September 30th is recognized in Canada as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This day of remembrance and contemplation was established by the federal government in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action #80. September 30 coincides with Orange Shirt Day, which remembers the story of Phyllis (Jack) Webstad, a former residential school student who had her orange shirt taken away on her first day at residential school.
Check out the various activities taking place for Truth and Reconciliation week and consider attending.
Consider donating to the following organizations:
Attend the activities planned through Native Child and Family Service of Toronto on September 30th.
National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation
The NCTR is a place of learning and dialogue where the truths of the residential school experience will be honoured and kept safe for future generations.
Asubpeeschoseewagong – the Indigenous or Anishinaabe name for Grassy Narrows is situated 80 kilometers north of Kenora, Ontario in Canada. The band membership is approximately 1,000, and their traditional territory spans a forest of approximately 2,500 square miles. The community has lived sustainably for millennia, using the forests, rivers and lakes for physical, economic, cultural and spiritual sustenance. Approximately 50 percent of community still depend on hunting, trapping, and gathering berries and medicines from the land. The Grassy Narrows community has been through many traumas including forced attendance in church-run residential schools, coerced relocation away from their traditional living areas, hydro damming flooding sacred sites and wild rice beds, mercury contamination, clearcut logging of their forests, and mining.
Aboriginal Healing Foundation - Residential School Resources
A list of documents related to residential schools curated by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Their vision is of all who are affected by the legacy of physical, sexual, mental, cultural, and spiritual abuses in the Indian residential schools having addressed, in a comprehensive and meaningful way, unresolved trauma, putting to an end the intergenerational cycles of abuse, achieving reconciliation in the full range of relationships, and enhancing their capacity as individuals, families, communities, nations, and peoples to sustain their well being.
Six Nations Land Defenders have mobilized to stop the the Mackenzie Meadows housing development project bordering the town of Caledonia. Mackenzie Meadows is one of several housing developments within the area that are directly violating the sovereignty of the Haudenosaunee. Collectively they remain firm in their stance that action must be taken to stop the ongoing development of indigenous lands. See the various links below.
The Tiny House Warriors: Our Land is Home is a part of a mission to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline from crossing unceded Secwepemc Territory.
Ten tiny houses will be built and placed strategically along the 518 km Trans Mountain pipeline route to assert Secwepemc Law and jurisdiction and block access to this pipeline.
Image by Peg Hunter - Divest Wells Fargo - Native People Not For Sale - CC BY-NC 2.0
As part of the solidarity we hope to show through the Indigenous Book Club, this year we are arranging a letter writing campaign in support of Indigenous sovereignty movements, specifically #1492LandBackLane. If you would like to get involved, please feel free to make changes to the letter listed below and send it to your sitting Member of Parliament. A list of MPs can be found on the House of Commons website.
To [Name of Member of Parliament];
I am writing today in support of Haudenosaunee Land Defenders and #1492LandBackLane, who are defending their treaty territories for the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. The Haudenosaunee have responsibilities as stewards of these Lands to defend these spaces from environmental harm and extractive ways of life. In doing so, they are risking themselves to live up to their obligations to the Land.
As my Member of Parliament, I ask that you support an immediate cessation of the police presence and surveillance of Haudenosaunee Land Defenders and an immediate addressing of the sovereign treaty rights of the Six Nations of the Grand River. As a government, I ask that you address the issues that the Land Defenders are asking and seeking to address, namely the stopping of all pipeline development on sovereign Indigenous Lands where consent is not granted and supports for encampment residing and homeless individuals.
I am distressed that the Government of Canada and its provincial counterparts continue to use tactics of violence and intimidation against Indigenous Land Defenders everywhere and call on the Government to cease these police orders. I ask that as a Member of Parliament, that you support the end of injunctions, arrests and other physically and institutionally violent acts against Indigenous peoples. I ask that you support good faith negotiations with Indigenous peoples across Canada to be able to exercise their treaty and sovereign rights on these Lands that are now known as Canada.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
Find Members of Parliament - Members of Parliament - House of Commons of Canada