Performative Indigenous land acknowledgements cause a crippling cognitive dissonance

Yes, colonial descendants should admit First Nations Peoples were here first. Also yes, acknowledging that truth with words & no action is performative bullshit

When psychologist Leon Festinger came up with the theory of cognitive dissonance in the eponymously named 1957 book, among the examples he gave was doomsday cult members rationalizing why the world hadn’t ended after the date they said it would.

Cognitive dissonance is, simply put, the uncomfortable feeling humans have holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time, such as a person telling a lie while knowing they are an honest person.

All religious people who are intelligent and self-aware battle cognitive dissonance daily as they live lives of reason and reality while clouded by collective delusion. 

With that pre-text, it was interesting to see gnashing of teeth on Thursday (Oct. 23, 2025) when the delusional and racist Independent MLA for Vancouver-Quilchena Dallas Brodie introduced her Land Acknowledgements Prohibition Act in the B.C. Legislature, an anti-free speech bill, ironically (hypocritically?) from a far right wing politician who that very morning introduced a guest in the house she claims was fired for exercising his freedom of expression.

At 10:02 a.m., Brodie rose to introduce disgraced Jim McMurtry who was fired as a teacher for professing a racist and incorrect narrative. She aid McMurtry “was cast aside and shamed” for denying the genocide of Canada’s residential school system and how he claims to know that there are in fact no graves found at the Kamloops Residential School, and no harm was inflicted on First Nations kids. 

Then 22 minutes later she introduced the bill “Land acknowledgements act” with its aim of banning employees of publicly funded institutions from acknowledging the history of residential schools.

Most failed bills that everyone knows are going to fail usually get first reading so the topic can be discussed and then voted down. Brodie’s revisionist history, however, was given no oxygen. It was shut down before it could begin, with 88 of 93 MLAs voting “no.” 

Brodie called land acknowledgements “the anthem of a suicidal nation,“ with her usual melodramatic flair.

“They’re repeated ritualistically to instil the belief that our country is illegitimate, that Canada has no right to exist, that our ancestors are evil and our history must be abrogated. They tell our children that we stand on stolen land.”

Let’s unpack the six bolded/italicized phrases in that sentence, piece by piece:
1. Yes, they are “repeated ritualistically” indeed, performative statements to begin meetings, shows, speeches.
2. No, they are not meant to “instil the belief that our country is illegitimate.” They are reminders that our country was built on the bones of those who were already here.
3. No, they don’t mean “Canada has no right to exist,” only that its existence overlooked the First Nations and Inuit people of the land. See #2.
4. No, it doesn’t mean our “ancestors are evil” any more than saying the ubiquitous racism, homophobia, and other forms of ignorance from several generations ago means our great-great-grandparents were evil.
5. That “our history must be abrogated?” Abrogation refers to the repealing of laws or historical narratives, which is how history proceeds, how progress progresses, by correcting wrongs, repealing racist laws, sometimes changing the lens through which we see history.
6. And finally, the “tell our children that we stand on stolen land.” We do stand on stolen land.

Only Brodie and four others voted in favour of her bill: Conservatives Tara Armstrong of Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream, Harman Bhangu of Langley-Abbotsford, Jordan Kealy of Peace River North, and, big surprise, our own Heather Maahs from Chilliwack North.

Of course, Chilliwack’s other Conservative MLA A’aliya Warbus is First Nations. Generations of her ancestors were indeed here literally thousands of years before Brodie’s descendants made their way from Scotland to “British Columbia” to push Warbus’s ancestors off the land onto tiny reserves, sending her great-grandparents and grandparents away to live in residential schools where they were sexually, physically, emotionally abused by supposedly good Christians.

Warbus denounced the bill outside the House, saying it was contrary to reconciliation efforts with Indigenous people.

“I just think it takes all the hard work we are doing and it completely distracts from that … this is reconciliation in B.C. and how it moves forward,” she said.

Yes, but, no, but…

For several years the practice of land acknowledgements gained criticism not just from the religious far right but from many on the left or centre-left who wonder, is this just, to use an egregious post-modern woke cliché those on the far left love: performative allyship?

Several memes floated around as far back as pre-pandemic questioning the authenticity, the value, the honesty, the point of land acknowledgments.

One two-panel cartoon meme shows, in the left panel, a man labelled “Canada” holding and kissing an outstretched hand, the gesture labelled “land acknowledgements.” The right panel pulls back the perspective showing the man crouched on a cliff, the hand attached to a woman hanging on for dear life labelled “Indigenous People.”

There is also a brilliant viral skit from back in 2019 from the CBC comedy Baroness von Sketch Show. It shows an audience taking seats at a small theatre production. A host on stage starts with an Indigenous land acknowledgement of the First Nations on whose land they are all sitting, which she wraps up and says “enjoy the show,” and starts to walk off stage. Before she can, she is interrupted by a confused member of the audience who stands up:
“Oh, ah, sorry, hello…” the audience member says. “Should we, um, should we go?”
“Excuse me?”
“If we are on someone else’s land, shouldn’t we leave?”
“No, the theatre is here now. We just like to acknowledge whose land it is.”
“I’m sorry, if we are on someone else’s land, shouldn’t we do something about that?”
“Hopefully we will enjoy the performance.”
“OK, but some of the money from the ticket sales of the show are going to the indigenous communities?”
“Well, no.”
“A portion of them?” 
“No, no, the ticket sales go to the theatre.” 
“So is the money from the bottled water sold here going to the First Nations for clean drinking water or…”
“Oh, no, that money goes to Nestlé. They’re our sponsor.”
“I'm so sorry. I'm so confused. Who's whose land are we on? What are we… what are we doing?” 
"“It's a dialogue, um…”
“How are we making right?”
“Well, there's a, there's a plaque you can read in the lobby.”
“I just don't understand.” 
“I’m getting a message from the stage manager that we need to begin the show, so please take your seats. Have a good time. Good night. 
“So sit down? Enjoy the show [quietly to herself]. Just enjoy the show.”

The confusion of that skit illustrates a literalist response to what seems to many people to be a ceremony without meaning, the cognitive dissonance any right-thinking person has knowing that Canada’s 158 years of history might feel like an eternity from a day-to-day perspective, but is a blip of time since Homo sapiens first made it to what we now call North America somewhere from 12,000 to 16,000 years ago.

When asked, Indigenous people have very different takes on the land acknowledgements put forth at city council meetings and before community theatre plays.

The only way through the cognitive dissonance that I see, is that history is a slow-moving ice berg. Nothing happens quickly or as responsibly as it should, so maybe land acknowledgements are better than nothing?

Canada is like an addict emerging from 150 years of denial, recognizing finally that the first step in recovery is admitting she has a problem. It’s just that if we only admit the problem, the historical wrongs, and don't take the next steps, it is performative, ridiculous, and really a non-act that amounts to further injustice to Indigenous people.

"The problem is that there are people, groups, institutions and systems that are benefiting from the continued land dispossession of Indigenous peoples while making territorial acknowledgments,” Kahsennoktha George from Kanesatake in Quebec said in a 2021 CBC story on the topic of land acknowledgements (emphasis in mine).

I guess it’s better than not acknowledging it at all?

"It's still the beginning of some kind of conversation," George also said.

B.C. ’s Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation Spencer Chandra Herbert said about Brodie’s colonialist soapbox moment that people have tried to erase the history of First Nations in B.C. for too long.

"That's, in part, one of the reasons why we follow First Nations tradition of making land acknowledgements, of acknowledging First Nations people," he said.

Obviously banning land acknowledgements would only further divide people.

"It's like trying to push things under the carpet instead of acknowledging the truth.”

-30-

Want to support independent journalism?
Consider becoming a paid subscriber or make a one-time donation so I can continue this work.

Paul J. Henderson
pauljhenderson@gmail.com
facebook.com/PaulJHendersonJournalist
instagram.com/wordsarehard_pjh
x.com/PeeJayAitch
wordsarehard-pjh.bsky.social