Land acknowledgements without accompanying actions are hollow gestures: Karen Restoule in The Hub – MLI
May 30, 2025
While it might bring satisfaction to some to hear King Charles acknowledge that Parliament sits on unceded territory, for others, it rings hollow with the lack of action to back the words.
King Charles kicked off the speech from the throne this week with a land acknowledgement, noting specifically that “we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people.” It appeared to be a nice gesture, but for those of us who were paying attention, it was a head scratcher for a few reasons.
It’s tough to ignore the irony. The King isn’t just a symbolic figure of the Crown—like our Governor General—he is the Crown. He is at the head of the very institution that once directed the colonial project, that once directed colonial expansion into First Nations territory, and that was signatory to most treaties that continue to inform the Crown-Indigenous relationship today.
