Waterloo Region is situated on the unceded land of the Haldimand Tract and is within the territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples. On October 25, 1784, after the American Revolutionary War of Independence, the Haldimand Tract was returned to the Six Nations of the Grand River and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation by the British as compensation for their role in the war. Of the 950,000 acres returned, less than 5.1% remains under Indigenous ownership today.
To do anti-violence work on this land, we must acknowledge how colonialism continues to feed violence in our region, and to affirm our commitment to decolonization in our work and in our lives as settlers on this land.
Allyship is a continuous process; it is not a designation that one can earn and hold forever or a label one can give themselves. Allyship is earned through actions. We have a responsibility, as beneficiaries of this land, to acknowledge and understand its history and the current experiences of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples and to be accountable to the violence they continue to face. We must use this understanding to inform our work to ensure we do not perpetuate the harms of colonization and to begin to repair them.
Members of Feminist Shift hold ourselves and our community accountable in the continuous work of decolonizing. We join in the feminist calls country wide to end systemic oppression and address gender-based violence due to colonization, including immediate actions to end the epidemic of Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit individuals going missing or being murdered.