National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day

As of June 2021, September 30th is now officially recognized as the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. This day is a federal statutory holiday, which allows employees in the federal public service to observe and participate in this important day. This holiday also addresses one of the 94 Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: “We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, to establish, as a statutory holiday, a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour survivors, their families, and communities, and ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.”

September 30th is Orange Shirt Day, a day that recognizes the harm Canada’s residential school system inflicted on Indigenous children and their families, and the ongoing trauma that remains today. It is a day to remember and honour the life of every child. The goal of Orange Shirt Day is tocreate awareness of the individual, family, and community inter-generational impacts of Indian Residential Schools through Orange Shirt Day activities, and to promote the concept of Every Child Matters.

Orange Shirt Day was inspired by Phyllis Webstad’s experience at the St. Joseph’s Mission residential school in the 1970s. The “orange shirt” in Orange Shirt Day refers to the new shirt that was given to Webstad by her grandmother for her first day of school. When Phyllis got to school, they took away her clothes, including her new shirt. It was never returned. To Phyllis, the colour orange has always reminded her of her experiences at residential school and, as she has said, “how my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared and I felt like I was worth nothing. All of us little children were crying and no one cared.”

Source: Days of Significance | Office of Indigenous Relations (uwaterloo.ca)

calls_to_action_english2.pdf (gov.bc.ca)