Canadians are gathering for ceremonies and reflecting on the tragic legacy of residential schools — and honouring the children who never came home — as the country marks the fifth annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Gov. Gen Mary Simon, the first Indigenous person to serve in that role, said the country is making “meaningful progress” on the path to reconciliation but cautioned that more work needs to be done.
“Our classrooms are beginning to embrace inclusive history, and more Indigenous children are learning their cultural practices and ancestral languages with pride,” Simon told those gathered at a ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
“But much more work remains. Inequities persist, and we share a lifelong responsibility to address them. I have seen Indigenous people striving to heal while still struggling to meet basic needs. Too often they lack access to adequate trauma-informed mental health [and] support that honours their traditional healing practices.”
Simon called on Canadians to mark the day by renewing their commitment to reconciliation.
Gov. Gen Mary Simon spoke at an event in Ottawa for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, discussing Canada’s progress toward reconciliation, but acknowledged that more work still needs to be done.
This year also marks 10 years since the final report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was released.
Residential schools operated for more than 100 years, spanning from 1857 to 1996, when the last schools closed. Some 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to leave their families to attend the government or church-run institutions.
The commission, which conducted an exhaustive, years-long study of residential schools, has documented just how destructive residential schools were with widespread abuse and neglect — and as many as 6,000 deaths, most from malnutrition or disease.
The schools, which were designed to assimilate Indigenous children into the dominant Euro-Canadian culture, caused untold intergenerational trauma and harm, the TRC found.
“The Truth and Reconciliation Commission sparked a national awakening as survivors bravely shared their truth about residential schools,” Simon said Tuesday.
Lucien Wabanonik, the chief of the Anishinaabe council of Lac Simon, told the crowd that he was almost one of the children that never came home from his residential school.
“Society, as we know it today, needs to learn more about our history, our stories,” he said.
“The trauma that we’ve lived, that I’ve lived, is intergenerational. It’s going to be a long time to heal and we will need Canadians to support us, to go through our journey. Because this journey, we’re in it together.”
Charlotte Nolin, a Métis elder and survivor of the Sixties Scoop and an Indian day school, called on non-Indigenous Canadians to work with Indigenous people toward reconciliation.
“Reconciliation isn’t just about Indigenous people and the government and the churches. It’s about every Canadian. We all have to work at this. If we want it to work, we have to put effort into it,” Nolin said during the ceremony on Parliament Hill.
Gov. Gen. Mary Simon sits down with CBC’s Power & Politics to reflect on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and the upcoming 10-year anniversary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report.
Like residential schools, day schools aimed to assimilate Indigenous children while eradicating Indigenous languages and cultures, and often had religious affiliations. There was also widespread abuse.
“We should remember these children and the lives they gave so we could move forward as a nation,” Nolin said.
The Parliament Hill ceremony opened with a drum circle, followed by a prayer from Algonquin Elder Claudette Commanda.
A memorial cloth bearing the names of thousands of children who did not return from residential schools was laid on the stage in front of the Peace Tower.
Of the 94 calls to action put forward by the TRC, just over a dozen have been completed.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said during the ceremony in Ottawa that the federal government is moving forward on the calls to action.
“Reconciliation … is a generational task that must be lived and practised every day by every Canadian,” he told those gathered on Parliament Hill.
Carney made reference to an Indigenous painting he asked to be installed outside the cabinet room that represents the past oppression of Indigenous people but also the possibility for the future.
At an event in Ottawa for Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Prime Minister Mark Carney reflected on the tragic legacy of residential schools and discussed the actions his government is taking to move toward reconciliation.
“It’s there so we remember what came before us and so we are seized with the task ahead of us. We will not fail you,” he said.
Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty told CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault that, like the prime minister, she is committed to following through on the TRC’s calls to action.
“This is a generational task; this is not something that can be completed in one year or 10 years,” she said.
Earlier this year, Gull-Masty — who is Cree from Waswanipi Cree Nation — became the first Indigenous cabinet minister to hold the portfolio responsible for providing services for First Nations, Inuit and Métis.
CBC chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault asks Toronto Metropolitan University professor Eva Jewell to help explain why several Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action remain unanswered a decade later — and what it will take to make more progress.
On a personal note, Gull-Masty said she was thinking of her mother on Tuesday, who was a residential school survivor. The minister said she had attended the demolishing of the school with her mother.
“She showed me where she lived … she shared stories with me — some were hard to hear. She showed me where she hid in a closet,” she said.
“It’s a challenging part of somebody’s life. I hope that people that are reflecting on the day today are really remembering that this legacy and Canadian history is not from 100 years ago. It’s from this generation, this previous generation.”
This is the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation since the passing of Murray Sinclair, who led the TRC. The former senator died last November at the age of 73.
Speaking at the 2022 National Day for Truth and Reconciliation ceremony in Ottawa, Sinclair credited residential school survivors for pushing for the TRC and the national day of recognition. He also encouraged Canadians to recognize that “reconciliation is not a one-day affair.”
“Our country’s history is complicated and it is not always easy to review. But you don’t make it better by ignoring it or glossing over it,” Sinclair said at the time.
“You make it better by helping carry out the calls to action. By learning. By unlearning. And by resolving to do better.”
His son, Niigaan Sinclair, said he recalls his father having moments of “anxiety” that Canada wasn’t moving fast enough on reconciliation.
“But I will tell you one thing: He had tremendous hope in all of us,” he said.
A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available to provide support for survivors and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour service at 1-866-925-4419.
Mental health counselling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat.
