youth, whose identity
becomes frozen in historical injury and dispossession,
anchoring their belief system in grievance rather than
competence, creativity or future possibility—all
during their most formative years.
Let’s
also reflect on further burdening a generation already
grappling with substantial pressures, including focus-shattering
technology, ideological capture, social isolation, porn,
bearing the brunt of the COVID panic and a general sense
that the future is closing rather than opening.
May
we also reflect on how this educational framework of “oppressor”
and “oppressed” is fundamentally Marxist and
that the ‘stolen land’ accusation hints at
a permanent “you will own nothing and be happy”
leased future. Meanwhile, high-ranking members of the
education establishment who favour this mindset continue
to be the rent-seeking parasites they are, happily drawing
whopping salaries and gold-plated pensions at taxpayers’
expense.
I
acknowledge the sheer impertinence of telling hard-working
men and women who have given their lives to this country
that they are squatters. Let’s reflect on the audacious
insult of paying an arm and a leg to attend a World Series
game, only to have an insolent, talentless ginger march
onto the field and unilaterally change the words of the
national anthem to “our home ON native land . .
. ”
I acknowledge–in a good way–that B.C. Premier
David Eby is a blithering idiot. Let’s reflect on
how he and the rest of his NDP clown-car coalition passed
the feckless, sloppy DRIPA legislation, which has badly
damaged BC’s economy by sowing seeds of uncertainty.
Let’s further reflect on how this clueless muppet
endlessly virtue signals about Indigenous land rights
while never offering to relinquish his own home.
Let’s
reflect further on BC’s ruling elite being too busy
virtue-signalling to clean up the third-world mess on
Vancouver’s downtown eastside. Not to mention ignoring
a fast-rising organised crime crisis brewing in Abbotsford
and Surrey. I acknowledge the victims of the hundreds
of incidents of violence, extortion and targeted destruction
of businesses and homes by immigrant gangs.
Speaking
of virtue signals, let’s reflect on how renaming
public places in languages and orthographies we can neither
read nor pronounce—including a letter X wearing
a tiny W as a hat—is absurd and counterproductive.
Lastly, let’s reflect on what the land acknowledgement
really is: an incantation to keep staggering sums flowing
through the treaty-dispute pipeline, enriching the ecosystem
that feeds off it—lawyers, consultants, NGOs, and
the permanent grievance industry they sustain. All of
which does not include ever-escalating transfers into
band coffers, while conditions on the ground fail to improve.
In
this spirit of acknowledgement, and with an eye to the
future of our beleaguered younger generations, let’s
recognize that taxpayers footing the bill for most of
it should no longer tolerate this obnoxious ritual.
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