10 Quick Facts about Reconciliation Day in Canada

In Canada today, we honour Indigenous Survivors of residential schools. We honour the Indigenous children who never returned home, and we honour their families and communities.

For me, as a Manitoba Métis from the Red River Settlement, Reconciliation in Canada starts with knowledge and understanding – because without these, it is near impossible to get to the genuine expression of empathy, compassion, care and ultimately, to act.?

Here are 10 quick facts that I think are important to know about our history and Reconciliation:

1.??Residential schools were government-sponsored religious schools that were established to assimilate?Indigenous children into a white Euro-Canadian culture.?

?2.??Over 130 residential schools, stretched across much of Canada, operated between 1831 and 1996 – well after the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was adopted in 1982.

?3.??More than 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families and placed in residential schools.

4.??Indigenous children were given euro-centric names, were forced to cut their long hair, and were banned from speaking their own languages. ?

?“Your hair is important, its your connection to the land. Hair is your strength; it’s the teaching that’s been passed down from generation to generation. It’s who you are. It’s your spirit. The longer your hair is, the more connected you are to the land.” ????

Ernie Michell, Elder & Knowledge Keeper

?5.??Residential schools were overcrowded. Students were chronically underfed and malnourished, and as a result they were particularly vulnerable to diseases such as tuberculosis and influenza?(including the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918–19).?

(Residential school, Kamloops, British Columbia)

6. Many children were brutalized: physically, psychologically, and sexually abused.

7. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimates that over 6,000 children are believed to have died, with some later buried in many unmarked graves.

(Photo: The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation revealed the names of 2,800 children who died in residential schools during a sombre ceremony in 2021.)

?8. Systemic discrimination and violence are rooted in inequitable attitudes and beliefs—in this case— racism and colonial ideals.

9. Indigenous children left these institutions to later return their home communities without the knowledge, skills, or tools to cope in either world. The impacts of their institutionalization in residential school continue to be felt by subsequent generations which is referred to as “intergenerational trauma”.

?10. The residential school system has since been described as an act of cultural genocide.

In June 2021, the Government of Canada passed Bill C-5 to name September?30th as a federal statutory day. The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is intended to honour the Indigenous children who have died in the custody of these schools; it is intended to honour the survivors, their families,?and communities.

The legacy of residential schools’ forms part of our history and remains a vital component of the reconciliation process in Canada.

I leave with an invitation and message of hope: See the beauty in our Indigenous People.

The National Residential School Crisis Line is available for residential school survivors: 1 (866) 925-4419.