Canadians reflect about residential schools on Truth and Reconciliation Day | Canada News Media
Connect with us

News

Canadians reflect about residential schools on Truth and Reconciliation Day

Published

 on

With drumming and singing, at powwows and public ceremonies, communities across the country are marking the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.

The federal statutory holiday, also known as Orange Shirt Day, was established last year to remember children who died while being forced to attend residential schools, as well as those who survived, and the families and communities still affected by lasting trauma.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined representatives of various First Nations and dozens of people in orange for a sunrise ceremony in Niagara Falls, Ont. He stood silently as the ceremony took place and spoke with residential school survivors afterwards.

Later in the morning, Trudeau addressed an event to mark the day.

“This is a day for Indigenous Peoples. Today to recognize that yes, you are still here, you are still strong and you are an indissociable part of the present and the future we build every day as a country,” he told the crowd.

“It is a day to remember, to grieve, to take another step along healing. But it is also a day for non-Indigenous peoples to recognize that you should not have to carry this burden alone.”

The speeches and events occur even as the grim work that helped inspire the day continues.

In Mission, B.C., where Orange Shirt Day finds its origins, work began in September to search for graves with ground-penetrating radar at the former St. Mary’s Indian Residential School. The City of Mission said in a statement the work would continue as long as dry weather allows.

It was at another Mission school, St. Joseph Mission Residential School, where student Phyllis Webstad had an orange shirt, a gift from her grandmother, taken away from her in the 1970s.

Orange Shirt Day would become the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, a federal statutory holiday established last year following the discovery of suspected unmarked burial sites at former residential schools, by the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc nation in Kamloops, B.C., Saskatchewan’s Cowessess First Nation and others.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief RoseAnne Archibald said in an interview that the day was about residential school survivors, like Webstad, as well as the children who never returned from them.

“It’s their day, especially those who suffered in those institutions and survived and then I also feel that it’s for all the little ones who died in those institutions and didn’t make it home,” she said.

“The day is about them as well. It’s also a time to reflect. It’s a time to learn about Canada’s true history.”

She said the day was also an opportunity for Canadians to reflect on the Indigenous experience.

In Ottawa, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon – the first Indigenous person to hold the post – welcomed nearly 100 school children and staff to Rideau Hall, where she spoke to them about reconciliation.

She said people wear orange shirts to show that every child matters, which is important to do because of how traumatic residential schools were to Indigenous children.

Simon told the children she grew up speaking Inuktitut.

“I still speak my language every day,” she said, adding she doesn’t want to forget it.

Simon, who is 75, said at her age she’s learning a new language, French, and told the kids it would be good if they could a learn an Indigenous word every day. She then went on to teach them one in Inuktitut that means to never give up.

Simon also talked to the children about persevering through hard things and tied it back to her own history, having grown up in a small, isolated village and now working at Rideau Hall as the Governor General.

“It wasn’t handed to me,” she said.

In Toronto, a group drummed and sang Indigenous songs as a woman in traditional Indigenous attire danced at a gathering at the city’s downtown Nathan Phillips Square.

Several dozen onlookers, some wearing orange shirts, occasionally cheered and clapped during the performance. One of the drummers said they were performing for both survivors of residential schools and those who didn’t return.

In the centre of Halifax’s downtown, hundreds gathered to mark the day and hear from Acadia First Nation Chief Deborah Robinson, Mi’kmaw elder Alan Knockwood and Halifax’s Indigenous adviser Cheryl Copage-Gehue.

Knockwood told the crowd at the city’s Grand Parade that as the community comes together to reflect on Canada’s legacy of colonialism, the children lost in the residential school system are “here in our hearts and they are with us here.”

He led a prayer in English and in Mi’kmaw.

“My language is still alive but residential school survivors like myself have a difficult time speaking it because it was beaten out of me. But I’m still here,” Knockwood said. “Survivors from residential schools are part of you, and now our legacy is that it will never happen again and that’s because all of you here will not allow it to happen again.”

Robinson told the crowd that she hopes everyone reflects on truth and reconciliation in their own way as they remember the suffering caused by residential schools.

While there has been progress towards supporting Indigenous people, Robinson said “it’s hard to deny, and I say this every year when I speak, that we have so far to go.”

The chief raised an orange flag created by a Nova Scotian Mi’kmaw artist with the Mi’kmaw petroglyph that represents a child.

While many of Nova Scotia’s planned events for the occasion have been postponed due to the damage from post-tropical storm Fiona, there will be a ceremony Friday at the site of the former Shubenacadie Indian Residential School and a light show in the evening at the old Halifax Memorial Library

In Prince Edward Island, the province says its flags have been lowered at provincial buildings to recognize the harm caused by the residential school system. But public events to mark the day are cancelled as work continues to repair damage caused by Fiona.

Some of the other events scheduled today include the illumination of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in orange, programming about residential schools at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and a community powwow at the Victoria-area Songhees Nation.

Canada’s residential school system, funded by the federal government and run by Catholic churches, was established in the 1800s. It removed roughly 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children from their families. The last school closed in 1997.

Many children were sexually, physically or psychologically abused in the system designed to get the “Indian” out of the child.

At Niagara Falls, Trudeau said the day was about truth.

“That truth is we all need to open our eyes to the truth of how Canada evolved and came to be and how we need to make deliberate choices to undo the falsehoods and the wrongness that is part of it,” he said.

“We are on the path, and it is going to take many years, but we must today and every day rededicate ourselves to that.”

– With files from Jessica Smith in Niagara Falls, Ont., Stephanie Taylor in Ottawa, Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax, Sharif Hassan in Toronto and Dirk Meissner in Victoria.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2022.

 

Maan Alhmidi, The Canadian Press

News

Canada’s Denis Shapovalov wins Belgrade Open for his second ATP Tour title

Published

 on

BELGRADE, Serbia – Canada’s Denis Shapovalov is back in the winner’s circle.

The 25-year-old Shapovalov beat Serbia’s Hamad Medjedovic 6-4, 6-4 in the Belgrade Open final on Saturday.

It’s Shapovalov’s second ATP Tour title after winning the Stockholm Open in 2019. He is the first Canadian to win an ATP Tour-level title this season.

His last appearance in a tournament final was in Vienna in 2022.

Shapovalov missed the second half of last season due to injury and spent most of this year regaining his best level of play.

He came through qualifying in Belgrade and dropped just one set on his way to winning the trophy.

Shapovalov’s best results this season were at ATP 500 events in Washington and Basel, where he reached the quarterfinals.

Medjedovic was playing in his first-ever ATP Tour final.

The 21-year-old, who won the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF title last year, ends 2024 holding a 9-8 tour-level record on the season.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



Source link

Continue Reading

News

Talks to resume in B.C. port dispute in bid to end multi-day lockout

Published

 on

VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.

The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.

The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.

The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.

The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.

MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.

In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.

“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.

“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”

In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.

“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.

The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.

“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”

The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.

The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.

A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



Source link

Continue Reading

News

The Royal Canadian Legion turns to Amazon for annual poppy campaign boost

Published

 on

The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.

Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.

Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.

Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.

“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.

“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”

Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.

“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.

Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.

“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”

But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.

Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.

“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.

Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.

The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending

Exit mobile version