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As Canadians mark the sixth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Gov. Gen. Louise Arbour said it’s important to face an unsettling past in order to build a better country.
This is Arbour’s first time observing the day as Governor General. She was sworn in this summer, replacing Mary Simon, the first Indigenous person to serve in the role.
In a statement before the ceremonies kicked off on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, Arbour recognized that facing the past “can be painful and unsettling,” but “understanding the truth is essential to building a more just future.”
Arbour also spoke later in the morning, just before the Survivors’ Flag was raised in front of West Block.
She said that while “acknowledging the truth does not change the past, it is a reminder that memory carries responsibility — responsibility to recognize these injustices, to learn from them and to ensure that they are never repeated.”
Before taking part in the re-raising of the Survivors’ Flag, Arbour reminded Canadians that it is “both a symbol of warning and a symbol of hope.”
She said the flag “represents what was lost, but also what endured and what continues to thrive … the spirit, cultures, traditions and languages of communities that, despite immense hardship, have carried these legacies on from generation to generation across this country.”
Arbour urged Canadians to use the sixth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to “listen with open hearts and reflect on the experiences shared by the survivors and their families.”
Children forced to leave families
Prime Minister Mark Carney will be in Edmonton to mark the occasion and is set to speak at a commemorative event.
In a statement released before his address, Carney said the residential school system “was built on assimilation policies designed to sever children from their languages, cultures, identities and ways of life.”
Canada’s residential schools operated from 1857 to 1996. Some 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to leave their families to attend the government or church-run institutions.
Nearly 60 years after his death, residential school student Percy Onabigon’s remains have been brought from a burial site in Woodstock, Ont., and laid to rest in his home Long Lake #58 First Nation. His family fought for years to repatriate him and are calling for more support for others facing a similar burden.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) exhaustive, years-long study of residential schools revealed the devastating impact they had on Indigenous people.
The institutions were designed to assimilate Indigenous children into the dominant Euro-Canadian culture, causing deep intergenerational trauma and harm, the TRC found. They were characterized by widespread abuse and neglect, and led to as many as 6,000 deaths, mostly from malnutrition or disease.
Eleven years after the publication of the TRC report, only 15 of its 94 calls to action have been put into force.
CBC News spoke to residential school survivor Eugene Arcand on Parliament Hill.
Arcand said the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is sometimes when Indigenous Peoples “have to reveal the complacency” that has set in since the TRC report was published.
“In regards to adhering or even addressing some level of co-operation and understanding of the 94 calls to action, we have a lot of unfinished business here in the residential school history.”
In his statement, Carney also said his government owes survivors “more than remembrance.”
“We owe them action. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action remain a roadmap for that work.”
