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The Supreme Court Law Review: Osgoode’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference

Abstract

This essay follows my presentation at Osgoode’s 21st Constitutional Cases Conference on the growing practice of land acknowledgments, honour and the legacy of now retired Chief Justice McLachlin. During the presentation, I examined some of the Supreme Court of Canada’s constitutional cases arising out of section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, along with the practice of land acknowledgments in academic spaces. What follows is an essay critically examining scripted land acknowledgments mainly from post-secondary institutions in Canada. Are land acknowledgments contributing to Canada’s national reconciliation project as so often purported? I consider whether the practice is becoming too comfortable rather than challenging colonization and oppression, which should be uncomfortable. Throughout I offer some reflections on how to evolve the growing practice of land acknowledgments to “version 2.0”.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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