It’s been 11 years since Phyllis Webstad spoke about her experience at residential school, setting off a Canada-wide movement known as Orange Shirt Day. This week also marks four years since the Government of Canada agreed to pass Bill C-5, making Sept. 30 a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Today, working together towards reconciliation is as important as ever as ignorance and denial of Canada’s past continues to reign.
“This is Canada’s history, not just Indigenous history,” said Webstad in an interview with Black Press Media. Reconciliation day is a time to learn about Canada’s history and how the legacies of our actions affect individuals, families and entire communities. The impact of violent colonization and assimilation lives on today, taking on various forms from unequal access to basic rights to the harmful denial of the past.
“There’s people alive today that have brothers and sisters that never came home,” Webstad said. While awareness of Canada’s past has certainly grown since the first Orange Shirt Day, Webstad said she continues to encounter people who don’t understand how colonial actions directly shape the wellbeing of First Nations people today. This sort of ignorance holds us back in our journey towards reconciliation, which can only happen when our mistakes and shortfalls are acknowledged, and efforts are made to root out their systematic harms.
Something as simple as a painted crosswalk can help challenge ignorance of our past by fuelling conversation towards a gradual but widespread shift in thinking. Williams Lake First Nation Chief Willie Sellars spoke about this at the unveiling of a new Every Child Matters crosswalk in the Lake City earlier this month.
“We have to continue to keep that history in the forefront of our conversations and keep it in the mainstream because the healing isn’t done yet,” he said. "The more space we make to learn about how Indigenous land, culture and relationships have been stolen, the more space there will be for healing and reconciliation."
Before Orange Shirt Day was created, Webstad said the history of residential schools weren’t being taught in school. Next year’s graduating class in Williams Lake will be the first to have had a full curriculum on the history of residential schools and colonization, which Webstad said is an important milestone. But Sept. 30 is not a day for celebrations, it’s a time to remember, learn and reflect as we move towards a better future.
“It’s a sombre day to honour survivors and their families, and to remember those who never made it home,” Webstad said. Whereas National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21 is a time to celebrate, Webstad paralleled the seriousness of Sept. 30 with Remembrance Day.
After all, Orange Shirt Day and National Day for Truth and Reconciliation grew out of Webstad’s experience at residential school. Orange Shirt Day was created in 2013 when Webstad publicly remembered her first day at St. Joseph Mission Residential School near Williams Lake, B.C. It was September 1973 when she arrived at the school, was stripped of her clothing and had her shiny new orange shirt taken away from her. Today people across Canada join her in wearing orange to honour the children who, like her, had their culture and dignity taken from them.
Reconciliation Day was established eight years later, upon the recommendation of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Commission travelled the country for six years, listening to and amplifying the voices of residential school survivors and their families whose experiences have been ignored in historical records. After the Commission’s conclusion, advocates such as Murray Sinclair and Phyllis Webstad pushed for the conversation to live on. Their efforts led to the implementation of the Commission's Call to Action 80 which recommended a federally recognized commemorative day. Advocates steered efforts away from marking the day on June 21, and Sept. 30 was eventually deemed an appropriate time to honour residential school survivors.
Webstad said the day was chosen because of Orange Shirt Day but was never meant to replace it. While she said many are now kicking it to the curb, Webstad wants Orange Shirt Day, being a grass roots effort, to remain in the forefront.
“Soon enough there won’t be any survivors left,” Webstad said. “I think it's only the right thing and respectful thing to call this day Orange Shirt Day – National Day for Truth and Reconciliation...I’m still here.”
Reconciliation in the Cariboo District and beyond
Residential school survivors and their families are being honoured across the region this week.
In Williams Lake where downtown streets are dotted with orange flags there will be a historical exhibit in the city’s library of photos from St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School until Oct. 1.
On Sept. 27, Denisiqi Services Society and the Tŝilhqot’in National Government invite the public to observe NDTR at their event which will bring together powwow dancing, cultural activities, sacred fire and live music.
On the same day the Orange Shirt Society (OSS) is coordinating an event with School District 27 at the WLFN arbour, where students will be immersed in truth and reconciliation. “We are building decision makers of the future,” said Venta Rutkauskas who works with the Orange Shirt Society. The City of Williams Lake donated $1,000 to help the OSS run this event, a token of what the city’s mayor Surinderpal Rathor said is the best relationship ever between the city and WLFN and the OSS.
“You can’t turn the clock,” said the mayor, but he is determined to collaborate with First Nations to acknowledge what has happened and make sure it does not happen again. “We need to heal the wounds taken place from the bad decisions in whatever way we can,” he said in an interview with Black Press Media.
The OSS will be screening the film Returning Home on Sept. 28 at the Central Cariboo Arts Centre, and there will be a free reconciliation workshop on Sept. 29 led by Aubrey Jackson and Margaret-Anne Enders.
In Cache Creek, the Historic Hat Creek Ranch will be hosting a showcase for Orange Shirt Day during its closing day on Sept. 30.
“We want to provide knowledge and be more inclusive,” said the event’s organizer Misty Antoine. Along with wagon rides and tours of the ranch, Antoine has invited a local residential school survivor from the Bonaparte First Nation to speak at around 1 p.m.
