Request that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing amend clause 4 of the municipal declaration of office to read: I will be faithful and…

5:24:42and then I'll give you the floor, as I always do,

5:24:44to give a little context to why you wanna bring it forward.

5:24:48So I'll leave it to you, you go right ahead.

5:24:52Okay, well if the motion is up on the screen

5:24:54and I've got a seconder, then I'll give the preamble.

5:25:01Okay, the motion is up on the screen there.

5:25:05The heavier part of the two is the first one.

5:25:09Yeah, yeah.

5:25:10And it's about recognizing and affirming

5:25:12the Indigenous and Treaty rights of First Nations

5:25:14in New It and Métis people.

5:25:15Could I get a seconder for that?

5:25:17Okay, Councillor Cousins, get a second,

5:25:19it for you okay, so the floor is yours.

5:25:21Fantastic, thank you Councillor Cousins for seconding.

5:25:25Mr. Mayor, you mentioned earlier in our governance discussion

5:25:28that I had brought this forward months ago

5:25:30and you suggested that the next governance committee

5:25:32was the right timing for this motion.

5:25:35I thank you for that because at the time

5:25:36I don't think you realized

5:25:38that it would be coming during Indigenous History Month.

5:25:41And I think the talk-

5:25:43No, I knew fully, no I did not, I did not.

5:25:46You're right.

5:25:47Obviously, Serendipity played a role

5:25:49because it is Indigenous History Month

5:25:51and so I think that the timing of this is just perfect.

5:25:55You know, when I was in university

5:25:56and I took a course in Canadian history,

5:25:59I recall a debate we had in class

5:26:01and we're talking well over 25 years ago

5:26:04about why we pledge an oath to the Governor General

5:26:07and why we pledge an oath to the Queen at the time,

5:26:10but we don't recognize our First Peoples,

5:26:14our First Nations and Treaty rights

5:26:16as part of our Oath of Office.

5:26:18And it was a robust discussion in general agreement

5:26:20was that absolutely it should be part of the Oath of Office.

5:26:24So when I saw the Trent Lakes motion come up

5:26:28on the information sheet,

5:26:30it reminded me of the level of discomfort I had

5:26:34taking the Oath of Office for my fifth time,

5:26:36just this past December,

5:26:39at a time when we were in discussions

5:26:42about truth and reconciliation and what that meant.

5:26:45And we've always been a community

5:26:47where we put a land acknowledgement in our agendas

5:26:51early, early after the recommendation was made to do so.

5:26:57But we haven't really gone beyond that

5:26:59in implementing the recommendations

5:27:01of the truth and reconciliation report.

5:27:03And this was one of those recommendations.

5:27:08And so I'm pleased to bring this forward

5:27:11on behalf of the city of Guelph.

5:27:12I've changed quite a bit of the language

5:27:15from the original Trent Lakes motion,

5:27:18circulated to my colleagues in advance.

5:27:21I wanna give thanks and appreciation to Sarah Sayed

5:27:25and our equity diversity and inclusion office

5:27:29and our Indigenous Relations Officer

5:27:34as we move forward in our Indigenous Relations Strategy

5:27:37to being more aware of and taking action

5:27:44on truth and reconciliation.

5:27:46So please to put this on the floor for those reasons.

5:27:51Great, thank you so much.

5:27:52Is there any questions to the mover?

5:27:53I mean, it's pretty straightforward.

5:27:55No questions, any comments?

5:27:57No, seeing some thumbs up here

5:28:00in the room already, Councillor Caron.

5:28:02So I will just call the vote then.

5:28:05Is there anyone against Councillor Caron's motion?

5:28:10Seeing and hearing none.

5:28:11Oh, and you're on the screen now, perfect.

5:28:14So that's unanimous, perfect.

5:28:17All right, thank you so much for bringing that forward.

5:28:20And now we are going to move to,

5:28:27looks like I'm gonna,

5:28:31the engagement is to finish off the governance portion.

5:28:35So that was pulled by a couple of Councillors,

5:28:40both Guller and Boussatil.

5:28:43I was told that they had some questions,

5:28:46which is fine and great.

5:28:48So I will, I'll start, I'll stop and be looking at you.

5:28:51I'll go to you to ask some questions

5:28:54and then I'll go right to you, Councillor Goller.

5:28:55And thank you staff for sticking around.