Orange Shirt Day

September 30 - National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

94 Calls to Action.  How Are We Doing?

On Monday, September 30, we will celebrate the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This day provides an opportunity to consider what progress we are making in remedying the harm caused by the policies and practices of settlers, and in creating a climate of respect and friendship among all of us.    

In December 2015, on the eighth anniversary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a Canadian Government statement asserted that over 85% of the 94 Calls to Action involving the Government were completed or well underway. However, according to Indigenous Watchdog, only 11 of the Calls to Action were completed and 39 were “in progress.”  At this time, seventeen years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report, there are still many of the 94 Calls to Action that have not been completed.

I suggest that we look beyond the 94 Calls to Action in assessing progress on rectifying the imbalance concerning the wellbeing of Indigenous people in Canada. We still have indicators that all is not well in our quest to reconcile relationships between our Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. However, in weighing progress on completion of the 94 Calls to Action, the prevalence of problems such as higher rates of incarceration, and reports of abusive treatment in hospitals of Indigenous persons contrast with indications that Indigenous members of our country are making significant progress as respected citizens, and that relationships between settlers and Indigenous persons are improving.

There are now many well-educated Indigenous persons who are writing books, teaching in schools and universities, negotiating land claims, providing health care services, exercising political power, and operating successful businesses.  I am aware that churches no longer disparage the culture and spirituality of aboriginal people; traditional aboriginal practices are incorporated into the teachings and liturgical practices of Christian churches. Efforts to educate non-aboriginal Canadians about the history and culture of our native population have effectively improved respect and altered attitudes.  Schools and colleges have been making consistent efforts to welcome Indigenous students and provide any services needed to support academic and social success.

We still have many hurdles to overcome in our quest to treat all aboriginal citizens with respect and to resolve issues such as economic disparity, settlement of claims for compensation of past wrongs, or ill-treatment of Indigenous patients in hospitals. But such issues are publicized now, regarded as unacceptable, and stimulate action to stop harm and promote justice.  There is a welcome change in attitudes towards our Indigenous neighbours and a growing population of competent aboriginal persons who  will no longer tolerate being treated as second-class citizens.

Let us celebrate National Day for Truth and Reconciliation wearing our orange shirts, attending local festivities, and extending friendship to our Indigenous neighbours.

- Sister Patricia McKeon

image: Denise Bossarte @dbossarte / Unsplash

T + R = ?

SEPTEMBER 30 - National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Truth plus Reconciliation equals hard work, openness, forgiveness and a change in behaviour.

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation commission provided the Canadian people with specific guidelines in the 94 Recommendations that were drawn up. The 3 minute video “Reconciliation Thunder” outlines a systematic update of where each of the 94 Calls to Action is at this point in the life of the inception of the TRC Recommendatations. https://mailchi.mp/dfd338566063/call-to-action-65?e=40d3797d18

These recommendations came as a result of the legacy of the Residential School system and the very traumatic harm done to some 6,000 Indigenous, Metis and Inuit children and their families.

If we colonizers, and victims, as well as the surviving families of the Residential School system can look at truth together, there can be an honest opening of the mind, which can lead to a softening of the heart, and then constructive action can follow. See below the 20 minute video “They Came for the children” from the series. ( http://www.kmproductions.ca/id.html)

If, after watching this, your heart is moved, please acknowledge that first to yourself, then possibly to others and perhaps constructive action may be able to follow.

If you are non-Indigenous, there may be guilt, shame for what some of our ancestors and our government and Church did in the past.  If there is a genuine resolve to never let this happen again, a new harmony is possible.

If you are Indigenous, Metis or Inuit, as victims of this horrendous history, much healing is necessary in order for you to initiate the process of forgiveness.

Robert Schreiter in his book The Ministry of Reconciliation: Spirituality and Strategies, writes “It is through the victim that the wrongdoer is called to repentance and forgiveness. Seen from this perspective, repentance and forgiveness are not the pre-conditions for reconciliation, but are rather the consequences of it.” (p. 15)  (Emphasis mine)

Orange Shirt Day is inspired by Phyllis Webstad’s story of how her new orange shirt was taken away from her when she arrived at the residential  school near Williams Lake, BC in 1974 when she was only 6 years old. https://orangeshirtday.org/phyllis-story/

Eddy Charlie and Kirsten Spray, two Indigenous Studies students at Camosun College made this public and initiated Victoria Orange Shirt Day in 2015.

When we wear an orange shirt or ribbon for Sept. 30th, we are saying loud and clear that this day acknowledges that residential schools are a part of our history. Wearing an orange shirt is a national movement to recognize the experience of those who went to Indian residential schools, to honour them, and show a collective commitment to ensure that Every Child Matters.

 -Sister Kathleen Lichti, csj

National Truth and Reconciliation Day

National Truth and Reconciliation Day– September 30

Image: Unsplash/Aedrian

This is the second year in which we are called to remember the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation or more simply known as “Orange Shirt Day”.  The focus of the day is to remember the children who died at Residential Schools and those who survived those schools but continue to live with the trauma of their experiences long after the last of those schools closed.

I want to acknowledge this day and I want to say thank you to the Indigenous people who invite us in healing and friendship to learn, to seek to understand and in some cases even to dance. It is day to express that it is time to heal the hurts of the past and be allies as we walk together into the future.  This will take time but this is a new moment to seek healing and reconciliation for the wrongs of the past.  Also, when we gather we also learn more of the truth about our Aboriginal peoples and their rich and meaningful culture and ceremonies.  We learn because these people are good storytellers and stories tell us who they are and who we are.

Such change and new understanding does not come all at once, or to each person in the same way.  It a journey that involves coming to know each other, listening to each other, and walking together into a new day. 

I will wear my orange shirt to express that going forward I will not forget the past, and also to express my desire and commitment to create the healing needed and do this together because together we are stronger!

-Sister Joan Atkinson, CSJ, Office for Systemic Justice | Sister of St. Joseph