ABSTRACT

A month ago, on November 18, 2025, the members of Cochrane’s new Town Council were contacted requesting that they take steps to have the land acknowledgement posted at the Town of Cochrane’s web site be removed.

To date it has been nothing but silence from Town Council apart from one councillor acknowledging receipt of my email.

So, with respect to the question posed by the title of this post, “Does Our Town Council Support Land Acknowledgments?”, the answer is don’t know, because they disrespectfully refuse to answer a Cochrane resident, although their non-answering may give a clue as to where they stand on this issue.

FULL BLOG

If one goes to the Town of Cochrane’s web site, one finds that a land acknowledgment is featured at the bottom of the home page.

One suspects that the land acknowledgment was placed there by the town’s unelected Administration or, possibly, it may have been directed to do so by our elected Town Council.

The current Town Council, elected in November, consists of four previous councillors, Morgan Nagel, now serving as mayor, Patrick Wilson, Marni Fedeyko and Tara McFadden, and three new councillors, Mikayla Gale, Laura McDonald, and Paul Singh.

On November 18, 2025 I sent a Letter to Council re Land Acknowledgement advising them of the existence of the land acknowledgment, sharing a video to help them become better informed on this matter, and requesting that the elected Town Council take steps to have that land acknowledgement be removed from the town’s website.

Ten days later, on November 28, one of the councillors, Mikayla Gale, acknowledged receiving my email, advising that she didn’t “know what council would need to do – whether it’s a policy level direction or change, or just a housekeeping item” and that she would “look into it and get back to” me. I have not heard further.

On that same day, November 28, 2025, I sent a Followup Letter to Council expressing frustration over the lack of response to my November18th query and noting that the town had apparently doubled down on land acknowledgments by including one as part of the Cochrane Light Up ceremonies on November 29th, thereby politicizing the event. I reminded Morgan Nagel that a big part of his mayoralty election campaign was a concern about “the tail wagging the dog”, that is, the dominance of the un-elected Administration over the elected Town Council.

I asked two questions, namely, did the elected Council approve of this virtue-signalling at the Cochrane Light Up and that I would like an answer to my previous question as to whether any of the councillors were “willing to bring forward a motion to remove the virtue-signalling land acknowledgment from the town’s web site”. As I had inadvertently missed Councillor McFadden with my previous communication, I also included her with this communication.

Now a month after my original communication, and three weeks after my second communication on November 28th, disappointingly, nothing but crickets from our Town Council. This lapse of time indicates nothing less than that our Town Council refuses to respond to my query. I informed Town council in my second communication that I considered such behaviour on their part as “disrespectful of a town citizen” (essentially given the finger) and a sham of “talk about greater public engagement”. For example, one of the candidates for Council, Paul Singh, described “strong community engagement” as being “essential”. Another, 6-term Councillor Tara McFadden, spoke of “stronger connections between council and residents through open dialogue” and that “we cannot make good decisions without listening to folks”. And in a Cochrane Now article, she spoke of being “a big advocate for civic engagement”, which is why in the spring, she “had advocated a suite of civic leadership and engagement initiatives.” Meanwhile, Councillor Marni Fedeyko’s election campaign was based upon the acronym ACT, where the “C” stood for “community engagement”.

As far as public engagement, Council could start with, as a minimum, engaging, not ignoring, residents who contact them.

So, with respect to the question posed by the title of this post, “Does Our Town Council Support Land Acknowledgments?”, the answer is don’t know, because they disrespectfully refuse to answer a Cochrane resident, although their non-answering may give a clue as to where they stand on this issue.