It is in this spirit of education for Truth and Reconciliation that I am writing to universities situated in the Algonquin traditional territory in Ottawa.  While Indigenous studies are included in the curriculum, Algonquin courses, taught by Algonquin scholars are not offered.  We note that your university’s location—namely, in Canada’s national capital, on unceded Algonquin territory—gives it a highly symbolic and material significance that your current programing does not reflect. The reason for this letter, then, is to ask that you increase the presence  of specifically-Algonquin education and scholarship.

To accomplish this goal, we think that in this era of Truth and Reconciliation it is imperative that you a) add a 100-level “Introduction to Algonquin” course to your listings, and b) create an Algonquin Research Chair for a fully funded and supported Algonquin scholar. This would go some distance toward filling an educational gap concerning the People who remain the owners of the lands on which Canada’s capital and your university are built.

“No Canadian can take pride in this country’s treatment of Aboriginal peoples, and, for that reason, all Canadians have a critical role to play in advancing reconciliation in ways that honour and revitalize the nation-to-nation Treaty relationship.” (Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, p. 183.).

I submit that as a post-secondary educational institution in the heart of the Algonquin homeland, Ottawa universities have a unique place-based responsibility to advance not only Indigenous education in general but Algonquin education in particular. To act on this responsibility would be to provide leadership in the truth and reconciliation process that all Canadians have been called to participate in.