I live not that far from the centre of Toronto. This morning I took my dog Cinco through a break in the fence two blocks from our home. Twenty metres down all I could see was green, even if the noise above reminded me that six million other Canadians live close at hand.

The people who first lived in this land have offered us a way to bring ourselves together in common purpose. We say the following words at the beginning of any serious undertaking, such as the building of a new nation. We draw on a thousand-year tradition of diplomacy in committing ourselves to relationship with the land and with one another. I give thanks to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy for offering this "ThanksgivingAddress" for us all to say: