The long summer days are winding down, students have headed back to school, and the leaves are soon going to start to change colour as we welcome September. A month that starts and ends with important days of recognition, Labour Day on September 5th and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30th.

At the Golden Circle we acknowledge the Indigenous traditional territories represented by Treaty 6 and 7 as the land the Golden Circle is situated on and pay tribute to the many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples whose footsteps have marked these lands for centuries.A goal of the Golden Circle is to respect and work together with Indigenous and Métis peoples in building a welcoming and inclusive community and we want to especially highlight the importance of September 30th.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation was established as a federal statutory holiday through legislative amendments made by Canadian Parliament. On June 3, 2021, Bill C-5 (National Day for Truth and Reconciliation) received Royal Assent. This day fulfills the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #80, and is to serve as a day of remembrance, reflection, action and learning.

There were 140 federally run Indian Residential Schools which operated in Canada between 1831 and 1998. Over the course of that 167 years, some 150,000 Indigenous children were ripped from their families and forced to attend church-run residential schools, where many suffered physical and sexual abuse, malnutrition, and neglect. More than 4,000 are believed to have died. Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process which we all have much to learn about.

Since 2013, September 30th has been known as Orange Shirt Day, a day to recognize the tragic history and long-standing effects of residential schools. Commemorated by the wearing of orange shirts based on Residential School survivor Phyllis Webstad’sstory of her first day at residential school when her brand new shiny new orange shirt, bought for her first day of school by her grandmother, was taken from her upon arriving at the St. Joseph Mission Residential Schoolas a six-year old girl.

We will be wearing our orange shirts on September 30th and taking some time to reflect in honour of Phyllis and her fellow Residential School Survivors as well as in memory of those children who did not make it home.