It needn’t be complex. Your seniors’ residence could display in their entrance a visual land acknowledgment in the territory language. Your strata council meetings could be started with an oral acknowledgment of territories and peoples therein.
Other ways to support: Learn more about the language and lands of the Indigenous people of the territory where you live. Bring families and neighbours along on your learning journey. Advocate for Indigenous languages to be taught in all schools.
These are living examples of the commitment that the University of Victoria has pledged to uphold in its new strategic plan — The teaching ʔetal nəwəl | ÁTOL,NEUEL — holds leaders, staff, faculty and students accountable for “respecting the rights of one another; being in right relationship with all things; and upholding the rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
Whatever your influence, I challenge you to take some action. Every one of us has a role to play. Indigenous people and settler-Canadians can contribute to a healing chapter in our shared story of Indigenous languages removal, recovery and revival.