Upholding Toronto’s Commitments to Reconciliation

BARRIERS TO INDIGENOUS SELF-DETERMINATION = CULTURAL GENOCIDE

“Genocide is the sum of the social practices, assumptions, and actions detailed within this report […] The National Inquiry’s findings support characterizing these acts, including violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, as genocide. Throughout this report, and as witnesses shared, we convey truths about state actions and inactions rooted in colonialism and colonial ideologies, built on the presumption of superiority, and utilized to maintain power and control over the land and the people by oppression and, in many cases, by eliminating them.” (Reclaiming Power and Place, The Final Report of the National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+, pg 54, 2019)

Indigenous “teachings describe how the waters of the Earth and the waters of our bodies are the same; for better or for worse, there is an undeniable connection between the health of our bodies and the health of our planet. Violence that happens on the land is intimately connected to the violence that happens to our bodies.” (Violence on the Land, Violence on Our Bodies: Building an Indigenous Response to Environmental Violence, p. 4, http://landbodydefense.org/)

Toronto’s City Council has made a number of commitments to reconciliation with Indigenous people. It is time to put theory into practice, and make lands available for Indigenous resurgence.