Truth and Reconciliation Day, Everyday
Written by: Dakota Cherry, Candidate for Ward 5, Guelph City Council
Reconciliation in Guelph means telling the truth about this City’s past and present.
Many people do not fully know or understand the extent of violence, displacement and dispossession that Indigenous Peoples have suffered and how it continues to impact people and families today:
While Indigenous People’s have a relatively small population in Guelph, they are disproportionately represented among people experiencing homelessness and face greater barriers related to mental health and substance use because of intergenerational trauma - a phenomenon supported by research showing how the impacts of trauma are passed on, not only through learned behaviours, but also through biological changes to human DNA.
That is why it is imperative that we develop systems in Guelph that are rooted in compassion and care, that support genuine healing, or, at the very least, alleviate some of the suffering.
Our current “About Guelph” webpage romanticizes John Galt’s “founding” of Guelph with the befalling of an ancient Maple tree, which were regarded as sacred to Indigenous Peoples in the region - a fact I learned at the Guelph Civic’s museum latest exhibit: Maawnjidyang Maa – We come together here.
The website also states that the land was “purchased” from the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation without acknowledging whether both parties understood that transaction in the same way. Indigenous understandings of land were rooted in shared responsibility and stewardship, as reflected in the Dish with One Spoon wampum: the land was a shared dish from which everyone could eat. This understanding stands in fundamental contrast to the European concept of land as property that could be permanently sold and exclusively owned. The existence of a signed English document should therefore not be treated as proof that Indigenous signatories understood themselves to be “selling the land” as is described on our City’s website.
Our public monuments and museums require the same honest assessment. For example, a plaque on the bridge where Wellington turns into Woolwich celebrates the spot where John Galt cut down the first old-growth tree in the area. Guelph must work with local First Nations and Indigenous residents to understand how we can tell the fuller truth about what colonization meant for both the Peoples and the land: how the cutting of this tree was the catalyst that led to the displacement of Indigenous Peoples from ancestral trading routes, hunting grounds and ceremonial sites. The sadness many of us feel when we see the beauty of that fallen old-growth tree in historical photos can help us relate to Indigenous teachings about kinship with the land - worldviews that colonizers dismissed as “savage” and used to justify policies such as the residential-school system, which forcibly removed generations of children from their families and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
I highly encourage everyone to visit this fantastic exhibit at the Guelph Civic museum to learn more about this critical topic, hear the stories of Indigenous Peoples, and take the opportunity to honour the strength and resilience of those who have endured unimaginable pain. It is our collective responsibility as a City to do more.
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