Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation was designated in tribute to Indigenous children stolen from their homes and taken to residential schools by the Government of Canada. To honour the innocent children who never returned home, the Survivors who suffered enduring trauma, their families and communities.

In Canada, 140 federally run residential schools operated between 1867 and 1996. Survivors and allies have advocated for decades for recognition and reparations, and demanded accountability for the intergenerational impacts of harm caused to Canada’s indigenous peoples by our government, the RCMP and religious institutions.

September 30th has been observed since 2013 as Orange Shirt Day, a grassroots movement recognizing the colonial legacy of residential schools, committed to the ongoing process of reconciliation. Orange Shirt Day recalls the experience of residential school Survivor Phyllis Webstad, who at six was stripped of her shiny new orange shirt on her first day attending the St. Joseph Mission Residential School near Williams Lake, BC. The date of September 30th was chosen because it was the time of year when Indigenous children were removed from their families and forced to attend residential schools.

The syiyaya Reconciliation Movement is a local initiative led by shishalh nation, that welcomes all people living on the shishalh swiya (homelands) to come together to work together as one, to heal intergenerational harm done to First People by Canada’s history of cultural genocide and abuse in residential schools. The word ‘syiyaya’ literally means “family and friends” in shashishalhem, the language of the shishalh people.

Learn more about Truth and Reconciliation through the resources linked below:

• syiyaya Reconciliation Movement
• Reconciliation Canada
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
• Learn about the history of colonization from an Indigenous lens