F#$% Your Land Acknowledgement!

Why it’s time to end this annoying, dishonest and impertinent ritual once and for all

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…

That’s 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 civilisations—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 recognise that taxpayers footing the bill for most of it should no longer tolerate this obnoxious ritual.