How did we get this land?
What is the story of this particular parcel before we started to use it as a space for worship and community? What can we learn from this story? And what are our responsibilities related to this story?
These are fairly innocent questions that take us deeper into our own history as an organization that participated in the dispossession that was central to the colonial project. Land was never empty. There never was terra nullius that was available to take and use. We have learned a great deal over the last generations, and yet a key feature of the colonial condition is that we don't know our own stories, we have forgotten our histories and the obligations we carry, given what came before us. A couple of years ago we started asking these questions and contracted a local historian Jesse Robertson to examine sites across the diocese. These reports are the results of that work.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission Call to Action #59 calls on church parties to "ensure that their respective congregations learn about their church’s role in colonization." We understand these reports as a small but tangible step on the path of reconciliation. These stories will enrich and complicate our decisions when it comes to particular sites and highlight the need to move from symbolic to structural reconciliation.
If you have questions related to this project or if you want to request a parish have a report done that is not here please contact the Executive Director Brendon Neilson bneilson@bc.anglican.ca
St. David-by-the-Sea, Cordova Bay
Christ Church Cathedral Precinct