Beginning in 2024, Manitobans will be recognizing one more statutory holiday. This week, Wab Kinew’s NDP government added the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to the province’s list of official holidays.
Manitoba now joins British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon in recognizing September 30.
“Manitobans from all walks of life are ready to embrace reconciliation—whether it’s participating in school events, wearing a WASAC (Winnipeg Aboriginal Sport Achievement Centre) jersey to a Jets game, or talking to their kids about our history and the future we want,” Kinew said in a press release. “Legislating September 30 as a general holiday creates space for all Manitobans to come together in observation, reflection, and commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools.”
According to the press release, this decision followed consultations with a variety of Indigenous leaders, residential school survivors, and stakeholders throughout the province.
What Truth and Reconciliation Means
The Citizen reached out to local residents to learn more about the day means to them.
For Anika Maria, it’s all about being open to learning.
“True reconciliation is not possible without background knowledge and empathy,” Maria says. “Once we are aware of the past, then we can work on the present and acknowledge what needs to be done.”
Bonita Garrett agrees, suggesting that this can be accomplished through educational programs led by Indigenous people in the school system at every grade level.
“Education is the key to understanding what reconciliation can mean for all of us,” says Garrett.
Native Brazilian Cintia Costa moved to Manitoba in 2014 and says she’s been making an effort to understand the history of the province’s people ever since.
She now refers to this continent as Turtle Island, the name given to North America by the Lenape, Iroquois, Anishinaabe, and other Woodland Nations based on the legend of the Sky Woman.
“As an immigrant and settler to Turtle Island, I have been learning as much as I can, taking courses like ‘Indigenous Canada’ in Coursera, reading books, listening to their stories, buying from their stores, listening to their music, and many more actions.”
Amanda Peters looks at things differently.
“Unfortunately, bad things have happened in the past to all races and colours and religions,” says Peters. “You can choose to live in the past and expect a handout and play the ‘poor me’ card or move on.”
Peters also feels that the recent blockades and damages done to critical infrastructure are akin to a child throwing a tantrum. She says they aren’t effective tools in building understanding and respect.
Jen Schellenberg counters that sentiment.
“I think about the things that [the Indigenous peoples] went through and I can’t even imagine how much it messed up their lives and the lives of their families,” says Schellenberg. “A ripple effect of this magnitude would be devastating for anyone who had this happen to them.”
She believes that empathy and compassion can only come through a proverbial “walking in their shoes.”
“You and I didn’t have anything to do with this, but we all have to share this country and a little compassion goes a long way towards reaching reconciliation,” she adds.
Though not Indigenous in background, Alexandre Teyssier is working to do just that.
This spring, Teyssier decided to convert words into action by joining Camp Morgan, the peaceful activist group set up at the Brady Landfill who are calling for a landfill search for a number of missing Indigenous women.
Teyssier says that he’s been blessed to learn many of the Indigenous teachings and ceremonies. He’s also made lifelong friends here.
“My decision was based on the fact that reconciliation is everybody’s responsibility,” Teyssier says. “The government can only do so much. Everybody across Turtle Island is on Indigenous land and we all need to be listening to the truth of our collective past. If we don’t pay attention and learn, nothing will change. Tragedies are still happening, and healing can’t take place until everyone is on board.”
Indigenous Descendants
Dustin Cadeau is of Ojibwa descent. He says that it’s a lack of formal education in schools that prevented him from learning about his culture and heritage as a child.
“It wasn’t until I was in college that it was touched on,” Cadeau says. “And even then, it wasn’t culture-based. It was more so on the residential schools and the effects of them on later generations.”
He believes that it’s the responsibility of educators to introduce Indigenous teachings, culture, and languages to the school system since it was the school system that robbed so many of this knowledge in the first place.
“Non-Indigenous people of today aren’t responsible for the past but must work with Indigenous peoples to fix the damage done,” Cadeau says. “The world doesn’t blame today’s German population for the crimes of their country’s past but expects them to work alongside those affected by it to correct the damage.”
Bobbie Hornan was born part-Cree and is a mother. While she makes a conscientious choice to raise her child better, it’s not easy, she admits, when the generations who raised her were victims of Canada’s attempt at ethnic cleansing.
“My mother and several of her siblings were residential school survivors,” Hornan says. “One of her siblings also had four of their kids taken during the 60s scoop. It’s had a huge impact on our family. I wish everyone who has no clue what happened or doesn’t believe it was as bad as it was, will read and watch everything about it. Can you imagine having your children taken away from you in order to wipe the Indian out of them? It has generational effects on families.”
Hornan says that the abuse experienced by her mother while in residential school translated into the kind of parent she later became: verbally and physically abusive.
To add salt to the already gaping wound in her mother’s life, Hornan’s father was a white man who also made it his mission to suppress Hornan’s mother’s heritage.
“[He] would not let her speak or teach us Cree,” says Hornan. “We grew up not knowing our mother’s way of life and her culture. We hardly went to her reserve because my father wouldn’t allow my mother to expose us to her Indigenous culture. Although he wasn’t a malicious racist, my father was racist.”
Growing up, Hornan remembers a lot of alcohol abuse among her mother’s siblings, and later among their kids.
It wasn’t until Hornan and her sister were fully grown and supported their mother through a truth and reconciliation process that Hornan connected the dots. Her abusive mother was simply responding to the abuse she had lived under.
“Two of my siblings wound up with addiction issues and one still struggles with a cocaine addiction,” says Hornan. “I totally believe that is because she was the darkest [skinned] of all of us and my dad treated her so differently.”
Hornan admits that the other siblings joined in the abuse by telling their darker sister that she was adopted.
While Hornan knows she can’t go back and change the past, she can, at least, face the reality of what happened to generations of her people.
“They were taken away from their families and everything that they knew about their way of life and then we’re expected to be functioning members of society after all of that,” Hornan says. “And raise their own families. But how could they do that when they were so traumatized, and there was nobody there to help them deal with that trauma, other than alcohol and drugs and more abuse?”
