Blog #16: Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
Today, Sept 30/25, is an important day. It is a day to encourage us to reflect on the darker past of the country we call Canada. It is a Canadian day of memorial to recognize the atrocities and multi-generational effects of the Canadian Indian residential school system. It is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, originally and still informally known as Orange Shirt Day.
The spirit of today lives not just for a single day. We must learn about, and not forget, the way the Canadian Government and many of its people treated Indigenous people – in the past, present, but hopefully not into the future. It is an everyday pathway to build an inclusive and stronger nation we call Canada.
There are many appropriate activities you can participate in today. I have a simple request of you. I ask you to take one hour of your time this week to listen to two interviews with Murray Sinclair. Then watch the National Film Board video entitled “Honour to Senator Murray Sinclair“.
If you are not familiar with Murray Sinclair, he was:
a Fourth Degree Midewiwin member of the Three Fires Society, a traditional Ojibway medicine society of great significance to the Ojibway people;
15th chancellor of Queen’s University;
the Chancellor Emeritus and Special Advisor to the Principal on Reconciliation of Queen's University;
the Chair of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission;
a Canadian senator;
a First Nation lawyer, judge and associate chief judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba;
a recipient in 2016 of the World Federalist Movement – Canada World Peace Award (wrong politics? Read the list of National Presidents of the Canadian section of the Wikipedia description) - as well as a number of other awards;
an adjunct professor of law and an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Manitoba;
a special person.
Murray Sinclair passed on to the spirit world November 4, 2024.
Murray Sinclair challenged all of us to keep the reconciliation process alive. We cannot change the past, but we must learn from it to change for the future. Murray Sinclair was one of many important voices to help us learn about the past treatment of Indigenous people in Canada and to help ensure we never return to the ways of the past.
To my Indigenous friends across Canada, as a Treaty person, I apologize for the past. I commit to continue to do better into the future. To my non-Indigenous friends, today is a good day to continue your personal learning about this dark Canadian past.
Thank you / miigwetch
