Carleton’s board of governors will now acknowledge Carleton sitting on Algonquin land on their agendas after a motion passed at the Nov. 28 meeting.
The statement reads: “The Board of Governors acknowledges and respects the Algonquin First Nation, on whose traditional territory the Carleton University campus is located.”
The motion specifically mentions “traditional” territory, rather than “unceded” territory, as the Graduate Students’ Association state at the beginning of their meetings.
Provost and vice-president (academic) Peter Ricketts explained at the meeting that the choice of words has to do with the legality of the term “unceded.”
“The term traditional territory has no legal liability on the institution, because it’s a term used simply to describe the territory on which these First Nations had traditionally occupied and used,” Ricketts said at the meeting. “It has no relation to treaty claims or anything like that.”
The motion is slightly different from the one the Carleton Senate uses, which includes a mention of the Algonquin people as the “traditional custodian of the land.”
The motion also expands to major Carleton events in which Board of Governor meetings are included.
Board chair Ron Jackson said similar acknowledgments already take place at major Carleton events.
“What we wanted to do is formalize this process,” he said at the Nov. 28 meeting.
The acknowledgement will be made at the top of each meeting’s agenda.
