Many of us are settlers, immigrants or descendants of those forcefully brought to this land. It is our collective responsibility to pay respect and recognize that this land is the unceded traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Ojibway/Chippewa and Haudenosaunee peoples.

We are here because this land was occupied. In recognizing that this space occupies colonized Indigenous territories and out of respect for the rights of Indigenous people, it is our collective responsibility to critically interrogate the colonial histories and present day implications of this and to honour, protect and sustain this land.

Althea Branton acknowledges the ancestors of people of African descent forcibly brought to these lands via the transatlantic slave trade and made to work against their will.