Acknowledging Indigenous traditional lands is more than a formality. It helps to remind us that this nation’s first peoples were also this land’s first protectors.
Good morning, everybody. It’s particularly rewarding for me to welcome all of you to my home, to Winnipeg and to Manitoba. When I reflect about what it means to be home, I think about what is probably the most liberal immigration policy in the history of the world, and that is the Indigenous immigration policy that let us all in. National Chief, thank you very much. I don’t know where we would be without you. You know that we always start out these conversations by acknowledging that we are, in my case, on Treaty 1 territory, in the homeland of the Métis Nation. Well, why do we do that?
I want to recognize that we are meeting on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people. Long before there was a lumber industry in a place called Bytown, the Algonquin lived in - and were part of - the forests of this region.