Sept. 30 could become stat holiday: Premier

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This article was published 08/07/2022 (1327 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba could have a new statutory holiday to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation by September, Premier Heather Stefanson has said.

“Certainly, I would like to move on it and I just want to make sure we go through a respectful consultation process,” Stefanson said in an interview this week. “I don’t want to see it as [just] a holiday. This is about a remembrance of truth and reconciliation.”

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as Orange Shirt Day, is on Sept. 30. It was established in honour of the experience of Phyllis Webstad, whose gift of clothing from her grandmother was taken away on Webstad’s first day at a residential school.

The federal government recently made the day a statutory holiday for its workers and federally regulated workplaces. Manitoba currently marks the day by closing schools and many non-essential government offices.

Stefanson said last December the province would consult Indigenous groups, the business community and others about making the day a statutory holiday for workers regulated provincially.

Getting the holiday in place for this Sept. 30 would require a bill to be rushed through the legislature, which is not scheduled to sit again until Sept. 28.

Debbie Huntinghawk, citizen representative for the Brandon Urban Aboriginal Peoples’ Council (BUAPC), hopes to see National Day for Truth and Reconciliation become a statutory holiday in Manitoba.

“It’s about time,” Huntinghawk said. “This is just a day to reflect on what is Canada doing and moving forward.”

She described it as a time to celebrate, commemorate and educate.

The importance of the day lies in recognizing historical wrongs perpetuated against First Nation, Métis and Inuit communities, she said, while providing educational opportunities and healing.

She added the burden cannot lie solely on Indigenous people to educate non-Indigenous people on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. She hopes to see Canadians actively engage in uncovering more about the darker sides of the country’s history to better understand the traumatic legacy of colonialism in Indigenous communities.

Indigenous communities have faced generations of trauma under colonialism and are still healing from systemic practices, including residential schools and the ’60s Scoop, along with contemporary issues such as the ongoing crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG).

It is estimated between 20,000 and 40,000 First Nation, Métis and Inuit children were removed from their families and communities and adopted out into non-Indigenous households during the period known as the ’60s Scoop.

The Canadian government estimates that at least 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children attended residential schools during the 19th and 20th centuries. The system was imposed on Indigenous people as part of a broad set of assimilation efforts to destroy their rich cultures and identities and to suppress their histories.

The number of MMIWG in the country is around 4,000, according to the Native Women’s Association of Canada. But incomplete data makes the true number difficult to determine. The RCMP reported in 2014 that more than 1,000 Indigenous women and girls were killed or went missing between 1980 and 2012.

The country is now seeing a greater acknowledgment of these experiences in Canadian society, Huntinghawk said, but there is still a need to present non-Indigenous community members with opportunities to learn more.

“I just find we’re always, always put on the back — we cry too much, we complain too much and we’re told to get over it. We’re not going to get over it.”

Huntinghawk works with ’60s Scoop survivors through the Brandon Friendship Centre program Healing the Family Within. The initiative serves as an opportunity for Indigenous people to reclaim and strengthen their culture and their power as individuals. In many cases, some of their activities would not have been possible in the past.

Truth and reconciliation are not for one day of the year, she added. A statutory holiday could serve as a launchpad to encourage people to be thinking and taking action every day of the year.

“Let’s work together. Let’s find the true history of colonization,” she said. “We are all equal. We are all human beings. We are all spiritual beings living this human life, but to put certain people in a lower class and getting them out of the way so they can use our lands, our resources and everything … it’s enough already.”

Brandon’s 2022 Truth and Reconciliation Week, set to take place at the Riverbank Discovery Centre, will begin on Sept. 27 and the Orange Shirt Day walk is scheduled for Sept. 30. The main event, Healing by the River, will take place the evening of Oct. 1 at the Fusion Credit Union Stage. Festivities will wrap up on Oct. 2.

The idea of a provincial holiday to honour the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation was pushed by the NDP last year.

“Manitobans want a government that makes reconciliation a priority, not one who does it when it’s convenient to them,” NDP Indigenous affairs critic Ian Bushie said in a written statement Friday.

» ckemp@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press

» Twitter: @The_ChelseaKemp