We are committed to following Indigenous legal traditions of acknowledging the sovereign waters, lands, and the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation in the territory of the Kitchissippi watershed, which includes the City of Ottawa.
In doing so, we are also recognizing the illegalities of our presence under Indigenous legal traditions, and recognizing our complicity in the ongoing and violent methods of settler colonialism.
This acknowledgement is but a first step in accepting our responsibility to correct these injustices through action and furthering the education of ourselves and others.
We want to commit to our constituents of Ottawa Centre and First Nations, Inuit and Metis people across Turtle Island that we will collaborate and work alongside Indigenous peoples in decolonizing and advancing the priorities of Indigenous communities.
We will fight alongside the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation for clean drinking water and proper housing infrastructure in every community across the country, we will fight to address the mental health crisis among Indigenous youth, to address the climate crisis and to advance the calls to action from the truth and reconciliation commission as well as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report.
In the face of more than five hundred years of colonialism, Indigenous communities continue to resist and survive. Their multifold and diverse struggles demand our active support, especially in the face of horrific discoveries of bodies at residential schools across the country.
As we come together to build a better Canada, let us ensure our vision for a better Canada starts and ends with our responsibilities as treaty people to this land and to its first peoples.