Indigenous Elders encourage Manitobans to use the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to learn and build relationships

WINNIPEG -

The inaugural National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is taking place Thursday across the country and Canadians are being encouraged to use the day to recognize truth and work towards reconciliation.

Several events hosted by community organizations are being held in Winnipeg to give Canadians a chance to honour the lost children and survivors of residential schools and their families.

While it’s a day off for some workers, Indigenous Elders are urging people to use the time to reflect and build relationships.

“The truth is being told out there and a lot of people have never heard about the residential school systems, the history behind it,” said Betty Ross, a Pimicikamak Cree Nation Elder and residential school survivor. “It’s so crucial that people realize.”

Ross has been busy this week sharing her story as a residential school survivor with community members and at a school in the city’s Maples neighbourhood, in the lead-up to the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Canada passed legislation to make Sep. 30—the new National Day for Truth and Reconciliation—a federal statutory holiday.

The Manitoba government is also recognizing the day and has said some provincial government services and offices will be closed as will schools and daycares but Elder Albert McLeod hopes people take the time to learn and reflect.

“It’s touted as a holiday but I’m encouraging people to reach out and go to Indigenous spaces and make relationships,” McLeod said. “Talk to somebody, learn about something about Indigenous people, the history of Manitoba, the history of Winnipeg and the Red River settlement and the important role Indigenous people played, particularly Indigenous women.”

It’s taking place on the same day as Orange Shirt Day, an Indigenous-led grassroots movements that honours and remembers children who survived and died while attending residential schools.

Canadians are being encouraged to wear orange again this year to raise awareness.

Sean Carleton, an assistant professor in the Department of History and Native Studies at the University of Manitoba, said breaking the cycle of harm and trauma caused by residential schools will require Canadians to first acknowledge the truth and commit to decolonization and reconciliation.

“The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is an opportunity for Canadians to really learn and listen, commit themselves to putting truth before reconciliation,” Carleton said. “If we can do that I think we have a good shot of actually changing our relationships, of breaking the cycle of Canadian indifference to Indigenous struggles and issues in Canada.”

Government-sponsored, church-run residential schools separated Indigenous children from their families, culture and language. Students were physically and sexually abused and died in numbers still not fully known.

The dark legacy was once again brought to Canadians’ attention earlier this year through the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential school sites across the country.

“They took my childhood, they took my teenage years and they took my young adult years,” Ross said.

She’s still healing from what happened to her.

“And here I had to go on another journey to find Betty because I knew there was so many beautiful things out there that I needed to find: the culture, the dances, the ceremonies and I finally did,” Ross said.

A journey of healing that’s still continuing to this day.

The Ma Mawi Centre has compiled a list of events open to the public to honour the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Both Ross and Carleton will be speaking Sep. 30 at the Winnipeg Art Gallery as part of a Day of Survivor stories event taking place between 11:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

A healing walk hosted by and beginning at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights will start at 11 a.m. and end at St. John’s Park where an Every Child Matters Pow Wow is taking place all day.

The Ma Mawi Centre is hosting a sacred fire, Elder teachings and ceremony at 445 King St. between 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.