Land Acknowledgement

Health Justice is a virtual organization with a registered office address located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl ̓ ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Our staff, board members, Lived Experience Experts Group members, and Indigenous Leadership Group members live and work on the lands of many different First Nations. Health Justice staff live and work on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səl ̓ ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Lək ̓ ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) peoples (including the Songhees and Esquimalt), kʷikʷəƛ ̓ əm (Kwikwetlem), QayQayt, Sinixt, and Ktunaxa Nations.

  • Acknowledging Indigenous Legal Orders, Health Practices, and the Impacts of Colonization

    Health Justice’s work focuses on provincial laws that apply throughout the area that is colonially named British Columbia. These colonial laws impact Indigenous people living on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded First Nation territories as well as land that is governed by treaties.

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  • Existing, Distinct Health and Legal Practices

    Currently in BC, over 200 distinct First Nations, 39 chartered Métis communities, and many Inuit people living away from home in communities across British Columbia hold their own unique ancestral legal orders, justice systems, well-established health practices, concepts of health, and traditional healers.

  • Impacts of Colonialisim, Genocide, and Racism

    Colonization, including land theft and the application of colonial laws, have disrupted these sovereign legal and health care systems in numerous ways. The ongoing intentional displacement of communities from their traditional territories and the separation of children from their families and communities undermine protective factors and interrupt ways of sharing knowledge, families, communities, cultural land-based practices, and languages.

  • Colonialism Continues Today

    The colonial dynamics continue today in many public systems, including the health and legal systems. Involuntary mental health and substance use treatment, enforced by the colonial health and legal systems, can be experienced as yet another source of control over Indigenous people that pathologizes and criminalizes the impacts of colonialism.

  • The Importance of Recognizing This Context

    Recognizing this systemic context is foundational to understanding the impacts of genocide, colonization, and racism in colonial health and legal systems on First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people, as well as their resistance to and resilience from those systems.

    Health Justice strives to reflect this context in our work by focusing on the causes of inequities experienced by Indigenous people in BC: historic and ongoing systemic colonialism, discrimination, and genocide.